I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

YES VIRGINIA, THERE REALLY IS A TENNESSEE... AND THAT'S ALL THERE IS...








The Bell Witch Haunting (2013)

Class, time to pay attention. HEY! Pay attention and you might get by with this review that will take you only a couple of minutes to read and appreciate (or hate, your choice). If you DON'T quiet down, your punishment will be 91 minutes of the inane ripoff of all the PA movies, haunting movies, and possession movies you've ever had the misfortune to see. And this is by the Asylum, so those in the know will appreciate just how excruciating those minutes would be.


I can just see the money grubbers now - desperately trying to eek out another movie in 2013. If you were a fly on the wall you'd probably hear something like this: "Okay people, we've got some year left and some losses to cover so let's come up with some ideas pronto!"

"A paranormal movie!"

"Done to death, I don't think we could get away with another one - you're fired!"

"Wait, wait - what if we throw in a possessed female teenager?"

"What? A possessed female is what ALL PA movies have - get out!"

"I've got family sir, let me try again. A paranormal movie, with a possessed teenage girl, AND a local legend presented as 'real events'."

"That's the worst idea I've ever -"

"AND... and we'll have a bunch of girls in bikinis taking their tops off for no reason whatsoever, a swooshing force that kills people (off camera of course) and an Amityville-type family who, although this all happens to them refuse to move out?"

"That is the... BEST idea I've heard this year. Give yourself a raise!"

Yes folks, that's what this is. A re-re-re-re-re-re-re-telling of the urban legend Tennessee folks either hold dear or just wish would go away - the Bell witch. Now if you read my review on December 30, 2013 of An American Haunting, you already know a bit about how it goes (or doesn't) and you don't want to go through it again. If you didn't read the review... no harm, no foul. And apparently they have their OWN horror movie worksheet - better not step on mine Asylum, it's patent pending.

Short and sour: This is the stupid tale of the Sawyer family who move into one of those huge houses that people in the movies seem to buy as easily as a new phone. We see the mother, father, son and daughter celebrating the son's birthday with a new video camera. Lame overused movie plot point #1 check.

The son soon irritates the whole family by using said camera with the typical 'turn that off' every five minutes or so which of course he doesn't do. Lame overused movie plot point #2 check.

If there is anything about to happen, whether it's slamming doors, booming sounds or whispering, the audience is warned by a rumbling noise that apparently only the audience can hear. Lame overused movie plot point #3 check.

Although horrible things begin to happen from the beginning (such as a couple who attended the birthday party being found dead by the side of the road that same night) the family blithely stays in the house. Lame overused movie plot point #4 check.



The boy, together with his friends find out about the Bell witch and gee whiz, the Sawyer's new home is right smack on the Bell property. Lame overused movie plot point #5 check.

The girl is bothered from the first day from night terrors which continue each night, as her behavior gets more and more bizarre and she starts displaying some evil activity. Lame overused movie plot point #6 check.

After a few more deaths of friends of the family, the father spitting up blood and wandering off in the night, the girl being found in the forest by police munching on roadkill and the mother cutting herself every ten minutes on something exploding on her, they get a priest to 'exorcise' the house - which ends up making things worse. 

See, these guys need to read Acts 11-16 'cause demons aren't going to take crap off of anybody no matter how many times you try to use the Lord's name. So now the teenage girl is totally possessed complete with levitation. She attacks the priest and snaps his neck. Lame overused movie plot point #7 check.


Instead of getting out or having a hundred cops show up, after the daughter takes off, the three remaining family members run out to the woods to find her, so the ending of the movie is all nauseating night shots bobbing all over the place, just to have the brother killed by his sister with his own camera. Lame overused movie plot point #8 check.

The father, bringing a gun, thinks he sees his possessed daughter coming at him and shoots. It's his wife. She's dead. The daughter shows up and stares at him, somehow forcing him to take the gun and blow his own brains out. Lame overused movie plot point #9 check.


The movie ends by claiming that they caught the Sawyer girl who lives in an asylum, screaming every night but leaving plenty of opportunity for a sequel, the mother was never found and the mystery never solved. Aaaaand this means that lame overused movie plot point #10 is a check and WE ARE DONE.

Now we sit and wait and rake in the bucks...

(BTW the WHOLE cast went uncredited. I wonder why...)

Does this LOOK like they're scared of some urban legend?