An American Haunting: Movie & DVD Review (2006)

(Originally published 2006)

Courtney Solomon’s new horror movie, "An American Haunting," is more like “An American Hanging.” It slips a big noose of banality around its audience's necks and then tightens the rope until unconsciousness sets in.

That it doesn’t take long to do so is either best news I can share or the worst, depending on your point of view.

There is no reason to care about this movie. To say that it's rotten gives it more energy than it deserves. It suggests that the film leaves a mark, which it doesn't. What comes closer to the truth is that the movie is barely there. It defines vapidity. It's all smoke and no mirrors, with no payoff, no point. It would be nice to say that it has no raison d’etre, but that would just insult the French.

Based on Brent Monahan’s book, “The Bell Witch: An American Haunting,” which is inspired by a true story, the film stars Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland as Lucy and John Bell. They are common folk from 19th-century Tennessee who are jarred out of this world and into another when John angers a neighbor, Kate Batts (Gaye Brown), over a land claim.

Since Kate might be a witch, it likely is she who laid the Bells flat with a curse that corrupts their homelife. Indeed, daughter Betsy (Rachel Hurd-Wood), with her bee-stung lips and blank eyes, becomes possessed by a demon, which has its way with her in scenes that are more humorous than haunting.

This is a movie that literally slaps its characters around with the invisible hands of a demon and then figuratively does the same to its audience. The lameness of its execution, the absolute absence of any kind of horror, the constant screeching of sound effects, the jittery use of handheld cameras, and how Solomon sandbags his supremely talented cast with this sort of crap, is bewildering.

In the end, what sticks is that this film is called "An American Haunting," which is ironic since right now, American filmmakers have mostly forgotten how to do horror well. Currently this is the worst film of the year, though others might trump it as 2006 unfolds.

Grade: F