Product Details

• Actors: Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, Rachel Hurd-Wood, James D'Arcy, Matthew Marsh
• Directors: Courtney Solomon
• Writers: Courtney Solomon, Brent Monahan
• Producers: Simon Franks, Zygi Kamasa, Robert Little, Lawrence Steven Meyers, Julien Remillard
• Format: Color, Dolby, NTSC, Widescreen
• 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
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Lionsgate
• DVD Release Date: October 24, 2006
• Run Time: 83 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (165 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000HC2LFI
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #99,991 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "An American Haunting (Unrated Edition)" on 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...

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 47 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

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. Read more ›

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Stylish Shivvers/Shakey History October 31, 2006

By William R. Hancock

Format:DVD

"An American Haunting" is a film that can be evaluated to two levels; one, as a movie...an exercise in visual storytelling...with a beginning, a middle, and an end...and with rationales and explanations for what transpires in the course of its storyline; and , secondly, as a recounting of an historical event, with the evaluation being on how close to the known facts and "truths" of that event the movie story adheres to.

As a movie, "An American Haunting" (based on a NOVEL; Brent Monahan's "The Bell Witch-An American Haunting") works rather well. Exquisitely photographed in Romania (doubling for early 18th century Tennessee) by Adrian Biddle, the film is replete with stunning tracking(some of this in the frenetic style of "The Evil Dead")and pan work, and some steadicam revolving shots that are nothing short of marvelous. The lighting is sumptuously atmospheric and all the other technical contributions, from editing, sound, sound effects,special effects, etc., are first rate. It has been said by some that this film has a lot of the look and feel of "Sleepy Hollow", and I must concur there
and state that this says a lot for "Haunting", since "Sleepy Hollow's" cinematic structure was superb.

The acting performances in this film are superb as well. Donald Sutherland is terrific as the breaking-down-by-the-day John Bell, Sissy Spacek grounds it all stoically as mother Lucy, and Rachel Hurd-Wood is excellent as the put-upon by "something" Betsy Bell, the primary focus of the action. All other cast members deliver solidly in their own roles as well.

The movie story is told in flashback as a modern mother, a Bell descendant, reads over a old manuscript that retells the story of the 1817-1820 poltergeist manifestation.... The tale takes us back to when prosperous Tennessee farmer John Bell is taken to a church-council court over usury and swindling by a local woman, Kate Batts, who has a reputation for...maybe...being a witch of sorts. Bell is acquited of the land swindle charges, but judged guilty and reprimanded over the usury.
Kate Batts is not satisfied with this outcome and lays a curse upon he and his household. Or so she says.

Subsequently things start going weird and wild for the Bell family, with attacks by an invisible entity on daughter Betsy, the predations of a mysterious black wolf, and a string of telekinetic terrors on the family in general. The story line depicts the breakdown and death of John Bell (they have a "reason" for it...and a depiction of it...both taken from Monahan's novel rather than real-life) and the subsequent "lifting" (seemingly) of the curse. It then jumps back into the present and ends with the suspicion of a new "Kate" flare-up beginning...for the same reason the screenplay alledges/insinuates for the original incidents.
The storyline goes full circle and ends on as threatening a note as it began with. Overall, a well-told tale. A nice, shivvery fright-fest, full of chills and free of over-the-top gratuitous blood and guts. And quite recommended by this reviewer.

But how close to the truth of the real-life incident is the movie story?
The answer? SOMEWHAT. The time period is right, the setting is right,the costuming and weaponry, and the OVERALL accounting of events as well...although considerably "time-compressed" to keep the flow of the story going. The stuff that is not true is the "Church-Court" hearing at the beginning wherein Bell was "cursed" by Batts(no such thing happened, Bell and Batts just had a long-standing fued over a business transaction...Kate Batts's name got dragged into the issue when the poltergeist started calling itself "Kate").

The black wolf is a fiction, as is the chase through the woods in the coach, the coachwreck, and the flight through the woods on horseback with the wolf in pursuit. (In fact, the "wolf" element is a spin on the first recorded incident OF the Bell Witch Infestation...wherein John Bell was walking through his cornfield one day and saw something "with the body of a dog and the head of a rabbit" that he shot at to no avail). In the novel and movie script, something with the body of a dog and head of a rabbit would look ludicrous, so this mystery varmint got "transformed" into a black wolf instead. The little-girl phantom is a "cook-up" as well. And nowhere in this film are the little boys slapped and harassed, which WAS the case in real life. Betsy Bell was the PRIMARY focus of the harassment for a long time, but in real life "Kate's" animosities got quite spread around. The fact that the boys are NOT shown as being victimized in the film is because to do so would mitigate AGAINST the "reason" the filmmakers introduce later on to "explain" the manifestation.

Also a fiction (based on pure, unsupported supposition by the book's author), is the film's "true reason" for the poltergeist attack. This
rationale is extrapolated from the "American" notion of the origin of the phenomenon, which theorizes that there is a telekinetic projection from the unconscious mind of a stressed or disturbed individual...usually a pubescent female...that causes all such events. The British/European interpretation is more that stress and emotional strife (from any number of sources, including the rigors of puberty) can create energies that "low spirit entities" can utilize to manifest poltergeist activity. They base this on the fact that several notable poltergeist manifestations have involved no pubescent females whatsoever. Or anything else observably sexual in nature. Author Monahan obviously used this one theorized interpretation to "juice" his novel (somewhat with our present-day agenda concerns regarding child molestation), and the filmmakers followed suit because what works in literature with the public generally works in cinema as well...and sex ALWAYS sells.

