"An American Haunting" had me baffled and uninterested during the whole time I was there between the opening and ending credits. I tried to keep a positive attitude throughout the movie. "It gets better, Diamond, the movie gets better."Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. This was a film based on the novel by Brent Monohan titled An American Haunting. It stars Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, and Rachel-Hurd Wood. Events in the movie are based on supposedly true stories of the Bell Witch which is known in the U.S. as the only time in history where a man was actually killed by a spirit. Are you feeling the chills up your spine yet? Neither am I. During the years of 1818 and 1820, the Bell family of Tennessee was visited by an "unknown guest," who tormented them, and caused the death of the father of the group. Anyway, the movie was supposed to give a scare or two, which it did. However, those two scares didn't do too much for me. I even watched it during the late hours of the day to enhance the chance of being scared, shook, or catching a slight jump that those scary films give up. Regardless of what I did to help the movie be good, I still think I would have found the same amount of amusement in putting on my left foot sock. Whoopee.
Truthfully, "An American Haunting" came close to having this American snoring. There were very few scares, and a horribly slow and
boring plot. The best part about this film was that the running time was 90 minutes. I used those minutes the wrong way. Don't make the same
mistake I did.