An American Haunting Reviews
April 19, 2009
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."
Full Review | Original Score: C-
July 2, 2007
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.
March 24, 2007
Takes the most documented ghost story in history and doesn't create one truly scary moment.
August 23, 2006
This is proof that it doesn't take lots of bloody gore, big special effects or jump-at-you moments to scare jaded audiences.
Full Review | Original Score: B+
June 3, 2006
Unoriginal and unrelenting, this gothic ghost story invests too much time in banging doors and billowing drapes and not enough in its characters.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5
June 3, 2006
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.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5
June 3, 2006
Disappointing horror film which fails to generate any suspense or horror and is occasionally downright laughable.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5
June 3, 2006
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.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5
June 3, 2006
Although [director Solomon] has some great ideas, they are limited, and we are therefore treated to repeats of the same basic scenario over and over again until the effect becomes tedious.
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5
June 3, 2006
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.
June 3, 2006
An American Haunting utterly stultifies the thrilling Bell Witch legend on which the film is based; the most disturbing ghost here is the wraith of opportunity lost.
Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5
June 3, 2006
Labeled by some as 'America's Greatest Ghost Story,' the legendary Bell Witch gets herself another movie and the result is far from America's Greatest Ghost Movie.
Read More | Original Score: 1/5
June 3, 2006
It's less An American Haunting than American humdrum.
Read More | Original Score: 2/4
June 3, 2006
A collection of cheap jump-scares and tacky clichéd imagery that we've seen a million times before.
| Original Score: 2/5
May 25, 2006
The film isn't that frightening simply because we've seen this sort of 'girl attacked by demon' material countless times before.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/10
May 24, 2006
Writer-director Courtney Solomon manages to cast a modern spin on the story, but it is one that could be regarded as the least imaginative explanation possible.
May 18, 2006
Writer-director Solomon simply can't generate any actual suspense. Although he certainly tries.
Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5
May 14, 2006
More like "An American Hanging." It slips a big noose of banality around its audience's necks and then tightens the rope until unconsciousness sets in.
| Original Score: F
May 13, 2006
The girl has a crush on her teacher and a flirty classmate (Sam Alexander). But eventually this plotting seems a distraction, or a means to blame the victim.
May 12, 2006
It's never an encouraging sign when a horror movie based on a true story fatally lacks the verisimilitude of, say, Alone In The Dark.
Full Review | Original Score: D