An American Haunting
Encyclopedia
An American Haunting is a 2005 horror film
written and directed by Courtney Solomon
. It stars Donald Sutherland
, Sissy Spacek
, Rachel Hurd-Wood
, and James D'Arcy
. The film was previewed at the AFI Film Festival on November 5, 2005 and was released in U.S. theaters on May 5, 2006. The film had an earlier release in the U.K.
on April 14, 2006. The movie was panned by critics and audiences and performed poorly at the box office
.
The film is based on the novel The Bell Witch: An American Haunting, by Brent Monahan. The events in the novel are based on the legend of the Bell Witch. The film switches from the 19th century to the 21st, and features a side story about a recently divorce
d mother whose daughter is going through something like the same experience as Betsy Bell.
John Bell
is taken to Church court, having been accused of stealing a woman's land. The church finds him guilty of charging her too much interest, but lets him go because "the loss of his good name is punishment enough". The offended woman, Kate Batts, who is infamous in the village over claims of witchcraft
, tells him to enjoy his good health and the health of his family (especially his daughter's) while he can, scaring John Bell.
Soon after that, strange things start happening. John Bell sees a rabid
black wolf that keeps disappearing, and his youngest daughter, Betsy, hears noises in her room, as if there was someone in it. She then starts hearing noises more frequently, and has terrible nightmares about a little girl in a red dress and an evil entity that always comes into her bedroom after everyone else is asleep.
At first, everyone thinks they are just nightmares. But then the whole family sees Betsy suspended above the floor by unseen hands, and they watch as something seems to slap her across the face. John Bell thinks that Kate Batts has cursed him.
Betsy starts to look very sick in class, and her schoolmaster, Professor Richard Powell, who has an interest in her, notices. He learns of what the Bells have been experiencing, and as an educated man he initially tries to justify the incidents with reality, and tries to convince them that what they saw was their illusion, and finally offers to stay the night at their house to dispel their fears. The haunting gets worse, and chairs, books, and people are pulled around by some entity. As they try to read from the Bible
to scare it off, the Bible is thrown to the ground and the pages are ripped out, thrown into the air.
Soon the family finds blood on Betsy's dresses in the morning – it appears to be blood due to the loss of her virginity. The hauntings become more violent, and Betsy is dragged up the stairs and around the house, and the spirit even rapes her at one point. John Bell begins to get sick, and he starts seeing ghosts as well. The mother begs Professor Powell to marry her daughter and take her away to live with him. He says that although he is smitten with Betsy, he cannot marry her just to protect her.
John Bell begins to go insane, and goes to Kate Batts' house and asks her to kill him. She holds the pistol to his head, cocks it, and hands it back to him, saying "I didn't curse you, you cursed yourself." John stumbles into the forest, falls to his knees, holds the gun to his head, and pulls the trigger. The hammer clicks, but the gun doesn't fire.
There is blood on Betsy's dress again, and John Bell has become even more ill. Betsy finally has a revelation: the attacks on her and her father are caused by a supernatural being who was born out of her innocence (i.e. herself), and the reason for them was for her to "remember". She needed to remember that the true cause of her pain was that her father has sexually abused
her. Lucy, Betsy's mother, has the same revelation while sitting on the porch, as she had witnessed the assault
herself. Both had apparently repressed the incident.
John Bell is coughing in bed, and we see a girl's hand pour cough medicine into a spoon and bring it to his mouth. He takes the medicine and begins to choke, and then dies. The girl who gave him the medicine is Betsy; her mother is sitting in a rocking chair watching as Betsy poisons her father. We see Betsy at her father's grave, and hear the narrator say that Betsy was never haunted from that point forward.
