Review - An American Haunting

An American Haunting was quite a "startling" movie . . .

. . . as a matter of fact, I was "startled" so many times that by about the 10th time, it had almost no effect on me.

To say I was disappointed would be an extreme understatement. Never have I seen a movie before that so underutilized the fantastic talent it had right there for everyone to see. I mean come on people - Donald Sutherland as John Bell and Sissy Spacek as Lucy Bell and this is the drivel you give them to recite? Although I do admit that the best portions of the film were the ones with them in it. Even drivel recited by these two screen stars sounds and looks good.

But I digress. I think what bothered me the most was that this film relied too heavily on its scare tactics. The story started out really good but just fell apart at the end. And it seemed as though the makers of this film thought that as long as they threw enough loud noises and clunking furniture around we would forget that they had actually started to weave us a storyline. The whole Kate Batts (Gaye Brown) aspect actually made a lot of sense and was quite interesting until the stupid, contrived ending was laid out. And one other thing - where are we supposed to get the idea that this is a film about possession? I just didn't get that idea during any part of this film. I mean no one was possessed. Sure they were thrown around and all but that was about it.

Yes, as you can glean from my ranting, this film made me a bit angry but it was because I expected it to be so very good. I was let down and now I am pouty-pants. But all was not lost - there were a few good scares in there. Also I really did enjoy the acting of Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek - even Rachel Hurd-Wood as young Betsy Bell did a decent job. I can't blame the actors here, it was the story that really stunk or rather just the tail end of it.

The atmosphere was also pretty creepy and well done. So like I said, not a total loss. I would probably just advise to wait until An American Haunting comes to video and see something else on the big screen.

An American Haunting Movie Cast and Credits

Directed by
Courtney Solomon

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Brent Monahan book
Courtney Solomon

Cast (in credits order)
Donald Sutherland .... John Bell
Sissy Spacek .... Lucy Bell
Rachel Hurd-Wood .... Betsy Bell
James D'Arcy .... Richard Powell
Matthew Marsh .... James Johnston
Thom Fell .... John Jr.
Sam Alexander .... Joshua Gardner
Gaye Brown .... Kate Batts
Zoe Thorne .... Theny Thorne
Miquel Brown .... Chloe
Shauna Shim .... Anky

rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Lila Bata-Walsh .... Little Girl
Howard Rosenstein .... Father