An American Haunting (2005)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Excellent but underrated film

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Where are my series of emojis? I need "eh", "sigh" and finally, snooze.Look, poltergeist/haunting/possession movies are old hat in my opinion. You'd have to be extremely creative to make something from that genre be fresh, new and compelling. "An American Haunting" was not.The setting is Tennessee year 1817 and a teenage girl is being harassed by an entity. The family cannot rid themselves of this specter no matter what measures they take. The movie plays out as you would expect with slow build up and a plethora of jump scares (that were anything but--jump annoyances is more accurate).I patiently suffered through this movie to await the big reveal. Yes, the movie had something of a twist in store but not the least bit satisfying. I will be haunted by this movie and the decision I made to watch it.

After finding a long-lost letter, a family finds that their ancestors living in the house where once the targets of a supposed haunting unleashed by a vengeful neighbor over land-rights issues and tried to find a way of stopping the haunting from continuing to strike the family.There wasn't a whole lot here that works, but what does is of big importance. The main thing that this one does do well is force the viewer into accepting the distorted reality presented here, making it think that this is actually going on rather than being a simple curse. It starts as a series of inconsequential importance, from hallucinations written off as being tired or creaks and moans in the night before becoming full-blown supernatural plagues, all building up to the next encounter to make this more creepy and unexpected. This also makes the pacing seem incredibly quick and rapid, as this never once loses steam once the activity starts to affect them with the ghost visiting her in the bedroom or the school encounter on the swing, leaving it all the more enjoyable. That carries over into the later half where this is able to include some really spectacular set- pieces as the second bedroom encounter is a long, drawn-out and protracted torture sequence all done in a straightforward style that leaves all the dragging around and slapping thrown in. the vertical suspension gag works wonderfully and that it takes place in front of helpless witnesses makes this the greatest moment in the film. The later scenes are also quite fun, including a spectacular scene with all the characters in a central room as the presence circling about and a later scene where the various candles in the room immediately melt down to the wicks in an impressive visual, making this a quite impressive overall type of scene. The flash jumps with the little child are cliché but effective in the context of the film, and there's plenty to enjoy about it as well. This one isn't all that bad. This here doesn't have a whole lot of flaws, but they are pretty big ones. The most obvious one is the film's incredibly illogical and quite infuriating ending. This here was built up incredibly well as a supernatural entity being loosened upon the family, and instead of the majority of the time discovering who would be responsible for doing so the end thrusts this quite senseless storyline into view which is wrong on several levels. First, the nature of what the twist implies isn't even close to what happened historically, which is what the story concerns itself to be, and second is that the implication of this isn't handled all that well. There are several instances where what the twist shifts the story into contradicts what has happened to a degree that doesn't make sense since so many of those events feature the participant as a witness to the scene and couldn't have had it transpired through the motion the twist makes it out to be. The other big flaw is that this here tried to keep itself way too tame for no reason, alleviating the possibility of really tapping into the storyline because it's forced to keep it all vague and tame due to its rating despite the subject matter. These are the film's main drawbacks.Rated PG-13: Mild Language, Mild Violence, Rape and strong themes of incest.

...I'm kidding...it sucked. 'Spoiler Alert, Spoiler Alert". 1800's, old house, family, evil MAN- HUSBAND, rapes daughter and she comes back as a ghost. Heard the story before? Sure you did. Man-bashing of the late 90's and early 2000's. Based on a true story? Sure and I enjoy swallowing vomit. I will say this was a clever concept the only thing missing was a writer. Plot, script, and originally were totally lost in this silly adventure. Tell me why The powers to be always have to sell out to lefty-pandering? Getting back to an earlier point, this thing was based on a real story which one? Ahhhh...you know...the one about a ghost in a house, yeah that one. Come on, all these ghost stories are loosely based on about 10 tales that are supposedly real scary stories. Wake up. Now I know some people may like this movie - why? Lack of taste maybe? Very sheltered living? Original thought for them is eating breakfasted? Or just slept through most of the movie like me? I don't know who they are or what they are taking, but keep that garbage away from me. I find it hard to believe that sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland signed on to do this un-flushed waste. That is unfair. It did seem as though it began OK, but after a few minutes soon found its way on the road leading to Badmovieville. For me it appeared these two main stars were really suffering to complete this horrible task. So do I recommend this movie? Let's see you have read my review so far and you have questions - really? Well then sure go ahead and watch this movie in demand to pay twice the price...you deserve it.

Ran into this while looking for a horror movie to watch on a Saturday evening. I'm not really into gory horror, but this kind of psychological and maybe supernatural is more my cup of tea. It looked like an atmospheric piece with foggy scenery, old houses, churches, autumnal feel with some candles and fireplaces etc. Cast looked good, I'm a fan of Donald Sutherland and why not Sissy Spacek too. Only I was a bit suspicious since this had flown under my radar. Out of all the many many "haunting" movies to come out during this millennium, I didn't recall this one.If only I had realized the movie was directed by the same guy who did the infamous Dungeon's and Dragons back in the day. The director is not a very well known "bad director", because he only has a few movies under his resume, but none of them seem to have a very good reputation. Had I known this, I would surely have passed this.The movie is never very engaging. The atmosphere and scenery is OK, but the camera work is not. The camera moves in a very distracting manner and the shots are not very well framed in my opinion. The sets look OK, but details fail like a fireplace looks like a few fake logs on a gas fire. So much for the genuine 1800's feel. The acting is everything from downright bad to mediocre. Even Sutherland doesn't nail it, there are a few scenes that are rather cringe worthy. Rachel Hurd-Wood is OK tho, I think she does quite well and is never as lost or overacting as the others.The movie isn't very scary and since the outcome is obviously non-supernatural, it's difficult to digest all the supernatural stuff. There are cheapish tricks like the image changing from black and white to color. The sound fx were not that good, listening with headphones. The title graphics uses a typeface that is probably called "The horror movie font" on a site providing royalty free fonts. The overall feel was quite cheap and lacks any sense of style. The framing story of a single mother and a daughter living in a modern world is quite tacky too.This could've been passable as a shorter episode of Masters of Horror style series, as it's got that cheap TV feel, but even then it would've been a disappointment. Avoid.