“An American Haunting” (After Dark Production)
Frighteningly Bad
Supposedly there is only one American death ascribed to the supernatural and this death occurred in Red River, Tennessee back in the late 1800’s. The new film “An American Haunting” concerns this event. Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek and Rachel Hurd – Wood star in this movie and all of their talent and efforts go to waste. The film is frighteningly bad.
Sutherland and Spacek play John and Lucy Bell. John is a landowner who enters into a business arrangement with his neighbor Kate Batts (Gaye Brown). Batts complains about the cost of this arrangement to the church council and they find that Bell did practice usury in the transaction. Batts tells John he will regret the day he cheated her and shortly thereafter the Bell’s daughter Betsy (Hurd-Wood) begins to have nightmares.
This situation goes from bad to worse with Betsy suffering from injuries inflicted by a spirit that comes into her room. Eventually John is also attacked by the spirit. The family tries to have it cast out but eventually tragedy ensues.
All of this sounds frightening but it isn’t. Linda Blair’s character in “The Exorcist” had it rough. Betsy Bell’s possession and attack is a walk in the park compared to Blair’s. Plus you never get the feeling Betsy is scared by any of this. If so wouldn’t she have moved out of the room where the spirit attacks her After each attack life seems to go on as usual.
There is also some attempt to connect these occurrences in the past to a present day situation. This is just a distraction to the other events in the film and has no relevance whatsoever. Or at least it was never made clear what the connection was.
Spacek and Sutherland are excellent actors and it is a real waste of their talent to be starring in a cheaply made and muddled scripted movie like this. It is embarrassing to watch them try to make some sense out of the storyline and to speak the wooden dialogue with conviction,
The film is rated PG-13 for profanity and violence.
This movie is such a disaster that you wonder how it ever got made. Everyone should avoid this loser. With movies costing an arm and a leg in admission prices you should steer clear of this one, even when it comes out on DVD.
“An American Haunting” might be better named “an American tragedy” for that is what it is – a tragedy in moviemaking and in entertainment value.
I scored “An American Haunting” a boo-boo 3 out of 10.
