An American Haunting (2005)

Director Courtney Solomon
Writers Courtney Solomon
Starring Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, James D’Arcy, Rachel Hurd-Wood
Genre Revenant
Tagline Possession Knows No Bounds
Country

Talk us through it

Purportedly based on true events where the only case of death by being spooked or some such has been recorded, An American Haunting revisits 1818 Red River Tennessee where John Bell has been a very naughty Christian. Seems he loaned his next door neighbour Kathe Batts a hundred dollars at 20% interest, and got to use some of her land which he proceeded to strip of lumber. Oh, and Batts got the use of one of Bell’s slaves. As you can tell a real “Christian” community. Bell and Batts are in front of a church legal board, which decides that Bell’s interest rate is usury, but everything else is honky dory. Batts, who has a reputation as a witch, lays a curse on John and his “precious” daughter Betsy.

Talk about your retribution, John Bell is menaced by a large supernatural wolf and his health begins to fail. But the real victim here is Betsy who has violent nightmares, sees a girl who isn’t there, and who gets dragged around by her hair and repeatedly ghost slapped. We also get to hear some pretty freaky deaky ghostly voices. A movie that takes itself far too seriously ensues.

Ready to check out the Bell farm?

Review

"But it is only present on this property!” – Richard Powell

First up I guess we should take a stab at the hoary old “based on a true story” chestnut that Solomon dragged out of the fire and threw onto the screen. It might have been worthwhile actually basing the present in the year the movie was made, 2005, rather than the then future 2006. Just a thought, but it does tend to make the jury nod toward the prosecution’s case on the true nature of things. The advertising for this movie was all about “only recorded case”, “most documented”, blah, blah, blah. Well, “most documented” is slightly stretching the bounds of friendship, yep there’s a lot of books on the “Bell Witch” but with a few notable exceptions most of them are debunking any supernatural occurrences. As to the whole death by supernatural, the dude’s health was failing, the only evidence that there were any “things that go bump in the night” causation were a few eye witness accounts from overly religious and, let’s face it, hysterical family members and friends. Isolated community, church coming down hard, coming of age, join the dots people. So right here and now, as usual, I’m calling the whole “based on true events” line bollocks and am waiting on the Warrens to make some sort of fantastic claim to the contrary so we can take the piss out of them as well. Okay, enough of the real or not schlock, back to the actual movie.

An American Haunting is perhaps the most schizophrenic movie I have ever seen in my life. The whole plot is framed by a modern American mom who has a daughter who is having violent nightmares. Somehow, within the logic of the movie, this leads to mom reading a letter she discovers that was written by Lucy Bell to her daughter Betsy, which details events in and around the haunting and which also contains a glaring plot hole. The problem I have is with the flashbacks to the early 1800s that take up the majority of the film. We have a period piece, and props to the makeup and wardrobe departments for nailing that, which suffers under post MTV filming techniques. The plot rolls out like a Voorhees family member on speed; we have lightning fast cuts, weird angles, more filters and post production image manipulation than you could point a buggy at, and some pretty ambitious scene setups. Sorry, if you are making a period supernatural flick then you don’t go with modern film techniques, it simply doesn’t ring as true and takes the audience out of the movie.

I was also left wondering if Solomon hadn’t been trying for a sort of visual “Idiot’s Guide to Horror 101”. Spot the “influences” from other horror flicks and each time you see one take a shot of something strong, you won’t be making it out of this film sober. Did Michael Bay’s production company have something to do with this movie? Physical abuse handed out by a supernatural being (The Entity), countless spirit POV shots with the required filtering (The Evil Dead), long haired ghostly chick (The Ring), wolf/dog from the bowels of hell (The Omen), a slight tilt toward possession (The Exorcist), and the piece de resistance, a flipping buggy (Van Helsing). There’s going to be a whole bunch more that I either missed or didn’t jot down so have that shot glass handy.

The other thing that left me feeling slightly underdone when it came to getting my scary coin worth was the whole framing thing and the final block of the movie. Solomon takes everything else developed during the course of the movie and blows it off with a half baked “different” interpretation to the Bell haunting. Without giving too much away, the cause of the haunting was perhaps closer to home than over at the Batts hacienda of horror; what then was the purpose of the blood-stained clothing returned to the Bells? This all smacks of Solomon having read modern theories explaining poltergeist activity, and quite frankly wouldn’t be in tune with early 19th century views on adolescent psychology. Once again we can point a huge finger at the “based on” marketing line. Solomon ties both his historic account and current events together with the plot point, but to be honest I was left at best bemused by the sudden change of tack the movie took.

