Product Details

• Actors: Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, Rachel Hurd-Wood, James D'Arcy, Matthew Marsh
• Directors: Courtney Solomon
• Writers: Courtney Solomon, Brent Monahan
• Producers: Alessandro Fracassi, Allan Zeman, Andrei Boncea, André Rouleau, Christopher Milburn
• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), English (Dolby Digital 5.1 EX)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Lionsgate
• DVD Release Date: October 24, 2006
• Run Time: 91 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (132 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000HC2LFI
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #21,656 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "An American Haunting (Unrated Edition)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

With its brisk 83-minute running time, An American Haunting is compact enough to be recommended as an occasionally spooky sampling of historical horror. Based on Brent Monahan's novel The Bell Witch: An American Haunting, which in turn was inspired by the only known case (from 1818-20) in which the U.S. government officially acknowledged a death by supernatural forces, writer-director Courtney Solomon's film is a well-crafted 19th-century case study involving Tennessee land-owner John Bell (Donald Sutherland), his worried wife Lucy (Sissy Spacek), and the terrifying abuse of their daughter Betsy (Rachel Hurd-Wood) by a malicious poltergeist. Intensified by excessive sound effects and a nerve-jangling score, these nightly hauntings won't scare anyone who's seen The Exorcist, and they grow increasingly repetitious even as Spacek and Sutherland make the most of their underwritten roles. Solomon (who previously brought Dungeons and Dragons to the big screen) seems more interested in visceral terror than fleshing out the details of this interesting story of dark secrets and child abuse, and his over-used bag of tricks includes time-lapse footage, flashes of negative images, black-and-white (to signal an imminent haunting), and a variety of physical effects designed to keep your adrenaline flowing. It works, to a point (although the present-day framing scenes are completely unnecessary), and An American Haunting makes a good double-feature with The Exorcism of Emily Rose, a far better film with similar subject matter. This good-looking, bleakly moody fright-fest is also noteworthy as the next-to-last screen credit for Adrian Biddle, the esteemed cinematographer of such high-profile hits as Aliens, Thelma & Louise, The Mummy, and V for Vendetta, the latter completed just prior to Biddle's fatal heart attack in December 2005.--Jeff Shannon

Product Description

In 1818, the family began to experience disturbances on their property. At first, slight, unexplained noises, but the spirit began to grow, becoming aggressive and singling out the father, John, and his only daughter Betsy. The family desperately searched for the cause of the spirit in the hope of finding a way of defeating it, but the spirit continued its brutal assault. It developed voicesand began speaking to the family, but refusing to say why it was there. Then, finally it pronounced a death sentence on John. Within a year, he was dead. Sho rtly, thereafter, the spirit left the family in peace, but never the same. It would not be until years later that we would be taken back to the terrible night the spirit was born and find out the horrific truth about its nature and origin...

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Certainly better than popular opinion would have you believe, but.., July 6, 2006

By	Review Lover "ReviewLover" (At a place...) - See all my reviews

John Bell (Donald Sutherland), convicted of Usury, is plagued by a vengeful poltergeist who seems to focus on his beloved only daughter Betsy. All fingers point to the town witch, of whom Bell has made an enemy, but could the real culprit be someone closer to home?

The Bell Witch legend isn't something I am familiar with, so when I sat down to watch this movie, I saw simply a movie, and not an iterpretation of historical fact. In a sense, I think it's better that I knew nothing about the legend (which is, now that I've read a little about it, extremely interesting) beforehand, since I'm able to judge the movie as a movie in its own right.

And you know what? It's actually not that bad.

Performances, despite the titanic talents of Sutherland and Sissy Spacek as his wife Lucy, manage to be a little mundane - not bad, just not particularly memorable. The dialogue is pretty stop-startish, too: some sentences are so pretentious as to be nauseating, but for the most part, it's not too bad.

Direction and cinematography are hugely effective: Courtney Solomon and Adrian Biddle make a formidable team, and in one hugely important area, "An American Haunting" succeeds where 99% of all modern American horror movies fail miserably: visually, it's very engaging, very stylish and very satisfying to look at. THANKFULLY, special effects are kept to a bare minimum and the fear factor is magnified because of this - the suggestiveness of the visuals creates more fear than the actual onscreen events.

The audio is excellent, too, and it's very refreshing to find a movie that uses sound effects in such a complimentary way.

