03-006
The Haunting in Connecticut, a Warrens movie without the Warrens
After going through The Conjuring Universe and 2 older TV movies The Haunted (1991) and The Demon Murder Case (1983), let us move on to something newer, a TV episode "A Haunting in Connecticut" and its feature film remake (sort of) The Haunting in Connecticut.
A Haunting in Connecticut is the first 1.5 hour long special episode
of the American paranormal drama anthology television series A Haunting,
aired on Discovery Channel in 2002. This TV series depict eyewitness
accounts of alleged possession, exorcism, and ghostly encounters.
This first episode of the series featured
the Warrens. Technically, 1.5 hour is already the length of a featured film. But
it is not a pure dramatization of a Warren case. The TV series feature dramatic
re-enactments as well as narrations and interviews, which also serves as a documentary.
As mentioned in the previous post,
Wikipedia has only listed out 9 notable investigations of the Warrens. And 6 of
them were already gotten their movie adaptations. This TV episode is a
dramatization of the 7th one, the “Snedeker house haunting”.
The Warrens were dramatized in the episode.
Ralph Denton Sr. acted as Ed Warren and Shirley Vaughn acted as Lorraine. The
real life Lorraine also appeared in the episode as one of the interviewee.
As the program is also a documentary, the
storyline follows closely with the real case. The program is available on
YouTube and I put link below. TV in 2002 is still in low resolution and 4:3 aspect
ratio, so please bear with the video quality.
7 years later, we saw another attempt on
dramatizing the same investigation. But this time, it is on the big screen. A
Hollywood movie The Haunting in Connecticut premiered in the US, UK, and
Canada in March 2009, and then moved on to worldwide premiere in the following
months. Despite the overall average to negative critics, the movie did managed
to make a success in box office. With a 10 million USD production budget, it grossed
77 million worldwide.
How’s the movie? Honestly, I like it. It is
quite enjoyable. It is fast paced, scary, with a lot of Hollywood creation added.
And it also got some good modern era CG. The acting is good and the new storyline
is creative. Ending is quite touching as well. Although not exactly a member of
The Conjuring Universe, this movie gives you the same atmosphere as The
Conjuring.
But I have 2 complaints.
First, I didn’t
understand its poster until I have watched the movie. To me, it just looks like
shits were coming out from the mouth of the kid! After watching the movie, I
now know that those are actually something called ectoplasm. But I still need
to google to find out what exactly ectoplasm is. This is the first time I have
heard of this term in my life.
Poster of The Haunting in Connecticut
Image Source: Wikipedia
And the other complaint is, where are the
Warrens? The movie is an adaptation of the Warrens case “Snedeker house
haunting”. But they dropped the true names of the victims, the real location,
added tons of Hollywood creations into it, and kicked away the Warrens! This is
also the very reason that lead to the creation of The Conjuring Universe.
Ed Warren’s son-in-law has nominated himself
as the technical advisor for the movie. But the idea was rejected by its producer.
That made him later turned to James Wan and triggered the birth of The
Conjuring Universe 4 years later.
At the time of writing, the Conjuring-verse
has not yet adapted the “Snedeker house” case. We do not know how The
Conjuring Universe will expand itself or would it re-adapt this case in the
future. If you are looking for a movie adaptation of the “Snedeker house
haunting”, The Haunting in Connecticut is the only one you can get.
There is a successor movie called The
Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia. I have also watched that and
do not really like it. That movie is not based on a Warrens case and has no
relationship with the first movie.
Go back to the Lobby ...
