Bell Witch Haunting

I bought a copy of this movie. The cover art looked impressive. When we sat down and watched it I was very disappointed. I have done a lot of research on this story. I have been to the places of where the actual events took place. Adams, Tennessee is not very far from where I live. The character Joshua Gardner in the movie is said to have moved west. He did about 12 miles from my home is where he settled and is buried there also. I know the people who bought and reassembled his cabin and they also said they experienced unusual happenings with it. The movie has to much of an hillbilly atmosphere. The real people being portrayed in this movie were far from being hillbilly's. They were a very well respected and prominent family of what I have learned. I feel that the seriousness of this story was not expressed well enough in it. The actual story was very frightening so frightening some of the older generations of the Bell family tried to keep it from the younger generation. I also noticed scenes that didn't match. Like the length of a candle a person is holding in a scene. One scene it is almost burnt out and the next it is longer. There is one more when someone is wearing a hat and then they are not. When John Bell Sr. is in his death bed one angle he is white faced and one angle he is not. There is to much silly comedy. When I say that I mean it is kind of corny. There is a lot of bad acting. I feel it is lacking in ability to tell the real horrifying story. In the real story Andrew Jackson and his army went to witness the Bell Witch and it scared some of his troops off and he made the statement. "I'd rather face the whole British Army, than face the Bell Witch again." You will find that the comedy kind of puts a damper on the threat of the witch in a way. There is some factual events told. I suggest that a person read the book. It will be more effective.

I've read the comments of people who rated this movie 0 out of ten and who obviously have a hidden agenda. I've also read the comments of those who gave it a ten. They have an agenda as well. Now I'm going to tell you the truth.

I purchased this movie after seeing An American Haunting because I was interested in learning more. In many ways, this movie is better than American Haunting because it gives much more detail.

If you buy this movie and expect it to be something like a big budget Hollywood film with seasoned actors who earn 5 million per performance, forget it. That's not what it is. This movie is a low budget film by an independent film maker using people that I suspect have acted in local theater and in plays, but have not made movies. In fact, the scenes in which there is dialog smacks of a stage presentation. As any film actor will tell you....if you want to be great in films forget everything you did on the stage. It isn't the same thing.

This film is, so far as I have been able to determine, historically accurate. It is, therefore, educational and very entertaining. True, you can't compare it to American Haunting but then it is not claimed to be comparable to a big budget film with name actors. For what it is, it's darned good. The actors gave honest effort and I can't fault their performances. The writing and directing was likewise honest.

You'll probably never see this film at your local theater, so buy a copy of it. You won't be sorry.

The filmmaker stayed true to the most accurate account of the story published in 1894 which includes an 1846 manuscript by Richard Williams Bell (son of John and Lucy Bell and younger brother of Betsy Bell) titled "Our Family Trouble." To knowledge this is the only eyewitness account ever penned. The filmmaker should be credited for accuracy but there is little to say about the production and acting quality. The acting was theatrical and the sound and picture quality was extremely poor. It appears that the filmmaker simply shot scenes of the reported events that took place without incorporating or weaving them into a flowing plot or story line. If you must know the story, read about it, its much more gripping and conclusive.

I bought "The Bell Witch Haunting" DVD and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the Bell Witch legend. I thought it was a good portrayal of the Bell Witch legend, the acting was good, and the dark lighting in certain scenes added to the eerie atmosphere. I had never heard of the Bell Witch until my son moved to TN. While visiting him last year, I heard a local TV station cover a news story about a movie being made about the Bell Witch. This intrigued me so I drove to Adams to do a bit of on-site research. Adams, TN is a strange, very small farming community, and I found some of the people understandably reluctant to talk to me about the legend. While there, I bought M. V. Ingram's "Bell Witch." When I returned home, I continued to research the legend and tried to find out more about the movie's release date. "Bell Witch - The Movie" was suppose to be released on October 31, 2004 (Halloween) but the movie's distributor was changed and so was the release date. In the meantime, I purchased "The Bell Witch Haunting" and found that it paralleled M. V. Ingram's book. I do not have a hidden agenda. I offer my evaluation solely as an objective opinion.

Being from TN I was excited to see this movie. It started off like every other low budget hand-held camera movie. It got more boring and dumber as the minutes went on. There was nothing that even remotely go into the legend of the Bell Witch. If it would have told more about the legend of the Bell Witch then it might have been interesting, but this movie was no where close to what it should have been

Its just a family who moved into a house that was build on the "sacred ground" and things begin to happen. I would actually say Paranormal Entity was better than this movie. And we all know how much of a rip that was.