An American Haunting is scary all right, but not for anyone in the audience. Nor does anything in it quake the boots of Rachel Hurd-Wood, who, in the role of Betsy Bell, pretends to be slapped around, moaned at and generally terrorized by an invisible ghost. No, the terror here is suffered exclusively by Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek; their participation can be explained only by some unfathomable deal with Satan.
It is possible, given his hairdo, makeup and costuming, that Sutherland simply wandered over on his lunch break from Pride and Prejudice” and was tricked into the role of John Bell Sr, patriarch of a beleaguered clan of 19th-century Tennesseans. After a land dispute with a neighbor ruins his reputation, John finds his house visited by a mysterious spirit with a penchant for pulling hair and knocking over furniture.
Lucy (Spacek), his wife, is powerless to stop this supernatural silliness until, in the surprise denouement, she isn't. At which point An American Haunting exchanges bottom-barrel metaphysics for even cheaper psychology.
Written and directed by Courtney Solomon, best unknown as the man who brought Dungeons and Dragons to the big screen, An American Haunting purports to be based on a documented event, although most of its inspiration has been drawn from the empty well of The Exorcist and its progeny.
Feb. 17 to Feb. 23 “Japanese city is bombed,” screamed the banner in bold capital letters spanning the front page of the US daily New Castle News on Feb. 24, 1938. This was big news across the globe, as Japan had not been bombarded since Western forces attacked Shimonoseki in 1864. “Numerous Japanese citizens were killed and injured today when eight Chinese planes bombed Taihoku, capital of Formosa, and other nearby cities in the first Chinese air raid anywhere in the Japanese empire,” the subhead clarified. The target was the Matsuyama Airfield (today’s Songshan Airport in Taipei), which
China has begun recruiting for a planetary defense force after risk assessments determined that an asteroid could conceivably hit Earth in 2032. Job ads posted online by China’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND) this week, sought young loyal graduates focused on aerospace engineering, international cooperation and asteroid detection. The recruitment drive comes amid increasing focus on an asteroid with a low — but growing — likelihood of hitting earth in seven years. The 2024 YR4 asteroid is at the top of the European and US space agencies’ risk lists, and last week analysts increased their probability
For decades, Taiwan Railway trains were built and serviced at the Taipei Railway Workshop, originally built on a flat piece of land far from the city center. As the city grew up around it, however, space became limited, flooding became more commonplace and the noise and air pollution from the workshop started to affect more and more people. Between 2011 and 2013, the workshop was moved to Taoyuan and the Taipei location was retired. Work on preserving this cultural asset began immediately and we now have a unique opportunity to see the birth of a museum. The Preparatory Office of National
On Jan. 17, Beijing announced that it would allow residents of Shanghai and Fujian Province to visit Taiwan. The two sides are still working out the details. President William Lai (賴清德) has been promoting cross-strait tourism, perhaps to soften the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) attitudes, perhaps as a sop to international and local opinion leaders. Likely the latter, since many observers understand that the twin drivers of cross-strait tourism — the belief that Chinese tourists will bring money into Taiwan, and the belief that tourism will create better relations — are both false. CHINESE TOURISM PIPE DREAM Back in July