Film: The Bell Witch Haunting (2013)

Director: Glenn Miller

Let me start this by pointing out I am not the film person when it comes to DHR. If you want really solid, excellent opinions on film, you want Ellen, or check out Dan’s excellent Chad Factor series. But film reviews are something I would like to do a bit more of, so here we are. And I absolutely have suggested Dan take a look at this film in particular for Chad Factor, but also I kind of don’t want him to have to go through that, so we’ll see.

Let’s start by pointing out the summary states ‘based on true events’. The ‘true events’ relate only (as far as I can tell) to the original Bell Witch legend, not the events portrayed in the film, which is how the description makes it sound.

This is a found footage film. That subgenre that tends to make people either turn completely away, or glue their faces to the screen completely hooked. For me, found footage is a horror subgenre that is either amazingly done, or terrible. No so bad it’s good films to be found here, which is a shame because at least those horror films are fun.

After a sort of grisly opening, the film takes us to a birthday party for a teenage boy who quickly proves insufferable. We’re introduced to his equally insufferable family – a sister and parents. They’ve only recently moved into the area, and have no idea about the fairly famous and well known Bell Witch legend. Actually, even the people who live in the area haven’t heard about it, which is strange as there’s a Bell Witch festival, so I can only assume the creators of the film didn’t do their research into this. (As a sidenote, this festival looks great and I would definitely like to go one year.) 

This is one of those films that feels completely and utterly wasted. The found footage aspect comes from the boy who gets a new camera for his birthday, so immediately films everything, including his sister going through night terrors and their parents trying to comfort her. The sister has a vlog, ‘Dressing with Dana’, which would be a great opportunity to have another POV come in, but this is criminally underused.

The film feels torn on what it wants to say. The characters’ actions make no sense, and as the threat draws closer it seems to be drawn to Dana, but this only goes as far as her having night terrors rather than doing anything actually interesting. It’s low budget, which would be fine, except for the shots where that is painfully obvious and you can see the ropes and wires lifting up various objects. The acting is poor, though this feels like a script issue rather than the actors used. They don’t communicate like a family, and when people start dying around them, they really don’t give a shit.

For some reason, there is only one policeman in this town, and we constantly get footage from his bodycam. Why is he on his own, constantly, when they know there are murders going on? Why does he never have any backup? Why does he react to everything like he’s some random civilian that’s stumbled across a body, rather than an actual trained policeman? Also, this same guy goes repeatedly to the family, because all the deaths are in the same area as them, and he knows there’s weird shit going on but never actually investigates them?

There are so many holes in this film and threads left dangling, it quickly becomes infuriating. As is all too common in found footage haunted family films, hidden cameras are set up around the house, but Teen Boy puts one in his sister’s room. Why? Just…why?

 This is definitely a film attempting to cash in on Paranormal Activity, and in every respect, it fails. It does nothing interesting, puts forward unlikable characters, and rings hollow all too often. No matter how much you love the found footage genre, this is definitely one to miss.

Review by Elle Turpitt

Twitter: @elleturpitt

www.elleturpitt.com