Now y’all had to know I would go see this. I plan on spoiling the everloving HELL right out of it, so if you plan on seeing it, just stop reading now.
****** Seriously, I am holding nothing back. You have been warned. ******
Okay, so, I am fairly certain that most of you have seen the Haunting in Connecticut T.V. show that aired on…I believe…the Discovery Channel. I will admit that it was my favorite. The very idea that a family moves into a funeral home and starts seeing dead people practically makes me salivate. In fact, I found the “less is more” approach to the portrayal of the activity to be very easy to watch and enjoyable. The family chose to remain anonymous in the show, and I actually found myself being very creeped out on their behalf.
Backstory
The oldest son of the family was undergoing cancer treatment in Connecticut, and since the rest of the family lived quite a distance away, they decided to find a cheap place and move their family temporarily. They found a nice big house with cheap rent.
After they move into the house, strange things start happening. In the T.V. version, the oldest son moves into the basement and starts seeing these creepy ghosts in the “morgue,” and the rest of the family slowly starts seeing ghosts. Eventually they call in a group of investigators, including John Zaffis – a very well known paranormal researcher and “demonologist” – who, during the course of the investigation, has some profound experiences of his own. The activity was noted, and the family moved out. The son’s cancer went into remission and he remains cancer-free to this day (the best part of the story).
Now, having heard John Zaffis speak publicly about this investigation, by his own admission it was embellished for television, although he stands pat that the activity was real, and for a very long time the family continued to remain anonymous.
Until money started flowing.
Now Carmen Reed has her own website and routinely makes appearances at conventions as a “psychic medium” and the “mom from the house in Connecticut.”
Psychic medium. Really? How convenient. I wonder then how it escaped your attention that your own house was haunted and you refused to believe your children when they consistently relayed their terrifying experiences? Whatever. We’ll revisit this topic.
Back to the Movie…
So, anyway, the movie starts out similarly – the family moves because of the son’s cancer – but the first difference I notice is all the Victorian books of the dead that start popping up. That was not mentioned in the T.V. version, although the concept must have looked really cool to them when they robbed it from “The Others.”
Tangent. Sorry.
So the family lives in the house and, right away, stuff starts happening. Dark shadows in mirrors, footsteps overhead, generalized banging and clanging…all things you might expect in a haunted funeral home. Then shit gets weird…we know this because the niece, in one particular scene, repeats “Now this is where it gets really weird” enough times that it makes me want to kick the projectionist in the balls, and it totally isn’t even his fault.
As the movie veers towards the offramp of believability and careens into “you are totally making this shit up,” we start to see that the ghosts aren’t just regular, run-of-the-mill wispy shadows, but rather zombie-like creatures with strange carvings covering the entirety of their flesh, wrapped in cheesecloth, and whose eyelids have been snipped off…all “facts” that were excluded from the television show.
Now, here’s where the story gets weird…again. During a game of hide-and-seek, the daughter runs to the attic and falls through the floorboard. When they pull her out, they find a box and some photos that had been hidden. We see more photos of dead people, but now we get to see photos of sceances, and a boy who appears to vomit tablecloths.
Cancer boy and his cousin decide to investigate…so they go to the library.
Now, here’s where the story gets weird…one mo’ ‘gain. After what seems like MINUTES, they manage to find a newspaper clipping that tells them that the funeral home once belonged to a man named Aickman, who had a son named Jonah. Aickman embalmed people, and Jonah could see dead people, so they held sceances in the home, and Aickman was trying to AMPLIFY Jonah’s POWERS so that he could make ECTOPLASM COME OUT OF HIS MOUTH. At about the same time, the city built a highway that cut through the local cemetery, but HUNDREDS of the bodies went missing. Obviously it was because Aickman and Jonah TOOK THEM.
Now here’s where the sto…aw, fuck it. Now, while cancer boy was receiving treatment, he met a man of the cloth who somehow knew that cancer boy could “see things” and explained that it was because he was walking through the valley of the shadow of death, and that he should fear no evil. After they got back from the library, they called the reverend. Reverend arrives at the house and they show him all the stuff they found, including a box of what appeared to be hairy tea leaves. He informs them it is a box of eyelids and likely the result of necromancy, or “corpse bothering.”
