An American Haunting

May 8, 2006

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 91 min Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

There’s not a whole lot to say about An American Haunting, it’s just a decent ghost story with a less than average ending.

An American Haunting First let’s get this “based on true events” crap out of the way. The promo materials tell you the movie is based on “true” events about the only “documented” case in U.S. History where a spirit caused the death of a living person. That’s some good double-talk going on. The deal may very well be that someone was killed and the people at the time filed the equivalent of a police report saying that a ghost did it, but obviously that doesn’t exactly make it real. It’s all fiction and I know we all know it’s fiction, it just annoys me when movies try to market ghost stories as being based on fact. OK, rant over.

Back in the 1800’s a man named John Bell charged too much interest on a loan to a woman suspected of being a witch. Back in those days the local church set the limits on interest rates, and he was a couple of points over the maximum. She complained, and the church saw it her way… to a point. She got her money back, but the land she used as collateral had already been logged by Bell, and the church let him keep the profits. I’m sure their decision had nothing to do with the fact that he built the church and most of the town. Yeah, he was a rich dude. After the trial she curses Bell and his daughter (who didn’t have anything to do with it, showing that if the woman wasn’t a witch she was certainly a bitch) to a coming darkness.

Skip ahead a bit and things are starting to go bump in the night. Bell is seeing things out in the woods, his daughter is being slapped around by a poltergeist and even his friends are being tortured when they come for a visit.

(cut to The Amityville Horror in your minds.. when the spirit says “get out”, why didn’t they just freakin leave?)

The local school teacher finally points out the obvious fact to Bell that the hauntings only seem to happen in the house, so perhaps being a rather wealthy gentleman, they might want to find new living quarters. They make a break for it but as you’ve seen in the previews it doesn’t work out all that well for them.

The acting is pretty good, Donald Sutherland does a great job as John Bell and Rachel Hurd-Wood is excellent as the tortured daughter. The special effects aren’t anything special, just a bunch of stuff moving around by itself, but it’s plenty for the story. What ruins this movie is the ending. Of course I can’t tell you exactly why I feel this way, but in general what happens is they put forth a possible explanation for this “true” story that I found a bit too easy.

Wait for DVD on this one. It won’t be any better at home, but at least you’ll just have used a Netflix slot to watch it and won’t be out the $10 movie ticket.

Posted by John | Filed Under 2 Stars, Donald Sutherland, Drama, Horror, James D'Arcy, Matthew Marsh, PG-13, Rachel Hurd-Wood, Sissy Spacek, Theatrical