Review: 'The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia' loses way

By Mark Olsen

Jan. 31, 2013 12 AM PT

“The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia” might win for most unwieldy title of the year, but there’s little else to distinguish this movie, related to the 2009 film in name only, from the recent crop of supernatural horror thrillers supposedly based on true stories.

Here, a family moves to a remote property picked up on the cheap, and the young daughter (Emily Alyn Lind) begins to share the same “gift” as her mother and aunt (Abigail Spencer, Katie Sackhoff), an ability to see and communicate with spirits.

The child strikes up a relationship with a long-dead previous owner, setting all the characters on a path to discovering what really happened at the site generations ago. Said by locals to have been a stopping point for the Underground Railroad, the place turns out to have played host to events more compromised than progressive.

The film is the feature directorial debut for Tom Elkins, editor on “The Haunting in Connecticut” and this one. The storytelling, from a script by David Coggeshall, is at times nearly incoherent and relies too often on random scares.

The filmmakers trot out slavery as a general sins-of-the-past signifier and then have no idea what to really do with such a painful real-world issue.

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“The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia.” MPAA rating: R for some disturbing horror content. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes. At the Ontario Mills 30, Ontario.