There’s a hint of cynicism and sleight of hand going down in An American Haunting that really got me grinding my teeth; it’s all to do with the character of Richard Powell (John D’Arcy). Powell is the man of science, he must be as he teaches the kids, and as such doesn’t believe in the supernatural even when he’s knee deep in ectoplasm. Powell of course stands in for the seventy percent of the audience who don’t believe they are watching anything based on real facts, while the other thirty percent are already thumping their bibles like demented teens checking a porn magazine under the covers at night. Solomon is attempting to say that people won’t believe what is put before their eyes, via Powell’s refusal to believe in the face of the strongest evidence, but fails to take into account that a movie by its very nature isn’t factual. We don’t know what happened on the Bell farm way back when, but I’ve got a strong idea that it was probably Betsy getting her first period and the local Bumpkins blaming hobgoblins rather than it being a revenant. Solomon is attempting to pull a fast one here but is caught out by modern cynical audiences, we simply don’t believe early 19th century hysterical accounts proved anything factual.

There were a few things I grooved to during the course of An American Haunting, though not enough to save the movie in my opinion. The whole escape by buggy had me grooving along, especially when our resident revenant went all Pazuzu on our arses with the chase; if only they had thought to get James Earl Jones reprising the locust suit again. The gradual Exorcist style build-up during the first act was appreciated, though it seemed like Solomon decided to jettison it in the second act. And some of the night-time manifestations hit the spot like a brought thing. So yes, I did get some gravy on an otherwise tasteless meal.

Donald Sutherland (John Bell) and Sissy Spacek (Lucy Bell) pretty much carried the movie and were doing the best they could with perfunctory roles. Once again Spacek shows her class while Sutherland shows he can still walk the walk with the best of them. Newcomer Rachel Hurd-Wood (Betsy) shone on for me. She had both the vulnerable and innocent thing going down, and presented the best supernaturally set-upon performance since Jennifer Carpenter wowed us in The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Hurd-Wood is someone to keep an eye on considering the current stock of young Hollywood actresses is going down the neck of a bottle or up various noses, looking at you Lindsay Lohan.

T&A doesn’t get a look in. It’s a period piece set in a hysterical religious community, and there’s not really any eye candy for anyone to scope out.

Caine Davidson laid down the soundtrack for us and hit one out of the ball park. The score was pretty creepy and the sound design was high on the scary side of things. Davidson’s soundscape matched Solomon’s visuals; the real culprit here was a script that needed a hell of a lot more work than the one used to shoot the movie from.

Summary Execution

An American Haunting, while atmospheric, fails the test of being a good movie or even a good horror movie. The framing device doesn’t work, another example of Blair Witch-like rushing the final scene, the historic context is poured down the sink like a bottle of post MTV shenanigans, and the whole character of Richard Powell stuck out like dog’s balls. Even veterans Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek didn’t have enough meat on the bone to pull this one out of the quagmire it finds itself in. I was left bemused at best with the hype the movie has attracted, was there a different cut in North America? One of the worst ghost stories I have watched this year, no was not overly impressed.

With production costs of $14 million and a teen friendly rating, An American Haunting would have been expected to deliver a decent profit via cinema release. $16.3 in North America and $12.1 internationally points to the profit coming from post release DVD, Blu-Ray (see we’re hip with modern technology), and other post cinema avenues.

I have no hesitation in saying give An American Haunting a miss. The movie is a cynical money grabber, note the title is North American friendly, and offers nothing new to either dark genre fans or general movie fans. A by-the-numbers effort to dial in the teen audiences that failed miserably even with those demographics who will go and see any old shite if the corporate advertising is pervasive. Anyone who knows me will know my opinion on the whole “based on a true story” (Andrew Jackson notwithstanding); to summarise, it’s been built up to sell some books. If you really must see a haunted house flick then try the original The Haunting, the current movie failed to haunt my dreams.

ScaryMinds Rates this movie as ...

  Another "based on a true story" farce that doesn't convince.