Corpse bothering? (This is now the point where my friend, Felicia, started poking me in the arm repeatedly as if to “bother” me…)
Editor’s Note: I wonder if Ghost Hunters should change their name to “Ghost Botherers”… I like it!
The reverend comes to the conclusion that Jonah’s remains are trapped in the house, he digs in the chimney and pulls out a jawbone, wraps it in a napkin, and takes it away. He assures everyone that the activity will now stop because the spirit was trapped in the house, essentially “possessing” the house, but now the spirit is RELEASED and birds will chirp and unicorns will poop marshmallows and the world will become colorblind and barrier-free…or so we think.
On the car ride home, the reverend sees Jonah in the backseat of his car, and he is badly burned. Oddly, cancer boy – who is now hospitalized – is ALSO seeing Jonah who is badly burned. Using NO words, Jonah is able to convey that he was trying to free the spirits of the dead people that are buried in the house…you know, the ones that mysteriously disappeared from the cemetery…they are all stacked in the walls of the basement. Hearing this, cancer boy runs all the way home in the middle of the night and rips all the walls of the basement apart, revealing a pile of crash test dummies wrapped in rags. He then uses the formaldehyde to start a fire, and he burns down the house…but, of course, they rescue him…and then the movie ended.
What the fuck?
It was exactly the same formula as Amityville…big haunted house, scary basement, room for blood-letting, disturbed remains, angry, drunken father…oh, and Lorraine Warren.
That is the common denominator of both of these ridiculously made-up stories. Lorraine, and her now deceased husband Ed Warren are the original self-proclaimed “demonologists.” As far as they are concerned, every place is haunted by a demon that needs to be exorcised, including places whose paranormal activity has been proven to be a hoax. Not surprisingly, John Zaffis is their nephew.
Paranormal research is a good ol’ boy network, and whether or not there is any legitimacy to your story, if they like you, you get to hang out with them and eat at the cool kids’ table. If they don’t, you don’t exist…they just wish you into the cornfield.
In summation, I’m gonna have to call the bullshit flag on this one. 99% of it never happened, and the 1% that MAY HAVE was NOT enough to warrant a movie.
I guess the next step is to give Carmen Reed her own show…maybe she’ll carve some airport codes into the back of her hand and yak up some doilies.
ROFLMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This has to be the BEST bar NONE critique of a flick I have ever read! lolol!!!! well done! (wiping tears from eyes from laughter!)
Katie, you outdid yourself. I applaud your review, and offer you my shoulder to cry on for having had to endure it in the first place. LOL!
oh, gawd, my sides hurt!
hugs ya!
Why, thank you. *takes bow*
Have you seen it? I even left so much crap out because, at well over 1700 words, I thought I should try and wrap it up…
Dear GOD, I almost had to cut off my OWN eyelids for watching this festering pile of detritus.
In a happier side note, because the start of the movie was delayed by a good 20 minutes or so, the theater manager was waiting at the end of the movie to give everyone free passes…I even asked her if it was because she knew how badly the movie sucked…
I think the Warrens have actually copyrighted the formula for these movies…Amityville (although I really liked the remake of it), The Haunted, and now THIS!!!
I really like listening to John Zaffis’ lectures, but the Warrens, bless their hearts, are just so full of crap…
Everyone should google Ed and Lorraine Warren and The Lutzes, The Smurls, and now the Snedekers…lots and lots of debunking there!
I haven’t seen it and never wanted to. The limits of my horror interests are ghost investigations! lol! I DID see the tv episode of this on the “A Haunting” series that featured this story, if it’s the one I’m thinking of. They highlight different stories of various hauntings, dramatizing it Hollywood style, but at least they don’t go too overboard with it.
