AN AMERICAN HAUNTING Film Review - 25/6/06

This film starts out suitably as a gothic horror and actually feels like a modern attempt at a Hammer film of the late 50's with all it's swirling mists and fog and scratchy tree branches in eerie forests full of dark glades and shadows. Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek head the cast and the film starts off in current times and flashes back to the 1800's and dishes out the tale of a family who has been afflicted with a curse and that's it! For around 2 hours of mayhem with all manner of creepy happenings and going-ons that really felt similar to the film "The Entity" that was when the clue struck me. What was happening was a psychological not supernatural event and the ending cop's out back in modern times as the realisation dawns. As a clever chiller with a twist it is fine until you get to the end which makes you feel let down and other people I have spoken to about the ending felt the same. The feel of the movie, it's settings and tone are spot on and really evoke the period part - But wham - That ending leaves it flat!