The story then returns to present day, where the young girl's mother has been reading the journal. An old photograph that appears to be a wedding portrait of Richard Powell and Betsy is shown on a shelf. As she finishes reading, her daughter comes to her telling that her father (who was divorced from her mother) had come to take her for a weekend stay with him. She sends her daughter to her ex-husband, who is waiting outside. Returning to her house, Betsy's apparition (wearing a white dress which has a blood stain at her crotch) suddenly appears in front of her and cries "Help her!" then disappears. Shocked for a couple of seconds, the mother suddenly realizes that Betsy is trying to warn her that something is amiss between her daughter and her ex-husband.
Instantly, she runs out of her house, only to catch a glimpse of her daughter's worried face as she and her father drive away in his car; it is thus implied that her father has already begun abusing her. The film ends with the mother running after the father's car.
only referred to itself as Kate Batts, as she may have outlived John Bell, there have never been any accounts of Betsy Bell creating the Bell Witch to protect herself.
The allegations of John Bell's sexual abuse of his daughter and subsequent death are new additions to the story. The movie adds and subtracts many things from the traditional legend of the Bell Witch. For instance, the movie ends with the idea that Betsy created the Witch to protect herself from her father's abuse, while the traditional legend tells that the family still believed that Kate Batts was the witch.
John Bell's actual death in legend has traditionally been blamed on the poltergeist, Kate Batts or otherwise. In the film, a muddled turn of events seems to instead suggest that Betsy is responsible for John's death, and that his wife is complicit in the act.
When the oldest son, John Bell Jr., fires his musket into the house we see a crisp 3 inch hole. If such a weapon was fired at a range such as to cause a clean hole, the hole would be the same diameter as the musket's bore, around one inch.
reports that few critics' reviews for the movie were positive with 12% rating.
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
written and directed by Courtney Solomon
Courtney Solomon
Courtney Solomon is a Canadian film producer.Solomon produced and directed the 2000 film Dungeons & Dragons. His latest film, An American Haunting, is based on the Bell Witch legend in Tennessee....
. It stars Donald Sutherland
Donald Sutherland
Donald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...
, Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
, Rachel Hurd-Wood
Rachel Hurd-Wood
Rachel Clare Hurd-Wood is an English actress. Her break-out role was as Wendy Darling in the 2003 movie Peter Pan.-Personal life:Rachel Hurd-Wood was born in London, England, the daughter of Philip and Sarah Hurd-Wood...
, and James D'Arcy
James D'Arcy
-Early life:James D'Arcy was born as Simon D'Arcy and grew up in Fulham, London, with his mother, Caroline and his younger sister Charlotte. His father died when he was young. After completing his education at Christ's Hospital in 1991, he went to Australia for a year and worked in the drama...
. The film was previewed at the AFI Film Festival on November 5, 2005 and was released in U.S. theaters on May 5, 2006. The film had an earlier release in the U.K.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
on April 14, 2006. The movie was panned by critics and audiences and performed poorly at the box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
.
The film is based on the novel The Bell Witch: An American Haunting, by Brent Monahan. The events in the novel are based on the legend of the Bell Witch. The film switches from the 19th century to the 21st, and features a side story about a recently divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
d mother whose daughter is going through something like the same experience as Betsy Bell.
Plot
It begins in present times with a young girl having a dream about being chased by something unseen through the forest and into her house. Her mother comes to wake her up and finds an old binder of letters from the 19th century, as well as an old doll. The letters are from a previous occupant of the house, warning the mother that if she is reading the letters, and noticing supernatural happenings, then the unthinkable has come to pass. The movie then switches to the 19th century, to a village that used to stand around the house, and we hear the story of the Bell Witch.John Bell
John Bell
- Law and politics :* John Bell , English barrister* John Bell , professor of law and Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge* John Bell , Member of Parliament from Thirsk...
is taken to Church court, having been accused of stealing a woman's land. The church finds him guilty of charging her too much interest, but lets him go because "the loss of his good name is punishment enough". The offended woman, Kate Batts, who is infamous in the village over claims of witchcraft
Witchcraft
Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
, tells him to enjoy his good health and the health of his family (especially his daughter's) while he can, scaring John Bell.