So with pretty average performances, an extremely interesting premise and some beautiful and accomplished direction and audio-visuals, why does "An American Haunting" only receive three stars? The problem here is the pacing: this is a very short movie (under ninety minutes) and, because of this insane brevity, we can't form much of an attachment to any of the characters. The action comes thick and fast, but when we don't really know the characters of John Bell, Betsy or Lucy, we can't help but not feel much for their misfortunes. Comparable movies of recent years would be "The Sixth Sense" and "The Others" - but the slow pace of those movies, as well as stronger scripting, helped us to form a real attachment to the characters therein - which is definitely a problem with "An American Haunting".

Still, it's a great-looking, great-sounding film that is, in places, very engaging. It's definitely a recommendation for rental, but not for purchase: once is enough, you'd be better off researching the actual legend if you want some powerful scares.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars THis is NOT a story about a Haunting... It is a story about the loss of Innocence., November 1, 2006

By	Leah Talley "Leah Talley" (Alabama) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have read the other reviews here and feel that they are all missing the point. This movie was not meant to be a "horror" flick like the Exorcist; it is a political commentary on the hell a family goes through when the patriarch is molesting one of his daughters.

From the very beginning; in modern times; there is a hint of the true aim of the movie writer. As mother sits at her desk and begins to read an old journal written by a teacher in what appears to be the 1800's.

The first clue that this movie is NOT about a real "ghost" is the scene where Spacek's character, checking on her daughter, due to unusual noises very similar to the noises made during sex, and her husband meets her at the child's door.

Symbolic of the denial, the invisibility of the molester's actions even to the family members closest to both parties, is the scene where the girl is held 2 feet off the ground by the hair and slapped repeatedly by unseen hands. The whole family sees what is happening to the child, but CAN NOT (or refuses) to see the hands that are committing the abuse.

In order to "show" the audience the horror a family of incest goes through this director & writer uses a poltergeist to get his message across in what I feel is a brilliant stroke of genius. Yes there are a lot of scenes borrowed from movies like The Entity (a GREAT film if you can get it) Emily Rose; the Exorcist; et al... but they were put in the movie I feel, to entice a larger audience. I mean would you rather see a horror show or a movie about incest?

A few other points: The female child ghost the daughter plays with is in my opinion, symbolic of the girls lost innocence. You can also assume that the age of that ghost would be the age of the daughter when her trauma began at the hands of her father.

At one point Spacek is sitting out on her porch and the "entity" whispers to her "You know what is happening" (or words to that affect) and Spacek's memory flashes upon all the clues she was given all along.

The final scene is modern day; another daughter with the beginnings of her own haunting is leaving to visit her father for the weekend. The Mother watches them drive away, enters the house, and the two ghosts tell her to do something to stop it! That mother got the message... we can only assume she succeeds.

- - - - -

It is interesting to note that many poltergeist "hauntings" are surrounding adolescent girls; MANY of those girls have been molested. There aren't that many cases on record, but the few that are have similar characteristics.

Over all I thought this was an outstanding screenplay, and a very artful way of introducing terrifying subject matter, opening the movie up to a much larger audience.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars An American Mess, August 10, 2007

By	TRFB - See all my reviews

Terribly put together, this movie doesn't deliver in any area. The only jumps I experienced was the synchronized music with the hand-out-of-no-where-on-the-shoulder routine. I won't spoil the movie in case you do decide to rent it, just don't buy it. However, I'll tell you why I didn't like it. The direction of the movie was extremely disjointed. Most of the time you are thrown around in flashbacks, and flashforwards, that you get lost. You wonder, "Now, did that just happen? Or is it going to happen? Or is it happening?" When you wonder through the film like that, it's pretty frustrating.

The acting was great. The actors portrayed their characters very well. It's just the story AND the directing and editing.

The end of the story and the real reason why this is all happening to them is such a let down. The bad part is they don't reveal what's happening until the very, very end and by that time you have already wasted 75 minutes of an 80 minute movie!!! What a rip off.

If you like movies about hauntings and how it's linked to a story, I HIGHLY recommend "The Changeling" with George C. Scott. It's an old movie. I think in the 70's or 80's, but, it's a MUCH better film than this one. I recommend you DON'T buy this movie, but if you must see it. See it for free on cable. Don't waste your money.