Crafting a gritty and realistic haunted house film was a key goal for "The Haunting in Connecticut" director Peter Cornwell. Making his feature directing debut, Cornwell explores an eerie tale based on true events in Southington, Conn. It follows the Campbell family as they move into a former funeral home and suddenly clash with a supernatural presence linked to the property's grim history. Cornwell saw an opportunity with "The Haunting in Connecticut" to present the supernatural from another angle. "I really like ghost stories," he explained during an interview with Fearnet.com. "I was looking at haunted house movies and there really haven’t been that many and I was trying to think about a really different back-story and the reasoning why the ghost is in the house." Parallels between "The Amityville Horror" and Cornwell's film are to be expected, but he noted ample differences during a recent interview with ShockTillYouDrop.com. "There are slight touches of Amityville Horror but other than that, it's completely different," Cornwell said. "With a haunted house film there are certain things that have to happen, apart from that it's really incredibly original and kind of strange. Different things happen. The background of why the house is haunted - there are more layers to it, more mysteries to it. More than 'it's on an Indian burial ground.' It's the fear of the unknown until the very end of the movie. "What's interesting to me is this is based on a real place. The house is a character in the film. There are two different haunted house films. There's the one where you have a family living in the house and gradually stuff happens. Then there's the other kind where you've got a notorious house with investigators coming in or get locked in there. What can be more dangerous than your own home? What's supposed to be safe? I think it taps into 'There's nowhere safe they can be.'" But, can Cornwell mold a genuinely terrifying fright flick bearing the dreaded PG-13 rating? Some trims were necessary. "There was one moment in the film that we had to trim for PG-13 just to get the rating. We went back and forth with the rating, but I think we are as close as you can get to an R while being PG-13. Ironically, I think in the exploration of how to cut around stuff, we actually made it even scarier than it was before. If you look at things like The Ring, they are PG-13 and are terrifying. When it’s a ghost film as well, you don’t need as much blood or sex." Patient fright fans can expect the complete film on DVD. "There will be an unrated DVD version as well. But I think the real way to see this film is in the cinema opening weekend. At screenings we’ve had people just screaming through the whole thing." "The Haunting in Connecticut," written by Adam Simon and Tim Metcalfe ("Kalifornia"), hits theaters March 27. It stars Virginia Madsen ("Candyman"), Martin Donovan ("The Alphabet Killer") and Kyle Gallner ("Jennifer's Body"). Express yourself and be part of the news! Leave a comment below or join our rabid discussions on the AlphaBoards.