Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a sequel? You wish. In keeping with the geographical disparity of the title, this "sister" project to the so-so 2009 hit A Haunting in Connecticut has little in common with its immediate predecessor. Except for the ghosts. And not being any good.
Loosely based on an entirely made-up true story, Ghosts of Georgia follows the Wyrick family as they move into a spooky house in the woods. Once there, it does not take long for young Heidi to befriend an unseen older gentleman named Mr Gordy. Her mother, who shares Heidi's sixth sense, scolds the child and takes pills to suppress her "gift". By contrast, Heidi's wild Aunt Joyce (Battlestar Galactica's lovely Katee Sackoff) is happy to harp on a supernatural theme.
In keeping with the genre, the haunting soon gets hardcore. How hardcore? Well, Cicely Tyson shows up. And an entire underground network of ghostly former slaves. And an evil entity that knows how to break into caravans and cars.
The margins between a fun ghost train ride – see The Conjuring – and a supernatural car-crash are very small. And so, Ghosts of Georgia manages to maintain bump-in-the- night suspense and a decent family drama for a little while before it implodes into a mess of dreadful SFX, jump-cut clichés, condescending racial history and inconsistent plotting.
If the evil entity can really spirit away human beings, surely it could come up with a better hiding place? These and other baffling questions are left unresolved in an unsatisfactory screenplay. Still, it’ll do scaredy cats well enough for this barren season. Where have all our Halloween horrors gone?
