I feel compelled to write a review here since so many people think this is actually a good movie.

The basic premise is a haunted house. Sutherland has done something objectionable to a neighbor and his greed has tarnished his good name. The neighbor, a woman, promises to put a curse on Sutherland and his daughter.

My problems with this film lay in the acting. One minute, they're talking with British accents, another minute they're talking in southern accents. And neither accent is done well. Sometimes there is no accent at all even though we're in Tennessee.

The writing is cheesy and cliche. Sissy Spacek utters a line, "That's the end of that and what's done is done." Really? So cheesy. For a movie that is supposed to take place in the early 1800s, the characters sometimes speak as if it was modern times. The daughter, Betsy, says at one point, "You think I was a little hard on him?" I just have a feeling they didn't talk like that in the 1800s.

The filming was terrible. When the ghost was in the house, it was played by the cameraman who twirled about as hokey flutes played as if we were supposed to be scared. And when the ghost leaves the house, it flies over the skies at a rapid speed. Scary? No. Corny and hokey and cheesy? Oh yeah.

When Betsy was attacked by the ghost, there was a scene where she was lifted up in mid air and slapped across the face a dozen times. It would have been scary if it wasn't so damn pathetic. There were over the top sound effects to illustrate the slapping. And Betsy screamed like a guy which was strange. I was expecting Jamie Lee Curtis blood curtling screams -- not a 15 year old girl howling like a dude.

The scenes when the ghosts attacked were poorly done, poorly acted and poorly filmed. Instead of being terrified, I thought the characters looked like fools writhing about on the ground like they were pretending to have seizure.

The scenes where Betsy was tortured by the ghost was repetitive and tiring. How many times is the ghost gonna pull her bed sheets off and the expect that we're still going to be terrified? After you've seen it once: Yawn. After you've seen it five times, you get annoyed.

Don't forget the slaves that talked like they were coming from an episode of The Jeffersons. They didn't sound like slaves from the 1800s.

This movie was not scary at all. It was funny how poor it was considering the cast. There were a few scenes where I jumped, but that was purely because of the music and nothing else. The acting was terrible.

50 minutes into the film I said out loud, "How much longer is this crap?"

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older