An American Haunting Based On The Bell Witch
An American Haunting comes out this Friday. It is based on a book written about the Bell Witch of Tennessee. I plan to see the movie this weekend. I have read several reviews on the movie, but I thought the review from Wikipedia was the most informative one I read so I posted it below.
For some REAL haunted America pictures click the two links below:
http://www.easternparanormal.com/Paranormal_Photos.php
http://www.ncparanormal.com/pages/2/index.htm
An American Haunting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_American_Haunting
An American Haunting is a 2006 American thriller film written and directed by Courtney Solomon. It stars Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, Rachel Hurd-Wood and James D'Arcy. The film was previewed at the AFI Film Festival on November 5, 2005 and is set to be released in U.S. theaters on May 5, 2006. The film had an earlier release in the U.K. on April 14.
The film is based on the novel An American Haunting, by Brent Monahan. The events in the novel are supposedly based true events from the legend of The Bell Witch that have been validated by the State of Tennessee and President Andrew Jackson as the only case in United States history where a spirit or entity caused the death of a man.
Between the years 1818 and 1820, the Bell Family of Red River, Tennessee was visited by an unknown presence that haunted the family and would eventually end up causing the death of one its members. Starting with sounds around the house at night, and the sighting of strange animals around the farm, the "sounds" eventually escalated into full brutal contact with certain family members which caused severe psychological and physical torment.
The attacks grew in strength, with the spirit slapping, clawing, dragging and beating the Bell's youngest daughter, Betsy. The spirit, who everyone eventually referred to as Kate, seemed to reserve her most hateful attacks for John Bell Sr. The Bells searched for rational explanations and ways to rid their house of this entity, but to no avail.
The spirit began to communicate with them through sounds at first, then later by actually speaking in a powerful voice. Once when the spirit was questioned about where it came from and why, it referred to itself as, " Kate Batts' witch", and claimed the only mission it had was to eventually kill John Bell. The spirit could seemingly predict the future, reveal secrets of those present, quote any Scripture flawlessly, and foresee events happening great distances away, reporting the events later perfectly. The haunting ended later with the poisoning death of John Bell. The spirit claimed that when he was asleep, she gave him a dose of some strange liquid that was later found in the room. When this mystery 'medicine' was tested on a cat, the animal went into seizures and died. It is said that at his funeral, the witch laughed, screamed and sang songs happily while others mourned. Soon after, the witch departed, promising to return in seven years. In March of 1821 young Betsy broke off her engagement with Joshua Gardner.
She did return in 1828 for a few short weeks. During this visit she came to the home of John Bell Jr and had long talks with him about the past, the present and the future. She made some predictions for the future. Kate also said there was a reason for John Bells death. However she never said what the reason was. After the second visit, she said her next return would be in One Hundred and Seven years. That would have been in 1935. But some believe that she (Kate) never left the area at all due to the strange things that has occurred in and around the town of Adams and the Bell Witch Cave over these many years.
Some believe there is no Bell Witch, but that John Bell Sr. was an abusive father who beat the kids and had them tell the accounts of the Bell Witch to the locals to avoid suspicion. The family then turned on him, and posioned him blaming the witch for his death.
posted by Eastern Paranormal @ 11:02 PM
