Despite recruiting talented screen vets Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland, director Courtney Solomon failed to wow the crowds with An American Haunting. Set in the 1800s, this "unoriginal and unrelenting" horror is based on supposedly true events, marking the first recorded case in which a spirit caused a person’s death. Funny that it should put millions of moviegoers to sleep as well.

Spacek & Spaced Out

Solomon assures us there really is "something" out there in a conversation with Sissy Spacek. She smiles politely as he tells the oh-so spooky story of how he came home one night to find the sheets on his bed turned down. His wife assured him that it was nothing to do with her and he became convinced that they had a spectral houseguest. Now, we don’t want to cast aspersions on the missus, but perhaps Solomon should have checked the bedroom wardrobe before he came to that conclusion...

The conversation threatens to get interesting when Spacek confesses that she and Solomon had a few "ups and downs" during filming and a full-blown "stand-off" in the middle of the shoot. Unfortunately she doesn’t go into too much detail about the whys and wherefores. Still, Carrie fans will surely be tickled by the revelation that during one of her temper tantrums, Bucharest (the location for the film) was suddenly shaken by an earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale. "I know I was mad," she says, "but hey..."

Boo-Boos

There are no surprises in a section on eight deleted (but mostly extended) scenes. Solomon manages to kill the tension completely with lazy editing and OTT orchestral music for clichéd scenes where Betsy (Rachael Hurd-Wood) hears voices in her room, John (Sutherland) runs around in the woods like a loon with his gun and, yes, the old empty rocking chair rocking by itself scenario. It’s a similar story for no less than four alternative endings, one of which manages to squeeze in a moment of Chucky-style kitsch as Betsy's doll springs to life.

Bizarrely, the excised footage is much funnier than the gag reel which rounds off the package with a couple of visual effects snafus. Donald Sutherland fans may be disappointed that he doesn’t offer any comment, but we don’t blame him for wanting to put the haunting memory of this rickety flick behind him.

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