Reviews: An American Haunting (2005) Movie Review
Genres: Horror, Thriller, Drama, Mystery, History
Subgenres: Featured Supernatural, Possession, Supernatural, Exorcisms, Religion
This in-depth review of An American Haunting (2005) explores its story, characters, and scares in detail, offering insights for every horror fan.
Courtney Solomon directed An American Haunting (2005) was nominated for 5 movie awards, one Stinker Award for the least scary horror movie that year. An American Haunting was filmed with an estimated movie budget of $14 million taking in $16.2 million at the US box office.
An American Haunting is stated as "based on true events" as the only case in American history where a man died because of a haunting. The film is about a little girl, Lucy Bell (Sissy Spacek), plagued by a malevolent spirit terrorizing her and her family, especially her father John Bell (Donald Sutherland).
Between the years 1818-1820, the Bell family of Red River, Tennesee was visited by an unknown presence that haunted the family and eventually ended up causing the death of one of its members. It was not until a manuscript, found in 1998, details the horrifying answer to what caused the haunting.
An American Haunting required me to watch it twice to catch the clues throughout the film. After you watch it the first time, you are no longer wondering why the family experienced the haunting. The film was not scary, that does not mean that horror fans would not appreciate it. This movie is a little short in runtime at one hour and twenty-three minutes, but I did find myself watching the time more than I should. The second viewing I did not do that because I was finding all the clues and actually laughing at times when the haunting affected one individual. I would give this film a high 5 out of 10, but I rounded up in this instance to 6 out of 10.
Sources Used to Shape This Review
Insights in this review are drawn from director interviews, fan commentary, production notes, and long-form breakdowns across genre-specific platforms. Content is written uniquely and reviewed for accuracy.
- An American Haunting Rating Scores
- Our Score: 6/10
- Overall Score: 4.27/10
- IMDB: 5.0/10
- MetaCritic: 3.8/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 1.2/10
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