An American Haunting
Horror movies are a genre that I never explore. Did I also mention that I’m afraid of the dark? But I was feeling brave and confident and decided to give An American Haunting a try.
An American Haunting stars Donald Sutherland as the father John Bell and Sissy Spacek as the mother Lucy Bell. Now, the main reason I was originally so unenthusiastic about this movie is because An American Haunting is based on true events which were validated by the State of Tennessee. It’s a case of the unexplained being validated by a large institution that scared me the most. The movie is about a family that seemed to be haunted by an entity. Specifically the entity would attack the daughter Betsy Bell played by Rachel Hurd-Wood. Betsy would endure attacks of slapping, dragging, and even the occasional beating. The family blamed a local woman who was known as a witch for putting a curse on the family due to a land dispute.
The direction was clever and the writer produced a script that was very well put together and left audiences with a crafted surprise ending. Having this surprise ending is particularly refreshing, as let’s face it, now a days you can predict the ending of a story half way through a movie. This was not the case with An American Haunting as the ending was such a complete shocker that I literally changed my perspective concerning what is “horror”.
Is An American Haunting scarey stuff? I did have some moments where I covered my eyes. It was terrifying watching a girl being tortured by something you can’t physically see. When you finally get to the conclusion of the movie you will realize why she endured all that pain. Part of the impact of the film is the audience feels what Betsy Bell had gone through and most will completely understand her anguish when watching the film.
Though the story was tightly focused on Betsy Bell, the flow of An American Haunting makes the audience want to find out why these horrible events were happening to Betsy. An American Haunting isn’t like so many other horror films that simply toss up blood, screaming and scarey music onto the screen and call it a day. An American Haunting focused on those standard horror film aspects with more detail and style and, in the end, created an interesting and different twist on the horror genre. An American Haunting is not the ordinary “ghost takes over the house” story. It’s a story that is seriously like no other that this reviewer can remember.
Story A+
Acting B
Visuals A
Originality A+
Enjoyability A
Overall Grade A
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