I don't understand horror movies - American Haunting

Before I talk about American Haunting, I suddenly remember something about haunted houses and the difficulty of heroes "setting fire to them". Someone told me that there are a lot of haunted houses in Singapore. Places so evil that the authorities could not even demolish it. Please lah. I like to see how spirits in a haunted house can stop a 5-ton wrecking ball or better still, withstand C-4 demolition explosives. Either that or get a plane to drop a ball on the haunted house. All the ghosts with angry grudges in the world couldn't stop gravity. Gravity rules.

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So, An American Haunting.

(Nice poster from horror movies.com but another bad ghost movie)

This movie on HBO came highly recommended by the fim reviewers. Supposedly based on a true story in the 1800's and the only case in US history in which a ghost actually killed a person. Former US President Andrew Jackson who visited the victim's house in the 19 century famously told everyone that "I rather face the British Army again stay one night in the Bell's house." The story is simple. Between 1818-1820, the Bell family in Tennessee, US was haunted by a spirit which came to the daughter's room every night and slapped and tortured her. The family tried its best to exorcise the ghost but failed and someone died.

So, based on a true horror legend - check. Good actors with Donald Sutherland - check. Sweeping landscape of rural Tennessee - check. Spirits and posession like the Exorcist - check. So was it a good movie? HELL NO.

They should call this movie "American Rubbish Movie With a Stupid Family". It wasn't scary, at all. When you see the door opened, the blanket being pulled down and the daughter being dragged on the floor and slapped, yeah it may be scary the first time you see it. But the ghost did this like 10 times with all the same action sequence. All the ghost did was to just pull the blanket off the daughter and drag her and slap her. Oh yeah, real interesting, loser ghost. You are a bloody disgrace to all spirits out there. Sadako from the Ring and the other boy ghost from the Grudge could kick your American ghost's ass. At least Sadako appears now and then, crawls out of TVs and made an effort to scare people. In fact, American Haunting is actually quite funny. I give it 6 out of 10 for sheer comedy just to see the same thing happen again and again.

Step 1 : Door opens quietly.

Step 2 : Blanket got pulled off the sleeping girl.

Step 3 : Girl wakes up screaming.

Step 4 : Girl got dragged by her hair around the floor.

Step 5 : Girl got slapped by invisible spirit presumably angry. Or horny. I don't know which.

Step 6 : Stupid family who is waiting for the ghost downstairs (dunno for what?) rush upstairs only to have the door magically slammed into their faces.

Step 7 : Abuse ended.Family brought the girl to the living room. Ghost decided to walk in and throw some books around and shatter a window. Family grieves.

Rinse and repeat 10 times and you get the idea how incredibly dull is the movie.

The movie was tense for only about 10 minutes and then went down faster than a fat man jumping on a slide at the Wet N Wild. It basically breaks down into an incoherent mess punctuated by long, tedious periods of no shit happening. Ghost comes, ghost leaves, family cries, blah blah. The acting was atrocious as none of the chracters seemed terrified. For some parts, it got so draggy it looked as if the movie was dragging a truck. The plot was uneven and you could tell that the director was trying to hide a twist to the ending. Yeah, right. I don't understand why every movie needs to have a twist. Why can't a ghost movie be just a simple movie where the ghost just wanders around and scares the shit out of people and heroes trying their best to beat the shit out of the ghost? Does the 1973 The Exorcist need a twist? Hell no, and it is the scariest movie of all time. The twist in the American Haunting is pure stupid so I am not going to even talk about it. I wish the ghost in American Haunting would haunt everyone involved in the movie.