THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT 2: GHOSTS OF GEORGIA (2013)

Studio:       Lionsgate
Director:    Tom Elkins
Writer:       David Coggeshall
Producer:  Paul Brooks, Scott Niemeyer
Stars:     Abigail Spencer, Chad Michael Murray, Katee Sackhoff, Emily Alyn Lind, Cicely Tyson

Review Score:

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Summary:

After moving into a secluded home that was once a stop along the Underground Railroad, the Wyrick family soon discovers that the property’s past may be far darker than history remembers.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

June 1993 – Lisa Wyrick takes medication to quell the visions she has of her dead mother. Her daughter Heidi tells her she dreamed of a swing. Lisa and Heidi meet their husband/father Andy at their new secluded house in Georgia. Heidi begins to have visions of an old man named Mr. Gordy. Her Aunt Joyce comes to the house and ends up moving into an abandoned trailer on the property. Heidi says a girl lives in the trailer.

Lisa sees a vision of a charred body in the bushes, but assumes it is related to her mental illness and medication. Heidi sees her mother crying and Joyce explains that the women in their family are susceptible to strange feelings. Joyce tells Heidi that they were born with “a veil” that allows them to see things that others cannot. Heidi tells her aunt that she also has visions.

Lisa has more visions of her mother. Andy worries that her pills are not working. Heidi goes for a bike ride and is drawn to the woods. When Lisa asks where she was, Heidi says Mr. Gordy appeared and told her about a swing in the trees. He also told her that there is money buried in their gardens. Lisa tells Heidi to scream if Mr. Gordy ever appears to her again. That night, Joyce and Andy dig up a box of old coins buried in the ground while Lisa continues to discourage Heidi’s visions. Lisa then has another vision of a charred corpse.

Joyce shows Lisa the deed proving the Gordy family previously owned the house. Heidi chooses Mr. Gordy’s face from a series of photographs, although Lisa is still not convinced that Heidi is seeing ghosts. Joyce tries to convince Lisa that Heidi has the same gift/curse that they have.

July 1993 – Pastor Jordan Wells pays an unexpected visit to the Wyricks and fills them in on the history of their house. Around the time of the Civil War, “The Stationmaster” owned the property and he helped transport hundreds of slaves through the Underground Railroad. The Stationmaster is considered a local hero. Pastor Wells also tells them that Mr. Gordy was not hospitable to visitors of the historic site on his land. Heidi mentions that Mr. Gordy is nice to her, which puzzles the pastor.

Joyce hears slave singing in the trees and is led to an antique quilt. Mr. Gordy appears to be leading Heidi to something in the woods. Andy brings home a dog named Chief. Andy later has to free Chief from an animal box trap in the woods. Heidi sees a vision of a slave on a swing.

Andy finds Heidi speaking to Mr. Gordy, who only appears to her. Mr. Gordy tells her that people are coming. Andy finds a man and his grandmother visiting the burned down remains of The Stationmaster’s former cabin. The man, Prentiss, tells Andy that Joyce gave them permission to visit and even gave them the quilt. Prentiss explains that the quilt was a signal to slaves that the location was safe and it acted as a guide. The Stationmaster was also a taxidermist. When it was discovered that he was helping slaves, local landowners lynched The Stationmaster. Prentiss and his grandmother never knew what happened to their ancestors Nell and Levi whose escape was being facilitated by The Stationmaster.

Heidi pleads with her mother to believe her about the visions. Lisa continues to discourage her. Lisa later finds Heidi unconscious in the bathtub. She pulls her out and Heidi vomits sawdust and insects. The hospital nurse recommends a priest. The Wyricks have Pastor Wells come out and bless their land and daughter. During the blessing, Joyce has visions of slaves and of Heidi turning into a corpse. Later that night, Heidi has more visions of slaves and follows one into the woods. Andy searches the forest for Heidi and finds a hidden door in the ground at the burned down cabin. He rescues his daughter from the chamber below. The remains of five male slaves are also found in that underground chamber. It is presumed that they starved to death when The Stationmaster was murdered, as there was no one to let them out from the shaft. Joyce believes the visions were caused by the slaves trying to be discovered and should now come to an end. Heidi says Mr. Gordy told her that she is not safe and that she let something bad come out when she went underground. Mr. Gordy told her that The Stationmaster was actually a bad man and he will be coming for them now that he knows where they are. Lisa still refuses to believe her daughter, but Andy feels they should leave.

While the family packs up to move during the night, Joyce is attacked in her trailer by The Stationmaster’s ghost. She coughs up a taxidermy needle and thread. Something takes Heidi from the truck while her parents are inside the house. Lisa has a vision of a conductor pointing her to the truck where she finds only sawdust and insects. Andy uses the truck to look for his daughter but crashes into a tree. Lisa searches Joyce’s trailer and finds her sister strung up to the ceiling by threads coming out of her mouth. Lisa cuts the threads and Joyce coughs up sawdust. Lisa has more visions but decides not to take her medication. The images lead her to the underground chamber.

Lisa realizes that the chamber was not a hiding place but rather a holding cell for the slaves. She finds a hidden door leading to a cavern where she learns that The Stationmaster practiced taxidermy on humans. She trips and her lantern lights the cavern on fire. Lisa finds her daughter in the cavern and breaks a hole open in the ground above for Heidi to climb out. She then watches the ghost of The Stationmaster disappear and something pulls her out from the hole.

