Amityville: The Awakening (2017)


REVIEWER RATING: 
4/10


This project has long been in development for years and actually started out as found footage with the subtitle "The Lost Tapes." That idea was obviously scrapped and after several rewrites, reshoots, and shifting release dates it's finally making its way to us by way of Google Play. Yes, the studio has so little faith in the movie that they're actually dumping it for FREE on the platform. Honestly after having watched the movie I don't really blame them, as this isn't anything we haven't seen already, especially from the Amityville franchise.

The story sees Jennifer Jason Leigh as a desperate single mother who moves her family into the infamous house in hopes of saving a bit of money to go towards the expensive health costs for her comatose son (Cameron Monaghan). Meanwhile, the eldest daughter (Bella Thorn) is just getting acclimated to her new school, where she soon discovers from her peers that their new home is actually the notorious Amityville house, which would explain some of the weirdness that she's encountered lately. It's not long before the strange phenomena becomes more prevalent and at the same time her comatose twin brother somehow miraculously begins to improve. Hmmm.. perhaps the two things are related?



The film plays through all the standard Amityville tropes we've seen countless times, specifically possession with a wee bit of incest thrown in there for good measure. Admittedly, the withered body of the comatose son does come off a bit creepy at times, especially when he's seen moving around or hunkering in the shadows, but aside from that there's nothing new or notable here as every horror cliché you can think of makes some sort of appearance as time goes on.

One thing that was a bit unexpected was the fact that the movie actually acknowledges that books and movies have been made based on the house. There's actually a scene where the eldest daughter and a couple friends get together and choose between watching the original movie or the remake on DVD, in which one character responds with "remakes totally blow". Well someone didn't get the memo that pointless additions to long-running franchises blow too, especially when they offer absolutely nothing new.



Clearly this is the studio's sad attempt at introducing a new generation to the franchise (especially given its PG-13 rating) and I'm sure if you fit in the film's demographic that you'll like this to some extent, but veteran genre fans will most likely see through the film's uninspired guise.

Amityville: The Awakening is everything you'd come to expect from an Amityville movie. It lazily goes through all the tropes and clichés that we're all familiar with, right down to its by the numbers ending. Unless you're easily frightened or new to the genre chances are you'll be bored by this dull and pointless addition to the franchise.
OVERALL: 
Amityville: The Awakening is everything you'd come to expect from an Amityville movie. It lazily goes through all the tropes and clichés that we're all familiar with, right down to its by the numbers ending. Unless you're easily frightened or new to the genre chances are you'll be bored by this dull and pointless addition to the franchise.


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