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An American Haunting (15)
Apr 14 2006 By Graham Young, Birmingham Mail
IMAGINE a living nightmare where you find yourself trapped for 90 long minutes watching a cross between Demi Moore's Scarlet Letter, Joaquin Phoenix's The Village and Michael Douglas's The Ghost and the Darkness.
That's the stark reality in store for viewers of this laboured nonsense about a 200-year-old curse.
Briefly bookended in the present, but mostly set in the Tennessee past with Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland in full period kit, Canadian director Courtney Solomon has used Brent Monahan's book to fashion a repetitive horror with Exorcist overtones.
Allegedly based on a true story about a spirit causing a man's death, the film never remotely threatens to shock, with traumatised Rachel Hurd-Wood (Wendy in Peter Pan) thinking there are squirrells on the roof.
Only the modern sound and production values during scenes like the horse and carriage charge offer anything interesting for the senses.
Remember, possession is nine-tenths of the bore.
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