Two weeks later, Mr. Gordy’s ghost helps Heidi ride her bike and then he disappears. A postscript says that the Wyricks lived in the house for another five years and Mr. Gordy was never seen again.

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Review:

The thing about bad ideas in Hollywood is that it is difficult to have one in a vacuum.  Let me rephrase that.  Bad ideas are rather commonplace.  What I mean to say is that it is difficult to be the only person with a bad idea and see it somehow translated onto the screen.  Bad scripts need directors to bring them to life.  Bad actors need casting agents to give them roles.  And behind every bad decision is the moneyman signing the check that brings it into being.  So it is not so much that someone had the idea to name a horror film set in Georgia as “The Haunting in Connecticut 2,” but enough people agreed with the notion that the movie was actually released this way.

With apologies to “The Simpsons,” not since “The Neverending Story” has a title so blatantly misrepresented the movie.  I was unaware that “The Haunting in Connecticut” (review here) spawned a franchise, but evidently there is a perceived benefit to marketing “Ghosts of Georgia” as a sequel to that movie.  Not only is this film in no way connected to the Nutmeg State, but the word “Connecticut” is never even mentioned once.  Yet the title is only the first nonsensical thing about “The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia.”

Lisa and Andy Wyrick move with their daughter Heidi to a secluded home in a wooded area of Georgia.  Flighty Aunt Joyce soon joins them and the family discovers that their property was once an important stop for slaves along the Underground Railroad.  The women of the Wyrick family are known for being susceptible to strange visions and before long, young Heidi begins receiving visits from a mysterious Mr. Gordy.  Mr. Gordy seems to be communicating a message that the legendary figure known as “The Stationmaster” may not be as benevolent as history remembers.

Most of this background comes from Pastor Wells.  He does the Wyricks the courtesy of dropping by and introducing himself after they move in.  Usually a haunting escalates to a breaking point before the family seeks out a clergyman for help.  “Ghosts of Georgia” bypasses that step and just has the good pastor make himself available right away.

The central story of “Ghosts of Georgia” is interesting.  The Underground Railroad era of American history is seldom seen in this genre and the unfolding mystery behind The Stationmaster and Mr. Gordy’s true roles in the property’s haunted history maintains its intrigue.  However, this particular haunting has one crippling defect: it is not scary.

From demonic possession to cursed houses, hauntings usually involve an evil force that tries either to take over a person or to run everyone off the property, if they are not killed or driven mad first.  Mr. Gordy has neither of those goals.  For the first act of the film, various ghosts appear as images to both mother and daughter.  Although they are accompanied by music that says they are to be feared, no real menace is to be found.  Other spirits might be slamming doors shut or making walls bleed.  Meanwhile, the ghost of Mr. Gordy helps Heidi find a swing set.  Then he leads the family to a buried treasure.  Later, he guides Heidi as she rides her bike.  Spooky.

Since the ghosts do not initially do anything worth making skin crawl, the movie tries manufacturing scares from a confusing kaleidoscope of imagery.  During a scene where the little girl is trapped down a darkened shaft, ghostly images surround her, though they have nothing to do other than simply be there.  The camera spins around the girl in between quick cuts of shriveled corpse faces with an undertone of whispery sounds.  The scare is supposed to come from the image itself rather than what it may mean for the character, which in this case, is not much.  That is not a successful formula for effective chills.

This is par for the course in how “Ghosts of Georgia” aims for horror.  It adds in doses of things that are supposed to be frightening in theory, yet have no real context motivating them.  Several scenes include large clusters of Madagascar hissing cockroaches either climbing all over skeletons or being vomited out of a mouth.  Crawling insects are creepy, right?  Never mind how cockroaches from another continent made it into Georgia.

Not helping matters is some off-the-wall characterization.  Lisa is all too aware that the women in her family are prone to strange visions.  In fact, she takes pills for this perceived affliction what seems like every ten minutes.  Yet even after her daughter Heidi points to a hidden spot in the forest where a swing used to be, leads them to a buried treasure in the garden, and picks Mr. Gordy’s face out of numerous photographs, Lisa still refuses to accept that her daughter might have seen a ghost.  When she continues to maintain that nothing is out of the ordinary after a cave full of skeletons is found underneath her property, all hope is lost that there may be any sense in this person’s head.

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​​In case you forget that Lisa is on medication, "Ghosts of Georgia" has you covered...

Not that the Wyricks are terribly sensible anyway.  When the decision is finally made to leave the house, they intentionally schedule their move to take place in the dark of night.  When is the last time you helped a friend carry a couch at 2am?  I have never known anyone to move into or out of any place when the sun was not shining.  Although granted, moving at night at least gives the daughter one more chance to lose herself in the woods while the father crashes his truck in the darkness and the mother and aunt are grabbed from the shadows.

There is an interesting tale behind the haunting.  Unfortunately for “Ghosts of Georgia,” it makes a better mystery than it does a horror movie.  The performances are good enough, but the cast is saddled with stunted pacing issues to keep the plot from advancing too soon.  Add in that the ladies’ visions are done solely through a post-production filter rather than set dressing or other ethereal effect, and the feeling is that this is what a haunting would look like if it was done by Hallmark Hall of Fame.  Tame enough for a TV movie, and not enough to be authentically scary.

Review Score:  40

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