So, following Broadway Cabaret night at the Little Theatre, Megan decided to take me up on my pizza/DVD night at the house while I am still alone (one more week… and it is still standing).  I suggested venturing to Wal-Mart to check out the redbox kiosk…. rent a movie for $1 per night, return when you are done or after 25 days it is yours.  After going to Electronics, I met Megan at the box and we made our choice of two movies… more on those in a bit.

We then travelled to casa Shaffer where I gave her the grand tour, upstairs, downstairs, beauty shop.  Did I show C&L the shop the other night?  My memory fails me.  So, after the pizza was baked, we put in the first movie.  He’s Just Not that Into You is just what you would expect: a chick flick.  While it was no Pretty Woman it was not all that bad and Megan wanted to see it and I  gentlemanly let her pick one.

However, I chose a movie which taylhis has posted about and a friend recommended the other day.  Megan had already seen The Haunting in Connecticut (for some reason, I thought it was A Haunting, but no big deal) and it scared the xrap out of her.  I must say that I enjoyed it very, VERY much and it did give me a good jump or 5.  Even more so knowing that it was based on a true story.  I will have to check out the frog site thingamajig to get the lowdown on how much accuracy is involved.  If you like a good horror film with lotas of thrills and chills, check it out.

However there was a downside to the DVD: it was badly scratched and about half way through it began to skip.  UGH!  Way to almost ruin a great movie!  I did send an email to the customer service dep of redbox to request a free rental or refund.  Megan asked me to watch out for the minister and see if I could recognize him.  I must admit that I was unable to.  Elias Koteas is the same actor who played Casey Jones in the ORIGINAL Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies.  Never would have guessed since it has been years since I have seen it.

All in all, another fun night of music, friendship, pizza, movies, and great times!

We saw The Haunting in Connecticut at the movie theater for date night (after refusing pizza from “Carlos Zambrano” at the mall pizza shop – seriously, the guy looks just like the famously hot-headed Chicago Cubs pitcher!) and the movie made for a pretty good ghost story.  I had heard it was based upon a true story, but after seeing it, here is my guess on what about the movie is true:  a teenage boy has cancer, his family rents a house (a former mortuary) near the hospital where he is receiving treatments, and they had strange happenings while staying there; probably due to stress or lack of sleep or even just plain exaggerations but not hauntings, is my guess.  This is the basic plot of the movie, but I left out many events that could not have possibly happened in real life and would also be considered spoilers, so I will not go into details.  I will say that the movie opens with all kinds of vintage photographs of deceased people – I know this because of my friend who attended a lecture on the subject.  I had wanted to go with her, but we found out about it last minute and I relunctantly had to pass.  But my friend went and came back with all kinds of interesting info which is how I knew what the pictures were that opened the movie.  For instance, many people back then (the movie takes place in the 80’s, but the pictures were from the early 1900’s) didn’t have their photograph taken often, so when a loved one passed away, they would get their family portrait taken with the deceased – better late than never, I guess?  Not only that, sometimes they would pose as if the person was still alive – kind of morbid by our standards today, but then again, things are very different and taking pictures is so much more common; it’s difficult to imagine past attitudes about this.

But The Haunting in Connecticut is a very entertaining, edge-of-your seat nailbiter with plenty of startles.  To its credit, it’s scary and creepy without the gore.  Worth checking out, if you like that sort of thing, but not one of my favorites – it did give me some ideas for a haunted house though…  Now if I can just remember them until 2010 when we actually have the time to DO the haunted house…