Friday, February 10, 2012

An American Haunting

Using one of the questions from your worksheet, write a short answer based on viewing the film, "An American Haunting."

7 comments:

  1. In answer to the third question, I found myself mostly bored by the film, “An American Haunting,” mainly because it seemed to repeat itself too often. Although not being able to hear all the dialogue was a distraction, even on the level of film (what I could see) I wasn’t impressed very often. Yes, the first time I saw the girl dragged around the room while scratching deep scratches into the floorboards, I felt appalled and shocked. But then, the film makers showed me pretty much the same scene all over again. To be truthful, I found the scenes of the schoolteacher looking skeptically out the schoolhouse windows more interesting in some way. The point of view shots of the spirit swooping about the room worked for awhile, but then I got confused by the colour changes. The spirit sees in black and white, but sometimes the swooping camera saw in colour? In the end, I wasn’t surprised by the short running time of the feature (83 minutes) but would argue that the story could be better told in a one-hour TV format, with about 45 to 47 minutes of screen time. That way, we could get the scares, the basic story and the film makers wouldn’t feel the need to repeat themselves.—213 words

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  2. I can’t say that I enjoy that film fully because I still have the chills whenever I think about the movie. Especially, when her mom sat at the swing and when she suddenly had foreshadowed of her daughter being chained to her bed at nighttime, then she looked horrified all of a sudden. I still remember I had a jump when her dad touched her mom’s shoulder in the beginning when she heard a strange noise from upstairs. I nearly had a heart attack of nearly every scene because of psychological horror and of scary backgrounds.
    -96 words.

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  3. I personally don't like horror movies, so I can’t say much about it. (It was a little bet hard to hear their voice and what they were saying, which made it hard to follow the story).

    There were few things I liked and unlike. The sound effects were something that I liked the most about the film “An American Haunting”. Also I liked how camera was going around or up and down none stop although it was repeated many times and eventually it begins to bother. There were few things I wasn’t expecting to see for a ghost story. For example, the ghost couldn’t go through door; it had to open the door or was tricked by human when they try to escape the girl from home. I was confused about the ghost it seemed to me there were two ghosts a good one and a bad. Was it?
    There was an interesting sound effect that was used for transition from one scene to another and it was where the teacher underlines a word with chuck on black board.

    I don't know what else can I say about this film.I’m sure if I was a big fan of horror movies; I would’ve had must to say about this movie.

    Thanks

    [207 words]

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  4. Horror movie is not usually my favorite choice, but it is ok to watch it every once a while especially under the recommendation of my classmate from drama class. So, thank you, Veronica, for introducing such a different movie to me. Now I am going to answer question #3.

    The American Haunting, to my opinion, is both interesting and boring. This movie is evidently a psychiatric case in which the unidentified mental power triggered by the unexpected experience that made the victim and offender both suffer. The interesting thing is this mental load is carried under the cloak of haunting. I believe neither in the historical event nor in the current story is haunting related. All the unusual things happened on the characters are the hallucination caused by inner-guilt and self-repression. Because I am misled by thinking about the haunting spirit at the beginning, and even worse, the illusion is repeated and over-presented afterwards, I feel being fooled by the director at the end of movie—not because I am fool, but the movie meant to fool me that way. That is the boring part to me.

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  5. Now I wish I had picked a different movie. I do wish the volume was better, I am sure that played a part in it being boring. But I do agree that it got boring in parts because they kept repeating scenes, which did make it a bit confusing. I however did understand what was going on storywise. I noticed sound change when the mother and father are talking, and you can still hear them as they change to focus on the daughter going up the staircase to her room. And as Farzac mentions, the ghost visits and the sound effect is a high pitch howl, which changes to the scene where the teacher screeches ckalk across the board. I did like how they build suspense and the effects. I think they did a good job blending the scenes to make it scary. And yes Brad, I agree this film could have been shortened. Just get to the point already. Even though my choice wasn't great, it definitly gave us something to talk about. A lot of different effects and camera work involved.
    Which is why I chose this movie, I'm sorry that it turned out to be boring for the most part.
    I love horrors, because of the suspense and thrills. They are very exciting. And I am not talking about the gory 'B' movies. Maybe I could bring in a different one, which I have on a disk. If Brad allows. I have a collection of Hitchcok movies, I could bring the 'Birds'. I am told it is scary.

    Thanks Linda, I am glad my pick served a purpose for someone.

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  6. I extremely don't like terror movies. I felt very dread while I was seeing the movie, “An American Haunting.” I got a higher tension in the horror scenes of whole movie. I found my tension emotion was affected by the background sound, especially, the music of rhythm, tone and accent. In this movie, I had a little hard to hear its voice, but I could clearly heard the terror sound of the background. Moreover, I found the movie changed the colour, turned into black and white, while it appeared a horror scene. The colour changes even more reinforced my tension emotion. Finally, I was more interesting in the scenes of the schoolteacher and main character's mother looking at the sheet was rolled by the ghost. Her mother wanted to save main character, but the schoolteacher prevent her. In short, I found I was mostly bored in the film, because it only presented the terror scenes repeatedly. I extremely don't like terror movies. I felt very dread while I was seeing the movie, “An American Haunting.” I got a higher tension in the horror scenes of whole movie. I found my tension emotion was affected by the background sound, especially, the music of rhythm, tone and accent. In this movie, I had a little hard to hear its voice, but I could clearly heard the terror sound of the background. Moreover, I found the movie changed the colour, turned into black and white, while it appeared a horror scene. The colour changes even more reinforced my tension emotion. Finally, I was more interesting in the scenes of the schoolteacher and main character's mother looking at the sheet was rolled by the ghost. Her mother wanted to save main character, but the schoolteacher prevent her. In short, I found I was mostly bored in the film, because it only presented the terror scenes repeatedly. -156 words

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  7. Before I watched the film, "An America Hunting," a 2005 horror film wrote and directed by Courtney Solomon. I have read “The Crucible", which written by Arthur Miller. Absolutely, the difference between two works is distinct; especially they are the same theme's work. Actually, I do not refuse to watch horror films even I do not like them. Compared with "The Crucible," I do not think that "An America Hunting" is a successful work. The tone of the film is depressive and gloomy. In "An America Hunting," the director seems try to make a psychological tension to scare viewers on purpose. Similar scenes appear repeatedly. If I have to find a high point in this movie, I have to admit that there are so many "high points" that I could not enjoy them. Anyway, "An America Hunting" is a film which provides me to recognize what is the great work again, compared with "The Crucible."

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