An American Haunting

As a drive-in mutant who doesn’t drive, a lot of bad movies are my fault. I’ve asked a cousin to see Hostel with me, and she spent thirty minutes behind the palms of her hands; told a friend that we “have to” rent (a heavily edited) Last House on the Left, because my dad made me promise never to see it. I’ve even begged my mother—my own mother!—to drive clear across town to the ultra-expensive multiplex for Cabin Fever. But when it comes to the worst mainstream movie we’ve seen all year, I can’t take all the blame.

“Tera!” my mom said in the car one day. “Donald Sutherland’s in a new scary movie!”

And I said, “Nunh-unh!”

“Really. It’s called An American Haunting. And it looks really good.”

Donald Sutherland in a new scary movie. After chasing down little girls in red coats and solving The Rosary Murders—not to mention fathering the creepiest guy in Hollywood—the senior Sutherland could surely scare the crap out of me again. Especially with Sissy Spacek involved. (Remember when she went on that killing spree with Martin Sheen in Badlands? And anyone who tells you that Carrie isn’t scary is a fool).

On opening weekend, I inform Mom that there’s a 1:30 show, and that we’ll be there. I pay six dollars. And two hours later, I am extremely pissed off.

An American Haunting, as its trailer tells us, is based on “the only recorded case in history where a spirit caused the death of a human being.” It’s also not very scary, but compensates by being incredibly loud.

In the 1800s, landowner John Bell and his wife—Sutherland and Spacek, respectively— have a beautiful daughter named Betsy. The Bells live out in the wilderness, so there are lots of wolves (ROAAR!!!!) and John shoots them (BANG!! BANG!!), But he still has time to cheat the neighborhood witch out of a ton of money, and the church, which he’s helped build, decides in his favor.

The witch is not pleased.

Soon, weird things start happening to John and Betsy. He gets sicker and sicker; she gets pulled upstairs by her hair (THUMP!! THUMP!! THUMP!!), thrown into walls (THWACK!! THWACK!!), and dragged around her room until she scratches up the wooden floor with her fingernails (SCREE!! SCREE!!). By the time she starts flopping on her bed and the doctor thinks she’s having seizures, I have to wonder: Why have we remade The Exorcist twice in the past nine months?

But fifth-generation plot points aren’t enough to make a movie bad. An American Haunting is mostly what Bart and Lisa Simpson would call “meh”—it treads water for 90 minutes, doing nothing well but avoiding Trumpet-worthy awfulness.

And then it ends.

The end of An American Haunting is impossible to spoil, because it has nothing to do with the movie. The filmmakers didn’t even shoot it; they just splashed some words on the screen and expected us to read them. Apparently, Betsy created the ghost herself to protect herself from her father. Why on earth would Betsy need, even subconsciously, to be protected from this guy? I have no idea, but here’s my completely evidenceless theory: He was molesting her. Obviously, an upstanding citizen—who works for the church! double points!—sexually assaults children.

So, what’s your theory? Why would a 10-to-12-year-old girl hate her dad enough to create a psychic disturbance? Don’t worry if you haven’t seen the movie: you know just as much about John Bell’s dark side as the rest of us. Go wild. (Bonus points for involving the Terminator). Fly, my beauties! Fly!