Amityville: The Awakening (2017)
A desperate single mother moves with her three
children into the notorious, supposedly haunted, real-life Amityville
house to try and use its dark powers to cure her comatose son. Things go
horribly wrong.
Director:
Franck KhalfounWriter:
Franck Khalfoun (screenplay)Stars:
Belle, her little sister, and her comatose twin brother move into a new
house with their single mother Joan in order to save money to help pay
for her brother's expensive healthcare. But when strange phenomena begin
to occur in the house including the miraculous recovery of her brother,
Belle begins to suspect her Mother isn't telling her everything and
soon realizes they just moved into the infamous Amityville house.
Country:
USALanguage:
EnglishRelease Date:
12 October 2017 (USA) See more »Also Known As:
The Amityville Horror: The Lost Tapes See more »Filming Locations:
El Dorado Park, Long Beach, California, USACompany Credits
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Color:
ColorAspect Ratio:
2.39 : 1Did You Know?
Trivia
The film's tongue-in-cheek advertising campaign features posters which are made up to resemble the social media site, Instagram, with the main character depicted using the site and posting a photo of the infamous Amityville house with the caption: "Moving in today #NewBeginnings". See more »Goofs
This movie was set in 2014, but Belle's username in the movie poster in Instagram-style says she is '99. However, in the movie it's mentioned she's 17 which would mean she was born in '97. See more »Soundtracks
When The Sun Came Down
Written by Mathieu Carratier & Greg Taieb
Performed by 'Artificial Darkness'
Courtesy of 'Mathieu Carratier' & 'Gregory J. Taieb'
Written by Mathieu Carratier & Greg Taieb
Performed by 'Artificial Darkness'
Courtesy of 'Mathieu Carratier' & 'Gregory J. Taieb'
Franck Khalfoun's Amityville: The Awakening
is, according to the press materials, the 10th canonical film in a
long-running central Amityville series, a franchise of films that has
wended its way calmly and unobtrusively through the history of horror
movies without much notice. While the 1979 film The Amityville Horror, based on Jay Anson's notorious “true story” of a real-life haunting
in the titular New York town, is considered to be something of a minor
horror classic, few of the film's many sequels, reboots, and spinoffs
have left much impression in people's minds (Amityville II: The
Possession being, perhaps, the one exception, if only for its incestuous
underpinnings).
Amityville: The Awakening, while largely a generic haunting film without much in the way of a hook beyond its famous setting, can at least claim to be one of the more watchable Amityville films, for whatever that praise may be worth. Awakening boasts decent production values, a notable cast that includes Jennifer Jason Leigh and Kurtwood Smith, and a few fleeting moments of palpable, spooky atmosphere. And while Awakening never manages to move the needle anywhere past the most basic baseline reading, it is perhaps the best Amityville film since 1983.
Awakening stars Bella Thorne as Belle, a stereotypical broody Goth teen whose doting mother (Leigh) has moved her, her younger sister (Mckenna Grace), and her comatose twin brother James (Cameron Monaghan) into the infamous 112 Ocean Ave. house in the hopes that the new setting will revive her son. James, a frightening, skeletal figure, is a dark specter that hangs over the family. Mom believes he can still recover, but his sisters have largely accepted that James left them long ago. It's during the heady and serious conversations about James that Awakening threatens to break into something salient and poignant.
Belle, perhaps naturally, doesn't know about the dark history of the house until an enthused classmate (Thomas Mann) shows her a DVD of the 1979 feature film and a copy of Anson's book. That the 1979 film exists as a film within its own continuity is a little dizzying, but a wise horror fan knows to ignore such trifling double-backs. As if on cue, Belle begins seeing shadowy figures lurking in the hallways at night, and James begins showing signs of recovery... or possession.
There are the makings of a very good family drama hidden within Awakening, and director Khalfoun (Maniac, P2) manages to squeeze a notable – if not enormous – amount of tactile suffering out of his trim screenplay. The film, however, swiftly jettisons its maturity, preferring to become a usual collection of usual jump scares, usual banging noises, and usual shots of usual pajama-clad teens wandering slowly down usual darkened passageways to investigate usual spooky noises. The scares are handled with competence, but horror fans deserve more than mere competence.
Amityville: The Awakening was completed in 2014, but was shelved for three years due to various distribution problems. It is now finally been made available for free on Google Play in advance of a proper theatrical release on October 28th. (It will also be available on Blu-ray and DVD on November 14.) Incidentally, in the three years it took this film to be released, about five or six other Amityville films made their way to the public.
Amityville: The Awakening, while largely a generic haunting film without much in the way of a hook beyond its famous setting, can at least claim to be one of the more watchable Amityville films, for whatever that praise may be worth. Awakening boasts decent production values, a notable cast that includes Jennifer Jason Leigh and Kurtwood Smith, and a few fleeting moments of palpable, spooky atmosphere. And while Awakening never manages to move the needle anywhere past the most basic baseline reading, it is perhaps the best Amityville film since 1983.
Awakening stars Bella Thorne as Belle, a stereotypical broody Goth teen whose doting mother (Leigh) has moved her, her younger sister (Mckenna Grace), and her comatose twin brother James (Cameron Monaghan) into the infamous 112 Ocean Ave. house in the hopes that the new setting will revive her son. James, a frightening, skeletal figure, is a dark specter that hangs over the family. Mom believes he can still recover, but his sisters have largely accepted that James left them long ago. It's during the heady and serious conversations about James that Awakening threatens to break into something salient and poignant.
Belle, perhaps naturally, doesn't know about the dark history of the house until an enthused classmate (Thomas Mann) shows her a DVD of the 1979 feature film and a copy of Anson's book. That the 1979 film exists as a film within its own continuity is a little dizzying, but a wise horror fan knows to ignore such trifling double-backs. As if on cue, Belle begins seeing shadowy figures lurking in the hallways at night, and James begins showing signs of recovery... or possession.
There are the makings of a very good family drama hidden within Awakening, and director Khalfoun (Maniac, P2) manages to squeeze a notable – if not enormous – amount of tactile suffering out of his trim screenplay. The film, however, swiftly jettisons its maturity, preferring to become a usual collection of usual jump scares, usual banging noises, and usual shots of usual pajama-clad teens wandering slowly down usual darkened passageways to investigate usual spooky noises. The scares are handled with competence, but horror fans deserve more than mere competence.
Amityville: The Awakening was completed in 2014, but was shelved for three years due to various distribution problems. It is now finally been made available for free on Google Play in advance of a proper theatrical release on October 28th. (It will also be available on Blu-ray and DVD on November 14.) Incidentally, in the three years it took this film to be released, about five or six other Amityville films made their way to the public.
FINAL RATING: 5/10 FOR THE GENRE & 3/10 OVERALL. It has a good cast, and, if viewed by a group of rowdy friends late at night, may certainly do its due diligence in periodically startling you for 87 minutes, but never manages to transcend its genre in any meaningful way.
Thanks for reading and have fun watching movies.
0 comments:
Post a Comment