The Arrow Reviews

The fact that all that horror loving was dipped in a thick coating of polished style made it all that much more of a hoot to sit through! Yup, this baby looked horror candy good! Color tweaked imagery (somebody worked his butt off in Post Production that's for sure), LSD editing, an always on the move camera and lavish cinematography! YUM! Quite the eye pleaser! The film’s knack at capitalizing on its varied sounds lent the whole a helping “boo” as well. Sinister whispers, loud thumps, bump in the motherf*cking night, the checklist was considerably checked and conveyed in a mucho efficient manner that sent chills up my dong. Lastly all of the actors were on the ball with Rachel Hurd Wood not only being one of the most photogenic young girls to recently grace the screen but also giving us a character too root for via her gripping performance. Mark my vacuous words; this girl is going to go places. She’s got the looks and the chops to make it big!

Which bring me to the film’s shortcomings which began with the characters. Thinly drawn out, I needed further juice on these people and their relationships to fully give a poltergeist's ass about them. Thankfully the fine thespians almost made up for the lack of peep-meat but then again, the flick would have been so much stronger if its players would have been giving the fleshing out they deserved. Then we had the dim-witted moves (in the name of serving/padding the plotline of course) that frustrated the "beSatan" out of me. How many times does this poor gal have to get ghost slapped before somebody “really does something to help”, “stays with her at all times” or “gets her out of the freaking house”? COME ON! The lead characters’ in-action (or acting way too late) to what was going down made them come across as un-likeable twits and created redundancy in the narrative. She gets ghost abused, they do nothing, she gets ghost abused, they do nothing...we get it...lets move on or DO SOMETHING ALREADY!

The last block of the flick let me down me as well, with the “explanation” behind the lunacy being tossed my way in a rushed and vague manner, consequently not having the oomph that it should’ve had. I dug what was revealed but loathed the bah way they went about it.  Finally, the film was framed by a present day “opening” and a present day "closing. Why again? The wrap-around was basically useless, unless wanting present day footage to cut into the trailer (help sales) or hoping for a present day sequel was the incentive behind the trivial move. All in all, AN AMERICAN HAUNTING was a glossy, swiftly paced, well acted, mucho frightening, top notch audio/visual genre puppy. Too bad the script was underdeveloped and the last block executed in a throw away fashion. This could’ve been a great horror film as opposed to a passable one.

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