Soon after that, strange things start happening. John Bell sees a rabid
Rabies
Rabies is a viral disease that causes acute encephalitis in warm-blooded animals. It is zoonotic , most commonly by a bite from an infected animal. For a human, rabies is almost invariably fatal if post-exposure prophylaxis is not administered prior to the onset of severe symptoms...
black wolf that keeps disappearing, and his youngest daughter, Betsy, hears noises in her room, as if there was someone in it. She then starts hearing noises more frequently, and has terrible nightmares about a little girl in a red dress and an evil entity that always comes into her bedroom after everyone else is asleep.
At first, everyone thinks they are just nightmares. But then the whole family sees Betsy suspended above the floor by unseen hands, and they watch as something seems to slap her across the face. John Bell thinks that Kate Batts has cursed him.
Betsy starts to look very sick in class, and her schoolmaster, Professor Richard Powell, who has an interest in her, notices. He learns of what the Bells have been experiencing, and as an educated man he initially tries to justify the incidents with reality, and tries to convince them that what they saw was their illusion, and finally offers to stay the night at their house to dispel their fears. The haunting gets worse, and chairs, books, and people are pulled around by some entity. As they try to read from the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
to scare it off, the Bible is thrown to the ground and the pages are ripped out, thrown into the air.
Soon the family finds blood on Betsy's dresses in the morning – it appears to be blood due to the loss of her virginity. The hauntings become more violent, and Betsy is dragged up the stairs and around the house, and the spirit even rapes her at one point. John Bell begins to get sick, and he starts seeing ghosts as well. The mother begs Professor Powell to marry her daughter and take her away to live with him. He says that although he is smitten with Betsy, he cannot marry her just to protect her.
John Bell begins to go insane, and goes to Kate Batts' house and asks her to kill him. She holds the pistol to his head, cocks it, and hands it back to him, saying "I didn't curse you, you cursed yourself." John stumbles into the forest, falls to his knees, holds the gun to his head, and pulls the trigger. The hammer clicks, but the gun doesn't fire.
There is blood on Betsy's dress again, and John Bell has become even more ill. Betsy finally has a revelation: the attacks on her and her father are caused by a supernatural being who was born out of her innocence (i.e. herself), and the reason for them was for her to "remember". She needed to remember that the true cause of her pain was that her father has sexually abused
Child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
her. Lucy, Betsy's mother, has the same revelation while sitting on the porch, as she had witnessed the assault
Sexual assault
Sexual assault is an assault of a sexual nature on another person, or any sexual act committed without consent. Although sexual assaults most frequently are by a man on a woman, it may involve any combination of two or more men, women and children....
herself. Both had apparently repressed the incident.
John Bell is coughing in bed, and we see a girl's hand pour cough medicine into a spoon and bring it to his mouth. He takes the medicine and begins to choke, and then dies. The girl who gave him the medicine is Betsy; her mother is sitting in a rocking chair watching as Betsy poisons her father. We see Betsy at her father's grave, and hear the narrator say that Betsy was never haunted from that point forward.
The story then returns to present day, where the young girl's mother has been reading the journal. An old photograph that appears to be a wedding portrait of Richard Powell and Betsy is shown on a shelf. As she finishes reading, her daughter comes to her telling that her father (who was divorced from her mother) had come to take her for a weekend stay with him. She sends her daughter to her ex-husband, who is waiting outside. Returning to her house, Betsy's apparition (wearing a white dress which has a blood stain at her crotch) suddenly appears in front of her and cries "Help her!" then disappears. Shocked for a couple of seconds, the mother suddenly realizes that Betsy is trying to warn her that something is amiss between her daughter and her ex-husband.
Instantly, she runs out of her house, only to catch a glimpse of her daughter's worried face as she and her father drive away in his car; it is thus implied that her father has already begun abusing her. The film ends with the mother running after the father's car.
Cast
- Donald SutherlandDonald SutherlandDonald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...
- John Bell - Sissy SpacekSissy SpacekSissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...
