Tag Archives: kyle gallner

The Haunting in Connecticut

They say you should never judge a book by its cover, and I should perhaps remember that more. I wasn’t looking forward to watching The Haunting in Connecticut, I like horror films but generally not “based on a true haunted house story” horror films. Maybe Virginia Madsen back in a proper horror film could change that?

The true story aspect is the reason I’d never got around to watching this one before. I bought it ages ago and filed it away and thought very little of it since.

And, I might have been a little wrong about it. Putting the disc in the player I was both happy and surprised to see the Twisted Pictures logo at the start, they’ve been responsible for a lot of films I liked. It was a good start and enough to brighten its prospects. A little.

As the story goes, Sara (Virginia Madsen) and Peter (Martin Donovan) have a sick teenage child, Matt (Kyle Gallner), he’s got cancer and they are doing everything they can to help, naturally. They want to move closer to the hospital to lessen the strain on everyone and thanks to Sara being in the right place at the right time they end up finding a property quite quickly.The family move in, they each find their rooms with Matt choosing the basement with the mysterious door. Ominous.

And, funnily enough, not long after this Matt starts to experience weirdness in the form of visions with old men and corpse featuring prominently.

They quickly learn that the house used to be a Funeral Parlour which creeps them out but not enough for them to move out, for some reason. Even though there is dying teenager with visions of literal death in the house.

I mean, it takes a lot to spook me personally but one thing I do know is that I’d be questioning my decisions roundabout then.It’s pretty much a standard house horror story from there, but if it was truly that I wouldn’t have carried on watching it. It’s an interesting, if somewhat unbelievable premise that the rest of the story tells. And, for one of these films the level of gore is quite high, eyelids being removed and the like.

As it turns out, the “true events” that the film is based on, likely isn’t that true. It was part of the “Ed and Lorraine Warren” thing that they did, many of those “events” have since been discredited one way or another.

Which I wasn’t surprised to learn to be honest. At least this film wasn’t done it the same tone / voice as the other films based upon the Warrens activities (Annabelle etc).

Going back to the film itself, Virginia Madsen once again steals a movie from her co-stars. There were quite a few scenes where she stands out. I mean, I credit her with knowing the kind of movie she was in here and she puts in a quite frankly amazing performance all the same. Not once does she miss a beat. I don’t quite know why I was so impressed with her in this one over other roles, probably because I didn’t expect a lot.
Virginia herself quite liked idea of being in the film, in an interview with Deseret News she’d say “I’ve been looking for a good horror script since ‘Candyman,’ and I’ve been reading them for years, and I just could never find one. They were all either a gorefest or a good idea but a stupid ending. None of them were really character-driven,” until Haunting. I like the film very much I get a particular kick out of scaring the hell out of people; I don’t know why. So I want people to go out and see it.”

Is this one to watch? – Well, once is probably enough for me to watch it properly. It’s worth watching as a fan of Virginia to see how well she does with what she’s got.

Haunting in Connecticut also reunites Virginia Madsen and Amanda Crew who previously worked together in the indie film Crazy Kind of Love. Virginia would also go on to work with Kyle Gallner again in the WIGS web series, Jan, but he was grateful they’d met earlier when she took him under her wing on this one, speaking with The Hollywood News he would reflect back on his time with her one this film;

“Haunting in Connecticut was amazing. It was my first lead in a studio film and Virginia Madsen made sure she took me under her wing. Like the second, I mean, I had someone come get me at the airport and bring me to her. From there on out, I was under her wing. She took care of me the whole time. I learned a lot from her.”

And, there is a Haunting in Connecticut 2, which – Isn’t really a follow up to this one, just trading in on the name. No relation to this one though other than that so don’t go thinking you’ve another to watch if you do watch this one.

Availability:

Good, not hard to find at all on DVD, Blu-Ray and on some streaming channels. Though, you might need a VPN depending on where you are in the world and what services you have available to you.

Gallery:

Trailer:

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Crazy Kind of Love

Crazy Kind of Love is another small indie film entry from Virginia Madsen. The film is from 2013, it’s based on the novel Angel Angel by author April Stevens which was first published in 1995. Its budget is definitely low, but it’s another one I thoroughly enjoyed. Once I’d switched my brain off anyway.

Augusta (Virginia Madsen) is a Mother of two young adults, she’s having a rough time of it. She found out her husband and the Father of her two kids was having an affair, he ultimately leaves the family behind and it breaks her.

