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American Haunting, AnDon't be put off by the fact that director-producer-screenwriter Courtney Solomon's only other feature film to date was 2000's mediocre Dungeons & Dragons. An American Haunting might as well be from an entirely different filmmaker. It's an energetic ghost story that, while not perfect, hits the right buttons.
After a gratuitous contemporary prologue, the action proper starts at Red River, Tennessee in 1818, where Lucy Bell (Spacek) and her husband Tom (Sutherland), hear noises in their attic and on their roof. "It's too loud for squirrels," they agree. The following day, John has an appointment in a court presided over by the church elders. He's found guilty of breaking church law and committing usury against a neighbour. The woman in question, who has the reputation of being a witch, isn't happy, and curses him: "Treasure your land, health and family while you can, for I swear a dreadful darkness will fall upon you, you and your precious daughter."
Sure enough, things get weird in the Bell household, with young Betsy (Hurd-Wood) getting the worst of it. She's tormented, beaten and battered in her bedroom by forces unseen. Between them, the family glimpse a black wolf and a young girl, and increasingly hear voices. Richard Powell (D'Arcy), the local schoolteacher, who has a soft spot for Betsy, is brought in and despite all the witnesses insisting to the contrary says, "There must be a rational explanation." He's like Ichabod Crane in Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, and believes it's just the vindictive neighbour sending her slaves to trick and trouble them. Then he sees the supernatural activity for himself.
D'Arcy saw a bit of this kind of thing while playing Father Francis in Renny Harlin's Exorcist: The Beginning. Indeed, the original Exorcist is one reference point for Solomon, as Betsy is supernaturally mistreated in her bed, and family friend James (Marsh) tries to perform an exorcism of sorts. Unfortunately, one of the film's weaker points is this material, as it gets repetitive: we come back over and over to Betsy thrashing around in her bed. It's not a subtle way of setting up the eventual payoff.
Beyond this repetition and some crude flashback devices toward the end, the film is effective. It's pushy, uses all the tricks in the book (sudden edits, sudden reveals, sudden noises, atmospheric lighting, intense sound design, prowling camera movements) and provides a real supernatural thrill-ride.
It might be fairly one note, but that one note is at the right pitch, resulting in a film that provides more scares and shivers than most recent haunting movies. Despite flaws and compromises, it's ballsier than The Sixth Sense, less laboured than The Others and, though it's not as downright freaky as the Japanese horror films of the last decade, it's one of the few recent Western films that manages to borrow their devices and deploy them effectively (yep, there's a little girl with long dark hair). The fact that it features actors of the calibre of Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek also bolsters the endeavour, while young Hurd-Wood does a sterling job as the tormented teen.
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