An American Haunting

Review by Jason Donner

I can't believe it. Hollywood has taken the interesting and scary "real life" story of the Bell Witch and completely ruined it. How could you ruin a movie like this? It's near impossible! The story is scary enough!

Oh, but they do. This movie absolutely destroys legend with unnecessary embellishment and stupid PG-13 horror movie clichés.

An American Haunting also has one of the stupidest twist endings I've ever seen in my life. This movie is amateurish, silly, annoying, poorly written, unscary, and a waste of good time and money.

For some reason, although set in the 1800's, An American Haunting begins in the 21st century. Why? Who the hell knows. It serves as a bookend to the above mentioned stupid twist that comes at the end of the movie, but other than that... it's useless so I won't even waste my time with it.

In the 1800's, the Bell Family of Tennessee began getting tormented by an unseen force. In real life this entity - which became known as The Bell Witch - tormented one daughter while it gave gifts to another. It would scream at night, bang on the walls, and even poisoned the father of the family, John Bell. At his funeral, it was said that the Bell Witch laughed and sang, disrupting the service.

This haunting got to be so active and famous that Andrew Jackson, the future president of the United States, stayed a night in the house and challenged the witch. It's said that his carriage wheels refused to turn until the witch let them continue towards the cottage.

So why am I spending so much time talking about the "real" Bell Witch as opposed to the movie version? Simple... the real version is much much more interesting.

In the movie, there is no Andrew Jackson, there is no gifts to one girl, and there is no disrupted funeral. What we do get are a progression of barely coherent scenes where a little girl gets beat up by an invisible ghost. Not to say that this by itself isn't scary, but how many times can we watch it and not get bored?

Even the stars, Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland, look bored to be in this snoozer.

Beyond the fact that An American Haunting is not in the least bit scary or entertaining for that matter, this is probably one of the more hokey and silly-looking period pieces I've ever seen. This entire movie looks fake and unconvincing... and I'm talking props and costumes here, not special effects.

An American Haunting is a gigantic wasted opportunity. The legend was fine by itself, but some overzealous screenwriter decided to put his own silly private spin on the legend and has made it a complete joke.

I am amazed at how dull the entire affair was and by the time the twist comes, the only real fright you'll feel is knowing it's too late to get a refund.