She has a full nervous breakdown and spends her time in her bedroom generally just trying to find the will to carry on. Her youngest son, Henry (Graham Rogers) lives at home and hates seeing his Mum like this and so sets about doing what he can to help. Not that he’s in much of a fit way to do this, he’s a massive pot head and has his own problems to deal with.
Henry meets a girl himself along the way, Bette (Amanda Crew). She’s, well, an interesting character – Who I do like – But, if this wasn’t a movie, I’d be questioning a lot of her actions.

Bette ends up pretty much inviting herself to live with Henry and his Mum, eventually Henry convinces his older brother Matthew (Zach Gilford) to come home to help get Augusta out of the funk she’s found herself in.
It’s Henry’s drug dealer, Jeff (Sam Trammell) plays a huge part in getting the family to heal, yeah – it’s a quirky bunch of characters for sure. Henry isn’t your typical badass kind of drug dealer, he’s the enlightened hippy kind.

I mentioned earlier that you had to switch your brain off for it, and you do. It’s very easy to pick holes in if you want to be cruel, but the heart is in the right place. There’s a lot of stuff that just wouldn’t happen in real life, and that’s OK – This is a movie and it’s allowed to happen like that.

I don’t know if I’d call Virginia Madsen’s role in this one a supporting one or not. She’s definitely one of the main characters but at the same time we don’t see a lot of her in comparison. It is a fine performance though, she plays the part well. Sadness exudes out of her when it should and as the film goes on and she starts to come round a bit you can see the spark return to her.

It’s a fine example of the kind of work she can do when she’s given the chance, the kind of performance you wish more people were made aware of.

It’d be easy to pick this one apart but overall I think I’d be happy to recommend watching it. It’s an indie flick, it has some great performances by some talented people and provided you don’t go deep on it, it makes for a great easy watching movie.

Availability:
Good on Region 1 DVD and streaming on Amazon Prime

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Jan

Jan is a show from the YouTube Original Channel Initiative on the WIGS channel. The channel is dedicated to highlighting Web series, short films and documentaries centering around the lives of women. The channel only seems to have lasted a couple of years but the work remains there to be viewed today, or at least at the time of writing.

Most, if not all of the shows on the WIGS channel share the same universe, characters from one show appear in others, even if just briefly. Each of the shows last as long as they need to, and each episode of the shows averages around 8 minutes.

Jan was the first of these shows to premiere.

The channel seems to have attracted a wealth of talent to work on these shows, Jan is no exception. The titular character, Jan, is played by Caitlin Gerard. Playing support are Laura Spencer, Stephen Moyer, Jaime Murray, Julia Stiles, Iddo Goldberg and of course Virginia Madsen to name but a few.

We first meet Jan as a new employee of Mel, the character portrayed by Virginia Madsen. Mel is a photographer whose latest project is to take pictures of women in the moments after sex, to “capture ‘The Moment’” for her new project book called (subtly) Afterglow.

Jan is the recent winner of a competition to be her assistant. On the first shoot her glasses get broken which leads to her being taken under the wing of the male part of the project, Gery (Stephen Moyer) who is responsible for bringing the models (Jamie Murray) ‘moment’ to reality.

As the series goes on we see the two get closer together as a series of circumstances unfold, mostly through a series of blunders by Jan. These blunders lead to some recognition of her talent through a few happy accidents.

This gets under the skin of Mel, she’s not happy that Jan seems to have come out of nowhere and making no effort to steal her thunder. Virginia Madsen is in full power mode in this role, there is a particularly great scene in the fifth episode between Mel and Jan which leaves the viewer, and Jan, under no illusion of who is in control here. Kind of. The two come to some kind of understanding as the show goes on.

It’s a weird kind of relationship between the two, they don’t seem to trust each other but work as a team nonetheless. I guess I’d call it a professional rivalry. Both are talented, Jan is the newer and younger version of Mel and although she might not like it she tries to help in her own way. Tough love.

Although the episodes are short they tend to run on from each other, which is a bit weird as it could have just been like a normal TV episode. Of the 15 episodes Miss Madsen is present for 9 of them, so well worth adding this one to the watch list.

In all fairness it’d be worth a watch without her, it’s not a bad show or a bad way to kill an hour or so.

Availability:

All ready and waiting for you to watch on the WIGS YouTube Channel.