When I saw the previews of this one, I knew right off it was another Amityville ripoff. When even the previews have a gross factor, showing ‘stuff’ coming out of someone’s mouth, it is instantly my cue to strike it off my list of things to see. :/
Ed Warren is dead and gone now, Lorraine carries on via occasional appearances on PRS episodes, Kathy Lutz died in 2004 of emphysema, her hubby George “Lee” Lutz died in 2006 of heart disease, so it looks like nearly all of the main players from Amityville are gone.
I think this works right into your TAPS thread. How so, you ask?
Well,the original premise of TAPS was to toss out the older methods of pseudo science in paranormal investigations, such as were used in the days of Amityville, and bring in some actual tools, to try and document anything paranormal that may happen.
It all started out really well.
Then, the $$ green $$ river flowed, and things changed.
It turned back the clock, in a way, to seeking out the more tried and true Hollywood-esque presentations of ‘events’ taking place, rather than showing new tools, the best ways to use them, and being honest about whether or not something paranormal took place or not.
I think we, speaking of our American population, have become totally addicted to thrilling input, to seeking out excitement and drama, and it’s awfully hard to keep viewers interested if nothing is happening. Which YOU know as an investigator yourself, is primarily the way the majority of investigations go,,,a whole lotta nuttin goin on. That doesn’t make for exciting, dramatic, addictive tv viewing, so to keep the green river flowing and people watching, they spice it up.
At this point, I don’t think we will ever see anything on TV that will be guaranteed to be an honest showing of paranormal investigations. Money plays too big a role in it. Money dictates scripts and choices and the length of segments, and ghosts don’t give a damn what your deadline is. I think the only chance we have for a solid showing of what is real is online, via live streams and video documentation of what we are all doing out here, with no damn corporate sponsor gumming up the works.
And if any of us gets hold of some solid evidence and experiences, I’m sure some producer will make sure it is cheesy-fied like all the rest if it ever goes into a mainstream flick.
Kind of frustrating, isn’t it, for those of us who really do want the truth and are seeking it…
I do believe we have come full circle.
I will say that, as a paranormal enthusiast/researcher/author, my own perspectives have really evolved from when we first started…Of course, I always want to get the EVP/photo “money shot,” but when we investigate, it’s becoming more for the purpose of assuring people that they are not crazy, and that it’s OKAY to have unexplainable phenomena…most often, it’s difficult to replicate anything, so proving anything is impossible.
Among other things, we are trying to bring about a greater acceptance of things that cannot be explained, rather than try to explain the life out of it…everyone wants to prove or debunk, but why not just enjoy the stories and the experiences?
I totally remember reading the National Enquirer when I was little…I seem to recall that was “the paper” to our family. I remember all the crazy stuff they printed about the Lutzes and the Warrens…with the benefit of age and wisdom, I can see from where their motivation really stems.
Now, I plan on writing a box-office SMASH screenplay and doing the lecture circuit.
omg I so heart you right now! lolol1 yes, enjoy!
Honestly? I HATE the word DEBUNK! From MY perspective, if I was a potential client and you told ME you were going to DEBUNK what I was seeing/hearing/experiencing, I’d tell you to get the hell out of my house, how DARE you insult me by insinuating I’m faking it/making it up/crazy. That is precisely the impression given by that one damn word.
I prefer the attitude of rational explanation first, and if it cannot be found, and other ‘things’ happen, then there is a possiblity or probability of something paranormal at work. And, as you say, unless it’s something extremely negative, just enjoy it. It’s part of our heritage as human beings, all these ongoing and evolving experiences that do not ‘fit’ into any rigid scientific mold.
And if you write a smash screenplay, I’d better get a front row seat! LOL!
Just saw it last night and could not agree with you more, came across your website while looking up the story, glad I found it, your writing is really entertaining to read…from all the articles I have read online, it seems as if not much was happening there and her imagination got away with her c of the former funeral home thing.
Thank you, Barri!
OMG! This is the best blog on this subject/movie yet!! I, too, was laughing so hard as I read through it. It so absolutely true!!! And, the good ol’ boy comment – oh, you nailed it for certain!!