User reviews

Amityville the Awakening is finally here after many, many push-backs and delays. Was it worth the wait? Well like many films that use the Amityville name, not really.

The cinematography is fine, the actors are okay. One of the biggest issues with the film itself is the audio, there are plenty of scenes where dialog is drowned out by background sound.

The film starts off on a good step, using what looks like old police footage to explain about the Defeo murders, unfortunately from there the movie makes a steady decline into worthlessness.

Instead of making the movie about the house, murders and haunting, they choose to focus on a bratty girl and her vegetable of a brother. The haunting takes a back seat to the family drama, which makes the movie even worse. Poor pacing, poor writing, the movie is less than thrilling.

Let's put it this way, there's a reason why they opted for a limited theatrical release and putting it up for free on Google play in October through December. It's a film even the producers and directors can't stand behind.

The reality is, the original Amityville was popular because it was portrayed as a true story, so the family drama was more humanized. With these other films, it's about the horror and this film completely ignores that.

The original Amityville horror (1979) spawned a hardcore following and had the mystery of being based on true events. Being an instant hit it created a franchise sadly going downhill after part two. A remake (2005) did bring the story to the new kiddies in town and it had to happen, 2017 brought the story back again.

Bright thinking of the production to bring back the original story and some parts of the original flick is shown. So far so good but let me say that this was the best part.

There's nothing scary at all in this flick. Of course they tried to add some jump scene's but they are so predictable that it doesn't work. On the other hand all the killings are done off-camera that it becomes so low on horror that it is really bad.

And so cliché, the sister being the outcast, a Goth chick, really? Nope, this wasn't really worth watching for me. Just watch the 1979 version and forget the awakening.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 2/5 Story 1,5/5 Comedy 0/5

Although a date has yet to be determined for the US release of the movie, Amityville: The Awakening has finally come out internationally.

After several delays that began 2 and a half years ago, this movie has sort of become a joke in the Hollywood movie industry and everyone has started to wonder how bad this new iteration in the Amityville franchise could actually be.

I managed to see the movie today and while there aren't too many good things to be said about it, it is far from being the worst horror movie that has been put out in theaters. Actually, that's this movie's main problem: a theatrical release. It would've been better off as a straight-to-DVD movie, given its poor technical aspects which bugged me the most.

First off, the movie is a jump-scare fest, which wouldn't have been that much of a problem if the majority of them wouldn't have been fake scares. They were all extremely cheap and failed to land because there was no build-up to any of them. I couldn't even hear ONE scream from the audience I watched the movie with because, though arriving at unexpected moments, the scares turned out as laughable and nonsensical. Now that I think of it, I am having a hard time remembering at least one memorable scare or moment of suspense.

The direction of the movie was completely flat and some truly atrocious editing choices certainly didn't help it. Not only did they take me out of the moment, but they also made certain scenes incomprehensible. What also took me out of some scenes during the big showdown at the end of the movie was the terrible VFX.

Another criticism I have for this movie is its extensive use of dream sequences and visions, which didn't help the plot at all and were completely unnecessary, besides for setting up another random jump- scare.

The score of the movie was supposed to help building tension, but it rather comes out as annoying and somehow manipulative.

The ending of the movie felt abrupt and unsatisfying. Certain scenes that were included in the international trailer a month ago were nowhere to be found in this cut of the movie.

On the other hand, the performances of the actors didn't bother me at all. Bella Thorne's acting is, surprisingly, not wooden at all and she actually gets to show some of her acting skills in a few emotional moments. Most of these are opposite Jennifer Jason Leigh, and the two actresses make the mother-daughter scenes work. A highlight of the movie is Thomas Mann who gets to shine in a few comedic moments as the movie geek friend, although he doesn't get a lot of time in the spotlight.

The movie is at its best when it doesn't try to scare the audience, but perhaps make us weep. My favorite scenes were the ones in which the characters begin to form emotional bonds. Talking about characters, the most complex arcs belong to Belle and her mother, Joan, who have dramatic backstories and real motivations. However, the two friends that Belle makes at her new school are left hanging in the air after a certain a point and are underutilized. Also, Belle's little sister completely disappears from the movie for a good portion of the running time, which leaves me thinking that the screenwriter-director didn't know what to do with her while the main characters were in peril.

