Sunday, November 17, 2013

An American Haunting


I remember way back when this first came out in 2005. I wanted to see it so bad, and I really can't remember why I never saw it until now. This is based on the "true" story of the Bell Witch.Yes, the same witch that The Blair Witch Project is based on. We follow the story of two families: the Bells in the 1800s, and a mother and daughter in present day. The patriarch of the Bell household makes the mistake of pissing off a local woman that is rumored to be a witch. Things go downhill almost immediately after his eldest daughter is attacked numerous times.

I do not condone violence against children, but the cartoon sound effects that accompanied each attack made me laugh my ass off. The worst scene is her being slapped by an unseen force, but it sounds exactly like the slap from The Three Stooges. After 30-45 minutes of back and forth and this black wolf that is pretty much a ninja, the demon finally reveals what she wants from the family....sort of. She very cryptically implies this started and will end when John dies. However it's not for messing with the witch. That would've been a better ending.

Instead John's wife has a vision of him raping their daughter, and then taking the evidence of the rape and her loss of virginity. The demon is actually the ghost of innocence. I'm not making this up. She gets astral projection powers, makes her innocence a demonic being, and tortures her father. Once the mother realized that her husband is the worst father ever, she poisons him. Virginity Ghost goes back to...wherever she came from, and the end. Ha, just kidding.

Remember that mother in present day? She's reading the journal of John Bell's wife, and very slowly realized that her ex-husband is also abusing her daughter. The end. The best part about all this is it's not the official story of the Bell Witch. It's one of many theories, but a lot of people think this one is the most plausible. That really says a lot about a legend when the most plausible explanation is an astral projection of virginity and/or innocence.

I'm just stunned, honestly. Not from how good this is, but how the subject of child abuse and molestation is approached. This is horrid. You use a movie that teens will watch as a jacked up PSA? Screw you, you don't do something like that. This is A Serbian Film for teens. It gets a 0. This is the stuff that pisses me off. Writers and directors are so desperate for people to hear their 2 cents on a subject that they make feature films about it, and make it so shocking that people will agree. We know harm towards children is bad, you asshole. 

The reason why I'm so aggravated is because of writer/director Courtney Solomon. He created After Dark Films, and decided this was the best release to represent the new company. It is at this point I realized all of my heroes have failed me...

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