Horror film draws unwanted visitors to Conn. house

Southington, Conn. - A Hollywood horror film that portrays the alleged haunting funeral of an old hall in the center of Connecticut is turning into a nightmare for the current owners of the house and its neighbors.

The film, "The Haunting in Connecticut," do not open until Friday, but curious fans are already making a beeline for the house that inspired the movie Southington.

"It's just been very, very stressful," said Susan Trotta-Smith, who bought the house 10 years ago with her husband. "It's been a total change of a house in a very quiet neighborhood very peaceful to look out the window and see cars stopping all the time. It has been very, very stressful, and sometimes disturbing."

The family never saw anything unusual in its five bedrooms, two-family wood frame white house and do not believe that the property was haunted.

"She has beautiful wood, and there is a nice warm feeling to the house," Trotta-Smith said. "Because it was a funeral home, the apartment upstairs is more spacious. It's like two boxes full, and has a beautiful garden, too."

The film, starring Virginia Madsen and Kyle Gallner and released by Lionsgate, is loosely based on stories that revolved around the house in the 1980s.

Residents currently the Snedeker family, claimed that his son would hear strange noises in his basement bedroom, since it displays coffin and was arrested near the former Embalming room. He also claimed to see shadows on the wall of people who were not there. A niece visited the house said she felt hands on her body as she tried to sleep, and she levitated copper.

The family brought in Ed and Lorraine Warren, a self-described paranormal investigators, who became famous for documenting the alleged "Amityville Horror" haunts a house in Long Island.

Lorraine Warren says he felt an evil presence in Southington home and experienced the haunting her, when she spent a night there.

"In the main room, there was a trap where the coffins were brought," she said. "And at night you would hear that chain hoist, as if a coffin were being raised. But when Ed went to check, there was no one down there."

Warren, whose husband died in 2006, has nothing to do with the movie. She said the house was "cleared" of the evil presence after a seance in 1988. A book and a television documentary followed.

The current owners, who rent the house to another family, had removed the street number from the home and posted "no trespassing" signs. Trotta-Smith says they are concerned about the four children who live there.

"Most people are respectful. They are on the road. They could take a picture," Trotta-Smith said. "But we had some problems with those kind of rough next to the door and scare our children, telling them the house is haunted."

Police have added extra patrols to the neighborhood.

"There is looming creatures of the night, but not inside the house," Southington police Sgt. Lowell DePalma said. "They happen to people who are being illegally on the property, looking in windows and that sort of thing. People will be disappointed. There are no ghosts."

Alison Taylor, 37, led from his home in East Hartford with his camera after seeing a show on the Discovery Channel and in the haunts of hearing about the new movie.

"I'm very intrigued," she said. "I thought since it was close, I could enter. Many people are so skeptical, but I am not. I'm sure that some things are done to make the film look better, but I think it's great."

Katherine Altemus, who lives across the street, shoos away curious viewers. She believes the ghost stories were a hoax.

"It's a shame," she said. "None of the haunting occurred, and now it is ruining the lives of young people wonderful family that lives there."

Requests the Snedeker family were returned by the film production, it said it would try to arrange an interview.

Film producer Andrew Trapani said he believed the mother, Carmen Snedeker was very credible, and believes that the film does a good job showing what his family went. The film was shot in Teulon, Manitoba.

He said the names of family and city were fictionalized in the movie, in part, to try to keep unwanted attention away from real home. The Southington Snedekers site and are identified in the movie.

"We certainly did not set out to upset someone or have someone appear on his house," he said. "I think in this case, the haunting supernatural particular had a much larger following than I had even expected."

Trotta-Smith said he is working with the police, but has no plans to put a fence. She said she just wants a normal life at home, but she is not sure it will be possible if the film becomes a success.

"I am a little worried about this Halloween because I imagine that is when they will release the DVD and it all worked again."