Customer Reviews

An American Haunting

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(27)
2 star:		(35)
1 star:		(34)

 

 

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.

"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.

In 1817, John Bell loses some land he cleverly stole from a supposed local witch after the church told him to give it back. She still wasn't 100% happy so she cursed him and his precious daughter Betsy. Later, strange and violent occurrences begin to happen to Betsy. Then one night the whole family witnesses it and tries to ask for help from the local school teacher who quickly tries to play devil's advocate to each thing that happened. Until one day when he sees the violent and brutal attacks himself. Together the family and friends try to help Betsy through this terrible time. As they continue to help her, her father John starts to get attacked also, but from the inside. The only person they can think of who to blame is the local witch.

The first time I saw this movie was on DVD, with a group of friends (which usually makes bad scary movies better for me), and I was half gone on the sauce. Passing out here and there during the movie kind of told me it was a bad movie. But I did catch the end, which I thought I must have been dreaming it. So tonight was the first time I really got to see this movie, and I was dreading it a little. That usually means if it is even remotely good, then I will like it a little bit. It wasn't. At all. Ok, maybe I'm being a little harsh here. The beginning part of the movie was ok. The first or second attack was pretty darn good. Holding Betsy up by her hair as she gets slapped around was pretty darn freaky. This ghost was pissed off for sure. And then the little things began to grind on me. The somewhat boring story. The 1 or 2 candles lighting a whole gigantic room like it had ceiling lights. People reading in the complete dark. The stupid wolf. Donald Sutherland's Nyquil acting. The changing of color to black and white during the ghost point of view scenes. The swooping camera during the ghost point of view scenes. And the coupe de grace of it all... the twist at the end. I could not believe it was put in there. And to top it off they had to recap some of the scenes for us to let us know how it happened, which made the whole story just feel absolutely absurd.

The only things I remotely liked about this movie were three scenes. The hair pulling/slap scene, Betsy being dragged upstairs by her hair (man that ghost loved her hair), and the carriage flip. That carriage flip was awesome no matter how dumb the reason for it flipping was. I almost feel bad for giving this movie one star due to the fact at how cool that flip was.

In the end I would highly recommend skipping this movie. The only reason I would think of to even see this movie would be to appreciate even the decent horror from other movies that Hollywood churns out at us.

P.S. - They actually used CGI to make a letter look really old. Yep you read that right. Close to the beginning, in 1998 or whatever, the mom sees a letter and opens it. While she is holding it, you can see the outline of her fingers on the letter look like one of those green screen moments. This was within probably the first 4 minutes. Ridiculously lazy film making.

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.

I usually don't fall asleep during Horror movies but this one bored me to death.After reading The Bell Witch An American Haunting compiled by Brent Monahan,I realize they could have made it really scary.They took some lines verbatim from the book but they left out too much of the truly horrifying.The book put together by Brent Monahan is an old manuscript of the strange events witnessed by Richard Powell,the local school teacher at the time in Adams,Tennessee.Brent Monahan kept this transcript intact with no literary changes.It is exceptionally scary!Hopefully someone will remake the movie.I should have rented this one before I bought it.

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.

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.

I grew up in Springfield, Tennessee, the county seat of Robertson County only a few miles from Adams and the Bell Witch Cave. So I am very familiar with the haunting of the Bell Witch. As a child, one of the bravest things you could do, was to stand in front of a mirror and repeat seven times "I am not afraid of the Bell Witch". Of course this was easy to do in the light of day and we all did it. But, boy did we start to tremble as darkness fell. I have a feeling a lot of Robertson County children shook under their bedcovers over this, not to mention the Carrs Creek Critter, but hey, I digress. As for the movie, of course I was looking forward to it and I watched it last night. I do feel since it is the week of Halloween it was most appropriate. I actually enjoyed the movie for what it was. I have to say, it sure does not let up on the haunting, poltergeist, slapping, tormenting, screaming, things going bump in the night at all. It was chocked full of that and that kept it interesting to me. All in all, I would have to say it was an average movie wtih NO gore at all. Just old fashioned haunting. Not great but not terrible either. The end shocked me. I moved away from Tennessee years ago so I know nothing about the school master's diary being found in 1998 that tells what really caused the haunting and so I have no idea if this was Hollywood's version of what happened or not. But I would close in saying this is an ok movie to rent especially during Halloween. But two things did bother me. With the exception of the actor that played the schoolmaster, none of the actors used or maintained a Southern Accent. They would have it in one scene but not the next, or even for one sentence then not again. Sissy Spacek was the worst at this and I thought she had one in Carrie. The second thing that bothered me is.. did the actress that played Betsy, Rachel Hurd Wood or Ward, i believe is her name, have to do any screaming for the screen test?. I believe she has the weirdest female scream I have ever heard. Oh well. ENJOY.

William Hancock's review gives excellent reasoning as to the downfalls of this movie so I will not go into any of that here. Suffice to say, this is a work of fiction, influenced by 'true events'.
That being said, I gave this movie 3 stars because I felt it had some merit. Sutherland and Spacek are both strong actors. The roles they play here are the parent roles which I felt the acted out well. I was a bit miffed at the language use in this movie though. I don't believe they used the same words and/or phrases that we use today, which is what took place here. Maybe the producer wanted to make the movie more palatable to the current movie watcher? Not sure. But the actual story wasn't followed, so why should the verbage be any different?
What doesn't make sense here is that 'Betsy' was terrorized by the ghost first. Physically abused. The ending suggests that the 'ghost' and 'curse' were a result of her abuse by her father. If that were the case, why would she suffer the wrath of the haunting? Doesn't make sense.
The final ending also leads one to believe that a sequel is on the way. I certainly hope not. I do like a good ghost story, however I don't consider this to be one of them... way too many flaws. I would hate to see them continue this saga for gratuitous measures only.
There are much much better ghost stories out there that will give true chills. 'The Haunting'(original version), 'The Others' and 'The Changeling' are three top notch ghost stories. One would think with so much stellar quality scripts and such out there that hollywood would take heed and produce something really, truly scary.
Good qualities of the movie are that the filming is good for the most part. (They really need to stop using the quick frame and change to black and white and back to color technique... really overdone). The sets look great as do the costumes. The acting was very good although they had a weak script to work with.
Three stars all in all... but mostly because I think they churned this one out to be in time for halloween... not because they were serious.

An American Haunting, which is more suspense than horror grabs your attention at the begining, but if you don't pay attention. It does seem to throw you off. I paid attention and understood everything. Its jumpy,suspensful parts were what made the movie creepy. If you liked The Exrosisim Of Emily Rose. There is a good chance that you might like this movie.
It is about a family who was living a happy life. But the father did something wrong. It had something to do with not paying this lady money. SHe tells the father(Donald Sutherland). I will curse you and your family forever. Mostly your daughter. Then strage events occur on the daughter, only because one of the family members is holding a terrible secret.

I liked it and recommend it to anyone who loves horror movies as much as I do. Go see it. But, PAY ATTENTION!!!

Check out all my other reveiws!!!!! :-]