The Bell Witch Legend (2009) - By Duane L. Martin

Film Reviews: The Bell Witch Legend (2009) - By Duane L. Martin
Posted on Thursday, July 02, 2009 @ 00:14:52 Mountain Daylight Time by Duane

What's better than a good old fashioned ghost story? How about one that's actually true? The Bell Witch Legend documents just such a case. See, back in the early 1800's, there was a man named John Bell who was a farmer and a barrel maker. He had moved his family from North Carolina to the Red River bottom land in Robertson County, Tennessee and settled down in a community called Red River, which is today knows as Adams, Tennessee. He aquired much land, cleared fields for planting, and became an elder in the Red River Baptist Church. He also had three more children after moving there. Elizabeth was born in 1806, Richard in 1811 and Joel in 1813.

One day in 1817, John Bell was out in his corn field, when he suddenly came upon an animal sitting in the middle of one of the rows of corn. It appeared to have the body of a dog and the head of a rabbit. Startled, he quickly shot at it and it disappeared. That evening, after having dinner with his family, they started hearing beating sounds on the outside walls of the house. This went on with increasing frequency and force each night, but no matter how many times Bell and his sons hurried outside to find the source of the beating, they always came back empty handed. It wasn't long after that that the children complained of having their bed covers pulled off, pillows tossed on the floor and other troublesome things. Soon after that, the voices started. First they were whispering, but as the encounters escalated, things became more and more violent.

Even General Andrew Jackson came to stay at the Bell estate with his men so he could see for himself what was really going on. Three of Bell's sons had fought under Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans in 1819, which I suppose is how he found out about the goings on there. After several freakish incidents, including having one of his men physically abused and called a fraud by the entity for claiming that he was a witch hunter, Jackson and his men quickly moved out the next morning, spooked by their experiences.

Eventually, the entity actually killed John Bell by swapping his medicine out with a deadly poison. This was the first time it was ever recorded that a living person had been killed by such an entity. How did they know it was the Bell Witch? They heard her voice telling them that she switched his medicine and taking responsibility for killing him.

To this day people are still having experiences with the Bell Witch. This story isn't limited to the 1800's, although it was limited to about four years with the Bell family initially, and then later reappeared about seven years later when one of the daughters was to be married, begging her not to marry that man. She left her lover and later married her former teacher. Things were relatively quiet after that.

There are plenty of websites out there that talk about the legend in great detail, and I would strongly suggest reading up on it if you're into things like this, as the whole story is quite interesting.

That brings us to this documentary, The Bell Witch Legend, which tells the story through historical, first and second hand accounts of encounters with the entity as well as some minor re-creations of various events. The documentary was written and produced by Zac Adams and narrated by Lynn Hoffman. It's only a 42 minute documentary, obviously timed for television, but honestly, I could have sat through two full hours of it and not gotten bored at all. I personally find this kind of thing fascinating, and I feel that there was a lot more that could have been told and shown here. That said, it is what it is, and those 42 minutes are packed full of interesting stories and re-creations that, if you watch it at night, will probably creep you out more than just a bit.

The haunting itself sounds in some ways like a poltergeist haunting, but in other ways it sounds like so much more. There's a lot more going on there than a just your run of the mill, standard haunting. Between the weird creatures spotted, the hanging girl, the completely coherent and aware voices, the physical manifestations like the pounding on the walls and the abuses of the general's men and the Bell's children...it's way more than just a haunting. The documentary doesn't actually delve too deeply into trying to analyze what it actually is, but it does tell a compelling story that brings out in the viewer that latent fear of ghosts and the unknown in general.

The documentary is edited beautifully. There's a collection of folks talking about the legend and their interviews are all cut together in such a way as to keep things moving and interesting so the viewer doesn't get bored just listening to one guy talking about the same thing for fifteen minutes. Just as a side note about the editing, the director was saying how he ahd edited it all fine, but then when he went to burn it to DVD to send off to whoever, his computer would keep shutting down, and he was thinking maybe it could have been the Bell Witch trying to mess with him. Then I looked behind him and saw that his monitor had an apple on it, and the first thing I said to my wife was, "It's not the Witch doing it, it's because he's using a freakin' Mac!" Ok, I admit it, I'm a PC snob...so sue me.

Anyway, this documentary is definitely worth checking out. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be for sale yet. Keep an eye out for it though, and if you get a chance to catch it somewhere, definitely do. I mean really, who among you can honestly say you wouldn't be fascinated by the great American ghost story? I know I am, and I'm sure you all will be too.

If you'd like to find out more about this film, you can check it out at http://www.bellwitchlegendmovie.com.