Sunday, May 4, 2014

The Haunting In Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia (2013)

The title/branding of this movie is so strange.  Was The Haunting in Connecticut such a popular movie that they planned on making some sort of franchise out of it?  I liked the original, but the sequel purposefully has no connection, although it does claim to be based on a true story.  Apparently it was based on the events of the Wyrick house of Ellerslie, Georgia, which was made into a book called "The Veil."

In the movie version, the Wyrick family, Lisa (Abigail Spencer), her husband Andy (Chad Michael Murray), and their daughter Heidi (Emily Alyn Lind) are thrilled to move to a house in rural Georgia that they got a stellar deal on.  Lisa's sister, Joyce (Katee Sackhoff) also comes to live with them, much to Lisa's chagrin.  As it turns out, both sisters have visions of the dead, and while free-spirited Joyce embraces them, Lisa attempts to suppress them with medication.  As Heidi begins seeing spirits, most notably the previous owner, Mr. Gordy, Lisa is forced to face the presence of the paranormal in their new home.

They soon find out that their house was a major stop on the Underground Railroad, and that in addition to Mr. Gordy, the ghosts of dead slaves are haunting the property.  Things go downhill pretty quickly, with a visit to the emergency room, Lisa's visions worsening, and Heidi disappearing in the middle of the night.  We get a weird backstory about the guy who helped with the Railroad (The "Stationmaster") being a taxidermist, which all kind of ends up looping back in the end.

This actually wasn't a bad movie, but they should have branded/released it as its own thing, and not piggybacked on The Haunting in Connecticut.  There's some interesting visuals, including the sewing needle scene depicted above.  The cast is definitely not unknown, and they do a good job at a pretty standard ghost movie.  There are very few jump scares, which is a nice change from the oversaturation of that technique in a lot of paranormal flicks.

At the end, they even show pictures of the real family that the story was based on, so that was a nice touch.  So nothing groundbreaking here, but if you like haunted house stories, this isn't the worst way to kill a couple hours.

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