miles670 For the most part it's an average haunted house movie with decent actors but that ending actually made me annoyed at having wasted over an hour and a half of my life on this. Remember that feeling you got when you watched the last episode of 'Lost'? Well that's the feeling right there, only at least in this case in exchange for less wasted time.So ghosts hurt and rape a girl, they do this in front of witnesses whilst the girl levitates etc. The ghosts also take a a tree out to keep the girl from leaving the home. They also hurt her father.Despite all of this it turns our that her father was the one hurting her, raping etc. The twist at the ending I think was supposed to be that the girl created the ghost herself to protect her from her father. This is the same ghost that for most of the movie is beating the crap out of her.Not to mention the fact that multiple witnesses watched the girl being raped by thin air. Only for the directors to seemingly forget this later on, no guys nobody saw her being raped by a ghost, it was her father! It was just a trick of the light kept us from seeing him.Disjointed, contradictory and very much not worth wasting your time on. It's a good job we have piracy, there was a time you'd have to pay to watch this rubbish.

SanteeFats The acting in this movie is not bad but what else would you expect with Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek in it? The real problem that I have with this film is it purports to be based on a real event. About the only things that are real here are the characters names. Some one decided to make John Bell the nasty rapist father. While common enough even back then I imagine, there is nothing to support this libelous assertion. In the actual legend the spirit is around for several years before Bell dies. This spirit becomes more and more understandable until it can be heard reciting sermons, scripture, bawdy songs, etc. It supposedly even carried on conversations with people. If that had occurred why wouldn't it have said something about the assaults? In this movie it is Betsy who is suppose to be projecting the spirit as a protest for the rapes. The end of the movie is a joke. As a later day relative reads the suddenly found letter about the events in 1817 her daughter is picked up by daddy for visitation. Then as they drive away the spirit appears and she goes running after the departing car. This is where this movie ends. If not for the really good acting I would have given it a three.

Paul Andrews An American Haunting is set in Red River in Tennessee in 2006 where a teenage girl named Jane (Isabelle Almgren-Doré) has been having violent nightmares, her mother Elizabeth (Susan Almgren) sits down to read a diary found in their attic. The diary dates from 1817 & was written by a woman named Lucy Bell (Sissy Spacek) who lived in the house with her husband John Bell (Donald Sutherland) & their two teenage children Betsy (Rachel Hurd Wood) & John Jr. (Thom Fell). The diary tells of the terrible events which have become known as the 'The Bell Witch Haunting' & begins as John Bell is excommunicated from the local Church after being found guilty of breaking Church law by charging 20% interest on a small loan to a woman named Kathe Batts (gaye Brown) who is known to be a witch & who places a curse upon John Bell & his entire family. Soon after John's daughter Betsy is attacked at night in her bedroom by an evil ghost, the attacks continue which threaten the whole family...This British, Romanian, Canadian & American co-production was written, produced & directed by Courtney Solomon whose only other directorial credit is the much derided board game adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons (2000), An American haunting is supposedly based on a true story which this film apparently represents reasonably well but there's very little evidence to support anything in this film or the events it's based upon being true. In fact the main inspiration for An American Haunting was the novel 'The Bell Witch: An American Haunting' by Brett Monahan first published in 1995 & was clearly written & sold as a work of fiction, not fact so that just about says all you need to know how historically factual this is. To be fair to An American Haunting it's not the worst film I have ever seen, generally speaking I don't like haunted house horror flicks that much as I find they are all the same with doors opening & closing on their own, light turning on & off & loud noises coming from dark corners that usually turn out to be Cat's or windows banging & offer little variety but An American Haunting is well made & I liked the 19th Century period setting. There's a sudden twist ending which is actually a little difficult to understand as it is in the film & I admit I had to look on the IMDb's FAQ page & have it laid out for me but it does actually make sense to me now I have had it explained, it's not the greatest twist ending & it comes from nowhere as there's no real reference or hint to it anytime before but the effort is appreciated anyway. Unfortunately the script is rather bare, it goes from one loud ghostly attack to another in quick succession without really stopping to let the story develop, the character's to react to what's going on & besides the ghostly encounters there's very little else to the film beside the final twist.Available in a theatrical PG version an an Unrated cut that significantly alters the plot, much of the text from the start & end of the film is removed distancing itself from the true story claims & there are lots of changes throughout although there is no extra violence or gore, I have based my review on the Unrated version which appears to the the most widely available. The film looks nice with impressive production design, apparently the house where the film is set is an almost identical replica of the actual Bell residence recreated from historic photo's. There's lots of CGI here, shots of Betsy being dragged across her room, lifted up & slapped around with ridiculously overdone sound effects set the tone for the entire style of the film as director Solomon has no idea how to build suspense or tension & he has never heard of the word subtle either. Every other scene seems to be an attack or a cheap scare or an encounter with a ghost.With a supposed budget of about $14,000,000 this looks nice, the production design reminded me of a cheaper Sleepy Hollow (1999) with it's woods, old wooden houses & gloomy colour palette. Filmed in Bucharest in Romania & Québec in Canada despite being set entirely in the US. The acting is fine, veterans Donald Sutherland & Sissy Spacek provide decent performances while the rest of the cast are alright.An American haunting isn't as bad as I thought it would be without exactly being great either, it's an OK haunted house horror with the advantage of a good cast, nice production values & a memorable twist ending that doesn't make perfect sense but I'll take it none the less. An American Haunting could have been better sure but it could also have been a lot worse.

ushtate439 It seems that quite a few people don't like "period pieces" unless they come wrapped in 21st century prejudices and simplistic 'plastic' packaging. American Haunting has an excellent cast, beautiful photography, skilled direction and a nice creepy feel. It's one of the lost "classics" in the genre. Unfortunately, the director and writers chose to use historically accurate language, scenery and behaviors. Viewing and enjoying this film requires enough artistic sensitivity to see and feel what's going on. Apparently, without an ax-murderer and spurting blood, relatively few viewers and reviewers can relate. The creators of the movie were doomed by over-estimating their audience. Also, despite the growing worldwide problem of child abuse, the current response is to censor and condemn even those who try to examine the issue. I wonder how many people completely miss the source and psychological depth of the "terror" in this movie.