Another positive aspect of the movie was its self-awareness of being yet another movie in the Amityville franchise. Some of the characters even agree on the fact that the 2005 remake of the original movie is not worth a watch. However, the movie gets bogged down in the mythology of the past installments in the series, as it so often goes back and tries to recreate certain plot points of the other movies.

Overall, I think this movie is, simply put, bland, utterly forgettable and a poor excuse to bring back the Amityville long-running franchise to a new generation, paling in comparison to this new wave of critically and commercially acclaimed horror movies of the past few years.

A mother and her two kids move into the Amityville house. There's the teen daughter, Belle, the younger daughter Juliet, the dog. The mom's got a sister too. No men allowed pretty much. Oh, well, there's James, but he's in a coma and kept home. It's Belle's senior year of course and while everyone knows she lives at the Amityville house, she doesn't now anything about it. Until a classmate tries to befriend her and tells her all about the place but because he's male he's the butt of jokes and treated like crap by Belle and some other girl he introduces her to.

Back at the house, the dog barks at stuff, there are shadows, there are pesky flies and Belle starts having vivid nightmares about James. We learn that James is in a coma because of a fight he got into defending Belle, so she is bizarrely held responsible by the mother. There's some type of magic circle still around some area of the front lawn somehow.

Even though the doctor and most of the family think that James is in a coma for good, the mom, who gave up religion because of this situation, is convinced James will recover. And sure enough he does, at a rather amazing pace. The kids suspect James might be possessed and they are right. So somehow Belle will have to save the family before as the fully recovered James goes homicidal.

Even for a PG-13 horror movie, Amityville: The Awakening, is remarkably dull, lame, uninteresting. It's hard to connect with the arrogant Belle. Much of the characters' behavior is nonsensical. Worst of all, there is zero sense of dread, nothing is really at stake here. It's 10 minutes before the movie ends that finally things become deadly. By then of course it's way too late to get some excitement going. Not to mention that this movie doesn't even look good. It's the kind of movie where it's pitch black most of the time and none of the characters think about turning a friggin' light on. Darkness alone doesn't make a horror movie, let alone a good one. The only frightening thing about this movie is how bad it is.

After countless years in pre and post production, this movie finally arrived to us in late 2017. I'll admit I kind of forgot about it, and just watched it last night (December 19, 2017). The movie just wasn't interesting to anybody anymore because of the constant release changes. In fact, the movie was only released in ten United States theaters and made about $700. But, enough about the movie statistics. Let's talk about the movie itself.

Amityville: The Awakening stars Bella Thorne, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Cameron Monaghan, and Mckenna Grace. These characters move into the haunted Amityville house located in Amityville, New York. This is the same house that Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered his entire family 40 years ago. However, the mother is keeping this a secret from her children. Bella (Bella Thorne) finds this out the hard way when kids at her new school bring it to her attention. The freaky and supernatural begins with James (Cameron Monaghan), who is in a coma, is suddenly awake and able to communicate. Well, this must be supernatural. Turns out it is. James is possessed by a demon. And he wants to murder his entire family in the same vein as Ronald DeFeo Jr. Oh, and it's up to Belle to save herself and her sister, Juliet (Mckenna Grace), because their mom (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is pretty much a supernatural worshiper because she moved to the house with the intention of the supernatural possessing Jason to make him better.

Sounds like a good movie? Yeah, on paper, it sounds like the generic fun summer horror flick. However, it is quite dull in areas, and the scares are pretty low, which is unfortunate, considering this is technically an Amityville movie. However, suspense was actually quite high, and acting was somewhat good. The few times I did jump were during cheesy jump scares like when it's just the girl behind her sister. Overall, I am going to have to give film a 5/10. I watched it and was entertained enough to watch the whole thing (it is only 87 minutes, though). I would only recommend this to some horror fans. Not everybody will be as generous with their rating.