- Lucy Bell - James D'ArcyJames D'Arcy-Early life:James D'Arcy was born as Simon D'Arcy and grew up in Fulham, London, with his mother, Caroline and his younger sister Charlotte. His father died when he was young. After completing his education at Christ's Hospital in 1991, he went to Australia for a year and worked in the drama...
- Richard Powell - Rachel Hurd-WoodRachel Hurd-WoodRachel Clare Hurd-Wood is an English actress. Her break-out role was as Wendy Darling in the 2003 movie Peter Pan.-Personal life:Rachel Hurd-Wood was born in London, England, the daughter of Philip and Sarah Hurd-Wood...
- Betsy Bell / Entity Voice - Matthew MarshMatthew Marsh (actor)Matthew Marsh is an English actor. Matthew Marsh is the older brother of Jon Marsh of English dance band The Beloved. He has appeared in the films Alambrado, Spy Game, An American Haunting, Hawking and Bad Company, and guest-starred in the sixth series of the spy drama Spooks in 2007 and the...
- James Johnston - Thom Fell - John Bell Jr.
- Zoe Thorne - Theny Thorn
- Gaye Brown - Kate Batts
- Sam Alexander - Joshua Gardner
- Miquel BrownMiquel BrownMiquel Brown Miquel Brown Miquel Brown (born Michael Brown, 1954 is a Canadian actress and Disco/Soul singer from the 1970s and '80s most popular for the songs "Close to Perfection" and the Hi-NRG songs 'So Many Men, So Little Time' and "He's A Saint, He's A Sinner" (both now considered vintage gay...
- Chloe - Vernon DobtcheffVernon DobtcheffVernon Dobtcheff is a French and British actor.Dobtcheff was born in Nîmes, France, to a family of Russian descent. He attended Ascham Preparatory School in Eastbourne, Sussex, England, in the 1940s, where he won the Acting Cup...
- Elder #1 - Shauna ShimShauna Shim-Early days:Shim was raised in Nottingham, England, and trained at the Carlton Television Workshop alongside other actors such as Samantha Morton, Toby Kebbell, and Bafta award-winning director, Julian Kemp...
- Anky - Madalina Stan - Ethereal Girl
- Philip Hurdwood - Partygoer (as Phillip Hurd-Wood)
- Vlad Cruceru - Richard Bell (aged 6)
Differences with the legend
While modern research and even some earlier accounts of the legend seem to suggest that the poltergeistPoltergeist
A poltergeist is a paranormal phenomenon which consists of events alluding to the manifestation of an imperceptible entity. Such manifestation typically includes inanimate objects moving or being thrown about, sentient noises and, on some occasions, physical attacks on those witnessing the...
only referred to itself as Kate Batts, as she may have outlived John Bell, there have never been any accounts of Betsy Bell creating the Bell Witch to protect herself.
The allegations of John Bell's sexual abuse of his daughter and subsequent death are new additions to the story. The movie adds and subtracts many things from the traditional legend of the Bell Witch. For instance, the movie ends with the idea that Betsy created the Witch to protect herself from her father's abuse, while the traditional legend tells that the family still believed that Kate Batts was the witch.
John Bell's actual death in legend has traditionally been blamed on the poltergeist, Kate Batts or otherwise. In the film, a muddled turn of events seems to instead suggest that Betsy is responsible for John's death, and that his wife is complicit in the act.
Inconsistencies in film
At both the beginning and end of the film we see a sepia toned photograph of Powell and Betsy together. However since their meeting is stated to be in 1817/18 this is impossible as an artifact since it predates the invention of photography.When the oldest son, John Bell Jr., fires his musket into the house we see a crisp 3 inch hole. If such a weapon was fired at a range such as to cause a clean hole, the hole would be the same diameter as the musket's bore, around one inch.
Critical reception
An American Haunting was panned by critics, Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reports that few critics' reviews for the movie were positive with 12% rating.