In truth, however, in no records ANYWHERE is there anything that indicates ANY kind of "funny business" between farmer Bell and his daughter. No suggestion of such appears anywhere, not even through insinuation. This supposed "trigger" for the Bell Witch seige comes purely from the imagination of Brent Monahan and nowhere else. As a story device it works, and it works WELL...but in legalese it "assumes 'facts' not in evidence". ( It might be of interest to know, though, that while there was, as stated above, NO mention of "monkey business" between father and daughter to be found in any contemporary commentaries on this matter, the same can NOT be said about schoolmaster Richard Powell
...played in the movie by James D'Arcy. The movie plays Powell as the dashing "secret admirer" of Betsy Bell, a hero-figure who works to aid the family...and the covert object of his affections...in ridding themselves of the "Bell Curse". But some researchers of this case say that depiction may not be accurate at all; that there was plenty of talk that Master Powell, much older than Betsy Bell, rumoured a divorced man from another state, had a "yen" for the "young stuff" and Betts was the best looker around. These researchers say, talk was, that Master Powell himself might have dabbled in the "Black Arts" far more than Kate Batts ever did, and that he possibly set this "entity" loose on the Bells to give himself a "foot in the door" with them, to make him seem more of someone they could depend on in a crisis...as John Bell was suspicious of Powell's ongoing interest in Betsy. This interpretation would suggest that Kate Batts was "framed" and Powell was the true sorcerous culprit.
In the end, in this scenario, John Bell got eliminated, Powell got Betsy, the family and community got largely hoodwinked, and Kate Batts "took the fall" for it all as a "patsy". Is this scenario anymore provable than the made-up book/movie one that makes John an incestuous child molester? No , but it at least demonstrates that there WAS another alternative possibility out there.)

Still and all, we have a good movie here and that is what ultimately matters. Enjoy it for the great acting jobs it contains, the moody sounds and scenics, the great period costuming and make-up work, and the goose bumps it provides along the way.

Recommended. Read more ›

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Dutch Colonial never looked so bad February 15, 2007

By J from NY VINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

I've never heard of the "Bell Witch" before, and this movie didn't really get me interested enough to care. Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek must have needed a payday real bad to appear in this clunker: parts of it are so unintentionally funny that they should cut and spliced into the next "Scary Movie" they make.

The director, I guess, didn't realize that a lot of people have seen that movie "The Exorcist". (Remember? With Linda Blair? Oh yeah!) The scene that was bust-a-gut-laugh-till-you-vomit was when the girl is picked up by her hair--you can actually see a wire or something for a minute--and dangled in the air. It looked so unbelievably fake that I began to see this more as a comedy than anything else. Is the entity so mad that it wants to glue the hair of young girls together (maybe a deleted scene has her waking up covered in spitballs).

The ending, however, and what is implied about Sutherland's character is not one bit funny and struck me as unnecessarily morbid; also, the performances and general plotline before can't support an issue as serious as incest or child abuse. I guess at some point this was so obviously a clunker to everyone in the crew that the decision was made

to throw something really sick into the plotline. It didn't save the movie.

The only creepy scene is the ending.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Stop Your Crying Courtney - Your Film Is Not That Good February 11, 2007

By TOL

Format:DVD

I am so bothered by this DVD, that I don't even know where to begin. So let's start with zero stars and go from there.

Starting with the film itself: Decent acting all around. Decent special effects. Some nice camera work and cinematography. All in all, sets the right mood and delivers a polished output. +1 star for that.

Now, for the script: Just awful. There was no plot to speak of. The same scene was repeated over and over again with little to no variation on the theme. The big "surprise" ending was completely anti-climactic because the characters were never developed enough for you to care one way or the other. Overall, just an absolutely boring story and an even worse script to boot. No points here.

Finally, let's move to the special features: I can appreciate the way that director Courtney Solomon tries to be cutting edge by breaking away from the traditional director commentary and launching into a tirade against Hollywood. But, c'mon man. This was just ridiculous. In some ways, it's worth renting the movie just to see it for yourself. But, to summarize, he sits in a car with an unknown woman by his side and proceeds to bash movie critics and the entire film industry in general. He goes on to tell us how he planted his own reviews, or, worse, how he countered those that he felt were not "legitimate" (defined, I'm sure, as those reviews that did not agree with his own self-inflated opinion of this movie). And then he goes on to talk about how evil all movie critics are and how they can all essentially be bought. If this is true, why did the movie get such poor reviews? Since he obviously spent all sorts of money hiring his own internet crawlers, maybe he should have spent a few extra dollars to buy off a critic or two.... I wonder if he would have said any of this stuff if any of those same critics had actually liked his movie. I hate hypocritical garbage from director's like this. Critics are worthless if they pan you, but they're Gods if they actually like your movie. Let's face it, movie critics represent the audience. Their purpose is to help us to make informed buying decisions. And, nine times out of ten, they do just that. All in all, his ranting and raving just confirmed that the movie we just watched actually did stink. And the fact that he had nothing of substance to tell us about its creation, further confirms that fact.

The one piece of worthy advice that Solomon does give us, I happen to agree with: Let the audience decide whether or not they like the movie. Well, judging by the reviews on this site - it looks like they decided.

For me, 1-star is all I could give. Read more ›