My wife’s a bigger horror film fan than I am, so when I get in a flick from that particular genre in to review, she’s been known to go watch the DVD before I get around to it. In the case of “An American Haunting,” she started watching it…but she said that it started to get so scary that she decided she wanted to stop watching it until I could watch it with her.
Fair enough…except that I kept setting it aside, we both got busy, and, basically, we forgot about it…until this week.
So we finally watched it, and, yes, the film does have some scary moments. It doesn’t necessary scale the heights of horror greatness throughout its 90 minutes – when your film’s about a relatively young girl who’s haunted by a mysterious spirit, it’s hard to get past the inevitable similarities to “The Exorcist” – but it’s an enjoyable enough, good-looking horror flick, made more interesting by the fact that it’s a period piece (it takes place during the 1800s) and aided immeasurably by a solid cast that’s top-lined by Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek. Unfortunately, what’s painted as a ghost story throughout the majority of its run time suddenly changes gears dramatically at the end…and while I’m not looking to give it away, I’m guessing the conclusion will have you reacting in the same way my wife and I did: by asking, “Are you kidding me…?”
But, then, as a critic, my opinion doesn’t count for much, apparently (even though, mind you, it’s precisely the same as my wife, who isn’t a critic), based on a rant by the film’s writer / director, Courtney Solomon, on the DVD.
Solomon opts out of doing a proper commentary; he starts off doing an in-screen video commentary, but he quickly gets bored and, instead, decides to hop in his car and drive around to the various places involved in the film’s creation. After talking about all the online promotion done for the film and how it helped its box office peformance immeasurably, he starts talking about critics; he understands why they have to exist but that he doesn’t have to read what they have to say, that a director needs to know when he himself is happy with his work and not change it based on the opinions of others. Fair enough…but, then, he starts into an attack on the entire profession of film criticism that’s like a snowball rolling down a hill, growing in vicious intensity with each passing moment.
Dare you read the transcription?
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