The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia [Blu-Ray]

Despite being the direct to video sequel to a run of the mill supernatural thriller and having an unnecessarily cumbersome, geographically challenged title, The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia isn't the train wreck it could've been. Sure, it's still barely more cinematic than a made for TV movie and speckled with lazy genre tropes but, overall, this southern spook story is downright serviceable. Having absolutely nothing to do with the state of Connecticut, this Haunting involves a little girl (Emily Alyn Lind) who sees spirits around the home her family moves to in Georgia. For a minor shift in the characterizations typical of a supernatural family drama, Heidi's mother Lisa (Abigail Spencer) is the one who doesn't believe that her daughter has befriended a dead man she calls Mr. Gordy while her father (Chad Michael Murray, doing his best Timothy Olyphant as Raylan Givens impression) doesn't doubt his little girl for a minute, taking every shred of evidence seriously. Free from the kind of internal family strife that most ghost movies are really about, the script by David Coggeshall goes light on the subtext, opting to tell a very direct, plot-heavy restless spirit mystery involving the Underground Railroad. First time director Tom Elkins uses a lot of flashbacks and misdirection to parse out the nature of this particular spectral malcontent, keeping the flow of hints steady enough to retain interest during the frequent lapses in tension. On the acting front, young Miss Lind does a solid job of carrying the film and Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Gallactica) adds a little spice as the cool aunt who embraces the "family curse" as a gift. Spencer and Murray aren't coasting but their characters are pretty flat. That seems to be partly a casualty of editing, as the deleted scenes contain a few throwaway scenes that would have added a little depth to a film that clearly wanted to be more than a typical horror project. Providing some of the most compelling facets of the movie, the "based on a true story" component is explained in the bonus content. "The True Story of the Wyricks" features the actual Wyrick family – coming from a lineage of self-professed mediums with some eerie evidence to back their claims up – sharing their versions of which events are based on real experiences and which ones are completely out of the screenwriter's head. Additionally, a small set of outtakes is included and there's a feature commentary with Elkins, Coggeshall and co-producer Brad Kessell. There's not a lot of info to glean if you've watched many commentary tracks before but it's kind of funny to hear the writer make fun of the director for adding visual cues to the film that don't make sense.