It took awhile but the Courtney Solomon film “An American Haunting” finally hits theaters on May 5, 2006.

This AfterDark Films production made its first American debut back in November 2005 at the AFI Film Festival. Then it was put back in the can and reappeared in the UK on April 14th of this year. It reappeared back in the States six days later on April 20th at the Nashville Film Festival and will finally makes its theatrical release for the general viewing public.

It isn’t certain why the pic took such a circuitous route to make it into theaters except perhaps the studio wanted to ensure that the audience was ready for a picture of this caliber that contains some pretty intense terror sequences on a very gut-wrenching level.

“An American Haunting” is based on true events that took place between 1818 and 1820 in Red River, Tennessee. The Bell Family was reportedly visited by an unknown presence that haunted them and eventually caused the death of one of the members of the family. This is the only validated case in the United States of a spiritual entity causing the death of a human being. The case was documented and validated by officials from the State government of Tennessee.

After years of investigation and 20 novels and books written about the events nothing substantial was ever uncovered to explain the strange and frightening phenomena that occurred at the Bell home. Over 178 years passed until in 1998 the shocking answer to the mystery was solved after a manuscript of the events was found.

The film stars two award winning actors in the lead roles, Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek. Co-starring are Rachel Hurd-Wood and James D’Arcy.

What makes this movie so captivating, engrossing and frightening at the same time is the constant thought throughout that these events actually took place and are documented as fact.