An American Haunting (2005) – A Movie A Day 2021 #20

As big of a fan of horror movies as I am, years of exposure to silver-screen scares seem to have desensitized me somewhat. Great horrors movies can still scare me in the moment, but few of those scares stick with me after the credits have rolled. Of all the genres and sub-genres of horror movies that exist, films about ghosts and hauntings can often be a big exception to my quickly-fading-fright rule. A well-made ghost movie will often stick with me, maybe for the night or maybe even for a few days or longer. Obviously not every movie about ghosts will have the same effect, and there are plenty of average and below average haunting movies out there, but every time I watch a ghost movie I get a little excited about the possibility of a truly creepy and effective story. So, knowing that An American Haunting is based on the supposedly true story of the Bell Witch haunting, I was cautiously looking forward to a few good scares when I picked it for my daily movie. I was cautious not only because of the potential for a nervous night’s sleep, but also because I’d known about it for a while and had sort of avoided it because I didn’t want it to be bad. Well, after seeing An American Haunting I slept just fine, but the movie was a bit better than I was expecting.

My expectations about the quality of the movie likely had a lot to do with the awful experience I had with a movie from 2013 titled The Bell Witch Haunting. I don’t like to bash movies, but that thing was awful. And yeah, I know the filmmakers behind An American Haunting have nothing to do with The Bell Witch Haunting, but the association in my brain was hard to shake. Plus, I’ve seen plenty of not-great haunted house movies, and the trailer for An American Haunting was giving me strong not-great vibes. An American Haunting certainly isn’t great, but it’s good for what it is. That’s hardly a resounding endorsement, so allow me to elaborate. 

An American Haunting tells the story of the Bells, a family living in Tennessee in the early 1800s. The family consists of father John Bell (Donald Sutherland), mother Lucy Bell (Sissy Spacek), and their children Betsy, John Jr., Richard, and Joel. After John gets on the wrong side of neighbor Kate Batts in a land deal gone bad, the Bell family begins to experience an increasingly violent haunting. The focus of the haunting is young Betsy Bell. Betsy is tormented night after night not just with sounds and moving objects, but she is eventually physically assaulted by the unseen force. Betsy is dragged across the floor, lifted into the air, and slapped repeatedly as the force steadily increases its tortures. The local preacher and the community school teacher join the Bell family to try to figure out how to stop the haunting, but things only get worse when John becomes a target of assault as well. 

Eventually certain things come to light and the reasons behind the haunting become more or less clear, but the resolution of the movie leaves a lot to be desired. The plot is largely based on the “true” accounts of the Bell Witch, but some very generous liberties are taken with the story, especially in the later stages. Creative license is great, but I didn’t really enjoy how things were wrapped up. It made sense from a high-level look at things, but when you really get into what happened throughout the movie, it doesn’t all come together super well. There is also an unnecessary framing device where the whole story about the Bell family is being read from a letter found in what I think is supposed to be the same house in the present day. So the main bulk of the movie is a flashback for some reason, and the final scene feels pointless. I can’t say what happens without spoiling the whole movie, but basically it’s a thing where you’re meant to feel something for a few characters that you know absolutely nothing about and haven’t even seen for about an hour and a half. I would have very much preferred if the story had only taken place in the past.

The stuff surrounding the Bell family is better than I was expecting though. I didn’t know Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek were in the movie until they both showed up on screen, so that was a very nice surprise. They added some much-needed weight to the scenes involving the Bells. 

As for the haunting itself, even though it was done pretty well, it’s approached in a way that I’m not always crazy about. I prefer quiet and creepy over loud and scary, and the haunting of Betsy Bell was often very, very loud. Screams, crying, slapping, and slamming were a constant accompaniment to the presence of the entity in the Bell house. To me, that’s not as unnerving as quiet moments where I wonder along with the characters, “did I really just see what I thought I saw?”

There is no ambiguity about what is happening when we see Betsy being suspended in mid-air and smacked around by invisible hands. Despite there clearly being something supernatural in the house, there is an agonizingly long sequence where the Bell family tries to convince the school teacher that his rational explanations aren’t sufficient. Thankfully he is eventually convinced that something supernatural is going on, and we then can finally move on with the story. That whole section of disbelief felt like it put the movie on pause though, because we (the audience and the characters) all knew what was happening except for this one guy who we apparently need on-board before we can move on. 

Other people may enjoy the loud and obvious approach to the scares though. They’re not my favorite thing, but they didn’t prevent me from enjoying the movie fine. Like I said, I didn’t care for the wrap-up, but up to that point I enjoyed seeing John, Lucy, and Betsy deal with their situation. I probably won’t ever watch An American Haunting again, but I’m glad I finally saw it. I’m still looking for a really great Bell Witch movie though. I know it can be done.