House in ‘Connecticut’ reveals chilling secret

‘The Haunting in Connecticut”’

Solid acting and handsomely realized effects depicting ghostly visions and visitations make this a chilling occult tale.

Virginia Madsen plays Sara, whose teenage son, Matt (Kyle Gallner), has a life-threatening illness. She moves the family to an old house near the hospital where Matt is treated.

He immediately starts seeing dead people and worse in the house and becomes detached and obsessed. A cleric (Elias Koteas) helps Matt reveal the secret behind the haunting.

There are flashbacks of someone preparing to snip the eyelids off a body and of seances in which ghostly ectoplasm spews from a live person’s mouth. (1:32; PG-13 for intense sequences of terror and disturbing images)

‘The Edge of Love’

In director John Maybury’s speculative investigation of the romantic entanglements of poet Dylan Thomas, Keira Knightley plays Vera Phillips, Thomas’ real-life childhood friend from Wales.

As the film opens, the two reconnect during the London blitz, when Dylan (Matthew Rhys) is writing British propaganda copy and Vera is crooning in tube stations turned into makeshift cabarets.

For a moment it looks like the obvious spark between them will ignite into something more, when up pops Dylan’s fiery Irish wife, Caitlin (Sienna Miller), and the three embark on a by turns passionate and toxic menage a trois.

That none of the protagonists earns the audience’s sympathy is more likely a failure of the real-life characters rather than the actors. (1:50; unrated but contains profanity, nudity and adult themes).

Also available: “ER: Season 11,” “Explicit Ills,” “Mad Men: Season 2,” “Menage,” “Night Train,” “(Rec),” “The State: The Complete Series,” “Grey Gardens,” “Bewitched: The Complete Eighth Season”