An American Haunting (www.the-usher.com)

"Are we all dreaming now Professor"

1817, after winning a church ruling, John Bell (Sutherland) and his family return home under the threat of a curse by the people who lost the case. Ignoring it and getting on with their lives, strange things start to happen around the house. A wolf appears and starts terrorising the family, noises come from everywhere in the house and their daughter Betsy (Hurd-Wood) starts acting strangely, like she is not herself.

The resurgence in horror continues as Hollywood tries to cash in on the audiences new passion for the genre but does 'An American Haunting' have what it takes to scare you?

Horror is having a renaissance at the box office but for every film that succeeds in scaring you there are a dozen or so that are just scaringly bad. 'An American Haunting' falls into that category. Based on true events, the most tells the account of the only death in American history to be recorded as been committed by a spirit. Instead of a gripping or terrifying depictions of the recorded events however, instead we get an amalgamation of many films that have come before.

Starting in modern times with a girl suffering from traumatic nightmares after finding a doll and some documents in the loft of their new house. Her mother then reads to documents, an account of the Bell Witch, and the film heads back to 1817. Here we meet John Bell and his family as the local Church rule on a land rental deal. After winning the land back but losing the profits that Bell had gained from them, the new owner curses both John and his daughter Betsy.

From then on in the film becomes a mixing pot of horror clichés and unoriginal ideas. With a possession taken from 'The Exorcist' and more recently 'The Exorcism of Emily Rose', a wolf from any werewolf film and a ghost that has escaped from the 'Poltergeist' movies, the production tries to blend all these together only to create a complete mess.

The film starts off fine, building the tension nicely and providing a few jumps for your money but then everything becomes so repetitive. How many times can you see Betsy possessed, the wolf chase someone or the poltergeist-cam fly through the room before you become bored and definitely not scared. The repetitiveness draws all the tension and fear out of the movie but this nothing compared to what the finale does. The major reveal at the end is one of the most disappointing and stupid ones in recent horror history and it completely ruins anything that has gone before.

The only real plus point to the movie is the performances of a few of the cast members. Rachel Hurd-Wood continues to show that she is a young talent to watch. The British actress is excellent as Betsy and is the most watchable character in the film and it is a shame that the script doesn't do her enough justice. Sissy Spacek is good as Betsy's mother Lucy Bell, portraying the worried mother with great skill. The same cannot be said of either Donald Sutherland or James D'Arcy as John Bell and local schoolteacher and ghost sceptic Richard Powell. Both of these actors over play their parts and make them feel more like pantomime characters than movie ones.

'An American Haunting' is another disappointing horror movie. Offering nothing new to the genre and making you feel that you have seen it all before, the movie is only saved from complete disaster by the performances from the female cast members. The movie offers a few scares but the extremely disappointing ending only makes you scared that it actually got approved.

PICTURE & SOUND

Presented in Widescreen 2.35:1 Anamorphic with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, the transfer is good.

BONUS FEATURES

Interview with Courtney Solomon and Sissy Spacek (18.03)
The director and his star talk about bringing the story of the Bell Witch to the silver screen in 'An American Haunting'. Interviewing each other, the pair talks about the story behind the film, the changes that were made and the history of the Bell Witch. They also discuss the twenty books written on the incident and the affect that it had on the community. The cast and their approach to the characters are also talked about during the interview.

Extended Deleted Scenes
Entitled 'John and his wife arrive at Party', 'Betsy hears voices in her room', 'John see man on the roof', 'John and Lucy find hair and argue', 'Lucy asks Powell to marry Betsy', 'Entity shows Lucy the truth', 'Lucy nursed by Entity' and 'John gets gun and says goodbye', these deleted or extended scenes suffer from the lack of an introduction or commentary to reveal why these scenes were edited.

Alternative Endings
Entitled '15 years later', 'Betsy kills John', 'Betsy's Doll' and ' Through the wall', these alternative endings suffer from the lack of an introduction or commentary to reveal why these scenes were not chosen.

Gag Reel (1.58 mins)
Watch some of the mishaps on the set of 'An American Haunting' Trailer Watch a preview of the remake of 'The Wicker Man'

OVERALL

A very average horror movie gets a very average DVD treatment. While the interview with the director and Sissy Spacek is good, the lack of commentaries or introduction on deleted scenes is frustrating, as well as the lack of a track on the main feature. Fans will be disappointed with this release.

DVD

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

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2006