An American Haunting: Critic Reviews

A standard, creaking, fake-spooky ghost story...

Things go bump in the night in this 19th-century ghost story, but it's the bump of emptying seats, as audiences flee in boredom, that will haunt you for days.

There's a dark, abiding mystery at the center of An American Haunting, and it's how on earth major stars such as Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek were talked into appearing in this film.

A wasted opportunity -- especially since the events as reported scarcely need embellishing.

For anyone aware of this poltergeist tale, or who bothers to look it up, the victim's identity will come as no surprise, and a horror movie without a surprise is no horror movie at all.

Call it The Exorcist Meets Poltergeist, and head for the shelves at Blockbuster, where it will undoubtedly turn up soon.

A well-made, good-looking movie it is, but between the non-stop tumult and the sense of deliberateness about its period authenticity, An American Haunting produces a lot of screaming, crying and cruelty, but not much drama.

The dark force behind this movie is the relentless power of cliche.

It's not a true story. If lying is the latest trend in American pop culture (cf James Frey, Kaavya Viswanathan), then An American Haunting is on the cutting edge.

Translating a legendary ghost story to the screen, writer-director Courtney Solomon crafts a quality horror piece from strong performances and effects.

The impassioned performances make you care what happens to these people, even when the film's noisy overindulgence makes you almost wish their home would collapse on itself like The Fall of the House of Usher.

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."

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.

Takes the most documented ghost story in history and doesn't create one truly scary moment.

This is proof that it doesn't take lots of bloody gore, big special effects or jump-at-you moments to scare jaded audiences.

It's less An American Haunting than American humdrum.

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.