American Haunting... and no sign of Derek Accorah ! (An American Haunting (DVD))

Member Name: SRowlands

Product:	An American Haunting (DVD)
Date:	01/05/06 (400 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some genuinely scary moments

Disadvantages: Horror fans will feel let down

"American Haunting" begins in the present day, with a terrified young girl being pursued through snowy woodland - the subject of her fear is unknown. She stumbles, but quickly returns to her feet and continues running towards her house. As she reaches it, she runs upstairs into her bedroom, slamming and locking the door behind her. The door violently shakes, and the door handle twists rapidly as the mysterious horror that lurks behind the door desperately tries to get into the room.
After some initial shocks and jumps, the scene changes to the girl's mother, who is reading a journal that her daughter found in the attic. This journal is from the early 1800's, and was written by John Bell Jr.

The movie then goes back to Red River, Tennessee, in the 1800's - the date of the journal - and to the lives of the, then happy, Bell family.
John Bell (Donald Sutherland) is the father of the family, and a wealthy landowner. He is standing before a panel of church leaders, accused of overly profiting from a loan and land sale. Whilst found guilty, he is told he can keep the profits. The victim is known throughout the community, and many believe that she practices witchcraft - so when she promises that bad times will fall upon the Bell family, they become slightly concerned.
Before long, strange things begin to occur to John's daughter Betsy Bell (Rachel Hurd-Wood), and the family begin to wonder if the threats were real...

My attention was drawn to this movie by the very scary and well edited trailer that was shown on television prior to the movies release. Both the main stars of this film have previously been in highly respected films in the horror genre - Donald Sutherland in "Don't Look Now" and Sissy Spacek was, of course, "Carrie".
Spacek portrays John Bell's wife really well, with the emotions of a worried mother very believable. Sutherland, however, is now looking his age, and this is also reflected in his acting. It is sometimes difficult to understand what he is saying - he reminded me a lot of Oliver Reed in his latter years. Despite this, it does actually suit the character he is trying to portray.
Rachel Hurd-Wood is a young British actress, who's only previous role was that of Wendy in the adaptation of "Peter Pan". This role should have been challenging for her - Betsy Bell undergoes a huge range of emotions from adolescent infactuation and playful teenager to that of a horibly tormented and scared victim of an invisible entity. To her credit, Wood's performance made it look as though she acheived this character with apparent ease and as a result the character of Betsy Bell is one of the strongest performances in this movie.

The film is directed by Courtney Solomon, who's only other film, "Dungeons and Dragons" was awful ! That was six years ago, back in 2000, so it's reassuring to see that he has learnt from that experience ! The film is very well directed and shot, aided by the fantastic woodland and countryside scenery that Romania (where the movie was shot) had to offer.

"An American Haunting" is a modern ghost story set in historic times, and this in itself works well. The scenes where Betsy or her father are being shaken and attacked by the invisible force are scary, and there are plenty of "jumpy" moments in the film too - often accompanied by loud noises. Despite this, I felt let down by the film. Perhaps, partly due to the fact that horror is my favourite genre of movie, the movie had nothing really new to offer. Scenes of possession or ghostly attacks have been seen countless times before and, quite often better than in this movie. The movie also has numerous flashback scenes that, whilst explain the background to events, sometimes assume the cinemagoer to have very short memories or unable to think for themselves.
As the film nears it's final scenes, pieces of the jigsaw come together, and it is here when I felt most let down. As the movie was "a true story, based upon the most documented haunting in American history", I felt the movie would have been best left with an unexplained ending rather than the conclusion that was made.

Needless to say, this film will affect different people in different ways - those who are easily scared and hate horror films will not enjoy this film. Gore fanatics will be disappointed - virtually all the movie's horror relies on dark shadows, unseen forces and psycological terror. There will be others, the "Most Haunted" fans, who will look at this film as an actual account of a haunting. General movie fans will no doubt enjoy the films, whilst people in the catergory that I fall into, the "Horror fans" will be somewhat disappointed. "An American Haunting" isn't a bad film... it just didn't live up to my expectations.

The movie is in cinemas now, Certificate 15.

Summary: A movie adaptation of American's most documented haunting