Reese Witherspoon scares up another Tennessee tale

Posted Monday, October 23, 2006 at 3:32 PM Central

by John Couture

Reese Witherspoon is again getting in touch with her Tennessee roots for a potential project. The talented actress won the Best Actress Oscar this past Spring for her turn as June Carter Cash in Walk the Line. The new picture is about another famous Tennessean of sorts.

It is being reported that Witherspoon is attached to a project called Bell Witch to produce and star in. The movie is based on the screenplay Our Family Troubles that centers on a first time mother who returns to Tennessee convinced that the Bell Witch is haunting her son.

The Bell Witch is a long-standing local legend in middle Tennessee that dates back to the 1800s and centers on the Bell family in and around Adams, Tennessee. The tale purports that a being cursed the Bell family and killed the patriarch of the family John Bell. It is the only death in the history of the United States attributed to a ghost. Before Andrew Jackson became President, he encountered the Bell Witch and famously quipped, "I’d rather fight the entire British Army than to deal with the Bell Witch."

If the Bell Witch tale sounds familiar, you might remember the recent movie An American Haunting, out on DVD this week. An American Haunting is loosely based on real events, however, the ending and the general treatment of the material angered many Tennesseans.

There is no timeframe for production on Bell Witch yet.