An American Haunting (2006)
Average Rating: 3.5/10
Reviews Counted: 68
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 60
Well, it looks good. But wasn't it supposed to be scary?
Average Rating: 3.5/10
Critic Reviews: 16
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 14
Well, it looks good. But wasn't it supposed to be scary?
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Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 88,501
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Movie Info
The wind whispers ominous warnings of death before a malevolent entity arrives to claim the life of a young girl as director Courtney Solomon brings author Brent Monahan's chilling, fact-based story of supernatural murder to the screen in this tale of terror starring Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek. The year is 1818 and the Bell family is a quiet clan residing on a remote farm in Red River, TN. A normal, loving family by all accounts, the uneventful lives of the Bell family begin to take a
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Cast
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Donald Sutherland
John Bell -
Sissy Spacek
Lucy Bell -
Rachel Hurd-Wood
Betsy Bell, Entity Voic... -
James D'Arcy
Richard Powell -
Matthew Marsh
James Johnston -
Thom Fell
John Bell Jr -
Susan Almgren
Elizabeth Mother -
Gaye Brown
Kate Batts -
Vernon Dobtcheff
Elder 1 -
Philip Hurdwood
Partygoer -
Courtney Solomon
Entity Voice -
Shauna Shim
Anky -
Lila Bata-Walsh
Little Ghost Girl -
Zoe Thorne
Theny Thorn -
Sam Alexander
Joshua Gardner -
Miquel Brown
Chloe -
Madalina Stan
Ethereal Girl -
Vlad Cruceru
Richard Bell (Aged 4) -
Alin Rosca
Joel Bell (Aged 10) -
Andrei Serban
Joel Bell (Aged 6) -
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Howard Rosenstein
Father
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All Critics (74) | Top Critics (17) | Fresh (8) | Rotten (63) | DVD (7)
This allegedly true tale of demonic possession is weighed down by period detail and ponderous storytelling, which soon get the better of its Exorcist-inspired levitations, flying crucifixes and noisy poltergeist activity.
Top CriticThis is one of the more annoying, irritating, obnoxiously un-scary scary movies in recent memory.
This is the type of movie that you should be getting for free on television.
There's thunder and lightning and wall-to-wall music. But it still doesn't add up to much of a movie.
The dark force behind this movie is the relentless power of cliche.
For anyone aware of this poltergeist tale, or who bothers to look it up, the victim's identity will come as no surprise, and a horror movie without a surprise is no horror movie at all.
The frights are few and the moment of horrific revelation is a big letdown in writer/director Courtney Solomon's cinematic treatment of Brent Monahan's novel "The Bell Witch: An American Haunting."
it becomes haunted by the unwelcome presence of heavy-handedness, making it seem more like a busy domestic melodrama (with a ghost) than a truly unnerving chiller.
Takes the most documented ghost story in history and doesn't create one truly scary moment.
In America there have been many poorly made films in which a spirit has caused the death of a human being. This one may just be the worst.
This is proof that it doesn't take lots of bloody gore, big special effects or jump-at-you moments to scare jaded audiences.
Unoriginal and unrelenting, this gothic ghost story invests too much time in banging doors and billowing drapes and not enough in its characters.
Director Courtney Solomon's script is a catalogue of the standard Exorcist-style special effects, hammered home by Caine Davidson's musical score, one of the most irritating and nerve-wracking assemblies of noise in movie history.
Disappointing horror film which fails to generate any suspense or horror and is occasionally downright laughable.
It really is fun to watch yet another oddball turn by Sutherland, and a marginally restrained one from Spacek. It's just not that fun.
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