4. The Haunting in Connecticut
Based on the book In A Dark Place by Ed and Lorraine Warren, the book was actually ghost-written by horror author Ray Garton. The book recounts the two-year ordeal of the Snedeker family as they lived in a rented house that had once been a mortuary. The Snedeker’s have recounted a series of hauntings including spirits attempting to take things out of the family’s hands, pulling blankets off their bed, unexplained music playing at night, voices of older men talking, and actual physical manifestations of spirits including visible hands sexually molesting male and female family members.
All that sounds awful, however the family lived in the house for two years despite ghost sodomy and the author of the book that the movie is based on basically says the Snedeker family and the Warrens made the whole thing up and that the Snedeker’s son who claimed to be seeing and hearing things got better after beginning to take psychiatric meds. Here’s what he told “Horror Bound” back in 2009.
As I gathered all the necessary information for the book, I found that the accounts of the individual Snedekers didn’t quite mesh. They just couldn’t keep their stories straight.
I went to Ed with this problem. “Oh, they’re crazy,” he said. “Everybody who comes to us is crazy. Otherwise why would they come to us? You’ve got some of the story – just use what works and make the rest up. And make it scary. You write scary books, right? That’s why we hired you. So just make it up and make it scary.” I didn’t like that one bit. But by then, I’d signed the contract and there was no going back. I did as Ed instructed – I used what I could, made up the rest, and tried to make it as scary as I could. The book was called In A Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting.
As soon as it was published, I started telling my story, knowing full well that it would not be too popular with the Snedekers or the Warrens. I was right. Carmen Snedeker, now Carmen Reed, has denounced the book. She claims they had little involvement in it, which is a lie.
