An American Haunting

An American Haunting is a 2005 historical supernatural horror film written and directed by Courtney Solomon and starring Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, James D'Arcy, and Rachel Hurd-Wood. It is based on the novel The Bell Witch: An American Haunting (1995) by Brent Monahan. The events in the novel are loosely based on the legend of the Bell Witch, who allegedly haunted the Bell family in rural 1810s Tennessee. The film documents the Bell family's supernatural experiences, which are paralleled with a contemporary 21st-century subplot involving a young girl plagued by similar events experienced by Betsy Bell.

An international co-production between the United Kingdom, Canada, Romania, and the United States, An American Haunting was filmed on location in Romania in the fall of 2004.

An American Haunting was first previewed at the AFI Film Festival on November 5, 2005; it screened the same day at the San Sebastián International Film Festival's "Fantasy and Horror Film Week." The film was released in the United Kingdom on April 14, 2006. Freestyle Releasing distributed the film theatrically in the United States on May 5, 2006 in an alternate cut from the version previously released. It received largely unfavorable reviews from film critics, though some did praise it for its performances and period details. The film grossed $29.6 million worldwide against a $14 million budget.