An American Haunting

It may be an American haunting but within the first few minutes of this supernatural cinematic sledgehammer, you will see a Samara-styled ghost girl – black forelock and all. As far as I’m concerned, this is not a good thing. I’ve reached the J-horror Samara saturation point.

After that modern-day blip, we’re transported back in time to 1818 Red River, Tennessee. The story of the Bell Witch Haunting is a well known one to ghost hunters everywhere – for two whole years, the God-fearing Bell family was tormented by a capricious and cruel unseen entity – an entity that, it’s widely accepted, was the direct cause of one of the Bell’s deaths. The ghost, believed to have been sicced on the family by a local witch, was particularly fond of scaring the Bell’s youngest daughter, Betsy (Rachel Hurd-Wood). The spirit would wait till nighttime, then it would yank the covers from her bed, slap her face, drag her by her hair, and sometimes even suspend the young teen in midair as her helpless parents, John (Donald Sutherland) and Lucy (Sissy Spacek) could do nothing but stand by. Every time they tried to intercede, the torments would only grow worse.

The Bells did everything to put a halt to these horrible hauntings. John apologized to the witch; local Church members did their best to banish the demon; Betsy’s smitten schoolteacher (James D’Arcy) even tried to reason with it. It was all to no avail. Twenty-four months later, with one of the Bells dead, the hauntings suddenly ceased.

It’s a scary story. It’s been scrupulously documented and several books have been written over the years, but no one dared suppose why the hauntings happened – until now. Based upon a book that draws conclusions, An American Haunting does the same, chapter and verse. It’s an interesting approach, and while vastly superior to and more satisfying than either of the other two Bell Witch movies, this film still doesn’t quite work.

Not that it doesn’t work hard at trying to work – certainly when you employ actors of Sutherland and Spacek’s caliber, you mean to bring your A-game. First time writer/director Courtney Solomon has potential, but he’s made the mistake of putting all his eggs in one basket, and then putting those eggs in front of the camera.

More judicious hirings behind the camera might have helped An American Haunting quite a bit. The cinematography lacks any contrast at all, making for a flat, listless look when you need deep, dark shadows and punchy dimension. Editing is also essential for a film like this, where suspense is key. As it is, the repetitive nature of the two-year-long ordeal feels just like that to the audience – an ordeal.

While some of the more intense scenes depicting Betsy’s horror are quite hair-raising, the “ghost-cam” or “ghosts-eye-view” conceit (swirling imagery, color fading to black and white as the victims stare and gasp) grows as old as its shown again and again with no variation whatsoever. Hurd-Wood does her level best, accomplishing as many different looks for fear as is humanely possible. Sutherland and Spacek are believable enough as the Southern couple, but we never really get a sense of knowing them (and consequently, caring about them).

There are a couple of scenes that do work brilliantly – the 1800’s equivalent of a car case and wreck is one, wherein a mysterious presence drives a horse-drawn carriage into a tangled mess of spinning wheels and broken glass. There are also a few chilling scenes involving a stalking black wolf that was said to have bedeviled John Bell in particular.

Unfortunately, An American Haunting is not the haunting movie-going experience it could have been. The resolution is trite, and the ending scene (book-ended with the opening scene, in present day) is quite ridiculous. The legendary American tale is at three strikes on film, left with only a ghost of a chance of scaring a whole new generation.

Maybe Samara isn’t so bad, after all.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson