An American Haunting (2006)

Great start, lame finish.

Unfortunately, this video is a typical case of the industry's determination to turn every story into a sexually-repressed nightmare. Historically, BTW, Tennessee did not admit to any ghostly crime on this isssue; that is pure fabrication on the part of the movie studio. The Bell Witch is a mystery, for sure, but not along he lines of what is recounted here.

The performances are decent, Spacek and Sutherland particularly turning in strong performances. I found the dialogue appropriate to the period, as were the sets. As mentioned in a previous post, the special FX were kept to a minimum to enhance the level of suspense. But....

The crime at the root of the mystery is totally ludicrous (except in the perverse mindset of Hollywood). While the traditional parapsychological explanation of poltergeists (the category under which the Bell Witch incident is generally listed) is tentatively maintained, the incestuous catalyst behind angst-ridden pubescent trauma is the typically disgusting stuff of the way the lascivious work in movies today. Doubtless there is a self-congratulatory sense here of "ground-breaking" and "maverick" attitude with this film. (Hey, they even get to to slam those with religious worldviews as hypocrites. Whoa, how bold! Puleeze....) In the end, it's just so old.

Again, the beginning was very good. This only makes the ending just that much more disappointing. Just once, I'd like to enjoy a ghost movie that doesn't end up a slasher fest or sexually obsessed.

There is actually one movie I've seen that is good in this regard: "The Orphanage". Very eerie and tragic, but not without a bit of hope. Check that out instead. November 6, 2008

Great Movie

I would love to go visit this place. I think its a great movie, i loved it, it had very haunting effects, and it was amazing to see the past was also repeating inthe present. November 2, 2008

such potential...

This movie had such potential...

However it dropped the ball. Not only was it slow moving but the ending was't worth sitting through the entire movie.
October 8, 2008

The most original proposal about elusive suspense in this decade!

The ancestral horror for the unknown has always been an effective formula, used over and over since the cinema emerged.

What I most liked about this film was precisely the essential factor which differentiates it from other similar films around this well known issue. The director makes use of the camera and a fabulous illumination to create the required atmosphere in which shadows and darkness convey the spectator to contribute unconsciously of the beating tension that features it. To recreate this atmosphere means to be well conscious about the importance of the basic devices employed by the German Expressionism, the basic factor who made of Alfred Hitchcock and Jacques Tourneur the supreme exponents of the suspense along more than three decades. And finally we have to recognize the not so hidden homage to other three emblematic films of the seventies: "The Exorcist", "Don't look now" and "The omen."

A full rounded script as well as an excellent cast permits the movie goes further the average over so many other projects of major budget and promotion that simply ignored the basic premises of a suspense film.

Bravo!

September 19, 2008

One word...crap

What I disliked about this film was the fact that it was turned from a movie about a haunting into a movie about child abuse. Not what I was expecting and not what I wanted to see. September 19, 2008

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