This is my first movie of this entire series. I don't know, there is any connection with other movies or not but I really get the whole story without watching the previous ones. All I can say, it's a decent movie which can be enjoyed with your whole family. If I talked about story, all horror movies stories are same xD. All horror movies either start with moving into a haunted house which they didn't know :) but eventually get to know or someone has possessed someone.

Personally, I kind of love this. It was average type of movie. It has what I usually look for ''Jump scares''.

I really wanted to like this movie - I went into with an open mind not really knowing what to expect from it as I had not read any of the reviews.

For me it lacked atmosphere, reminiscent of a made-for-TV or direct to DVD movie.

The idea of a family moving into the actual Defeo house 40 years on was an intriguing premise, but what I could not get past was the fact that the eldest daughter had no idea about the house and it's history until her new-found friends informed her, along with it's grisly back- story. Had she been living under a rock? At first I thought - OK, the movies don't exist in this universe but then they actually mention the movies, sequels and remake and even venture to watch the 1979 original.

Still, it was watchable and although there were the usual clichéd horror tropes it did hold my interest until the end.

"Amityville: The Awakening" is the tenth installment in the "Amityville" series (but honestly, who's counting anymore?), and it follows Belle, a teenager girl who move into the famed 112 Ocean Avenue with her mother, little sister, and brain-dead twin brother on life support. Bad things happen, including her brother become a vessel for demonic energy.

It's been a long road for "Amityville: The Awakening": I remember seeing trailers at the movie theater for it at least two years ago, but it had numerous delays in typical Weinstein Company fashion—it also, if my suspicious are correct, was chopped to pieces by the Weinstein Company's subsidiary Dimension Films, who distributed (or were supposed to distribute) the film.

I have a soft spot for the "Amityville" movies, and have found even the worst of the installments at least amusing—what can I say? I love a haunted house flick. "The Awakening" starts out rather nicely with atmospheric, mundane goings-on as the family settles in, punctuated by genuinely chilling moments: On their second day in the home, the little sister says to Belle that their brother, James, has been cursing at her. The punchline? James is brain-dead and in a vegetative state. These sorts of moments in "The Awakening" genuinely work, and Franck Khalfoun's script gets meta when Bella and her outcast friends have an "Amityville Horror" movie marathon at the Amityville House. As they're watching the infamous "red room" scene from the 1979 original, the power goes out; it's 3:15am. While this move is risky in that it relegates all the other "Amityville" films to fiction, it's clever.

Unfortunately, as the film progresses, things get sloppier and sloppier; uneven editing and pacing matches uneven development of plot lines that are fairly one-note to begin with. About three- quarters of the way through, one begins to realize that there really is not much happening; the subtleties of the first act lead to payoffs that are frankly not that interesting. As I mentioned before, it's difficult to say who is at fault for the film's shortcomings, as the Weinsteins are notorious for cutting films to pieces (see "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers," or "Cursed" for reference), and a lot of the issues come from what seems to be bad editing. Franck Khalfoun proved himself a talent in my eyes with 2007's "P2," and with people like Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kurtwood Smith, and Jennifer Morrison on board, there is considerable talent here. The young cast is even quite good, with Bella Thorne playing a sympathetic lead.

In the end, "Amityville: The Awakening" is actually one of the better sequels in the series, if we can call it that, and while it does offer some subtle and clever moments, it spins its wheels in the last act and errs into a rote, albeit shoddily-pieced-together conclusion. For series diehards, it's a must-see for the reasons I've stated above, but in general, it's a fairly unremarkable effort. 6/10.

The seventeen year-old Belle Walker (Bella Thorne) moves to Long Island with her mother Joan (Jennifer Jason Leigh), her little sister Juliet (Mckenna Grace), her comatose twin brother James (Cameron Monaghan) and her aunt Candice (Jennifer Morrison). James suffered an accident and depends on the life support equipment to survive. His neurologist Dr. Milton (Kurtwood Smith) knows that the braindead James will not recover but Joan does not accept the truth and has high-hopes that her beloved son will recover. When Belle goes to school, she learns that her address is the notorious Amityville house where a father killed his family forty years ago. Belle discovers blood stains under the wallpaper of her room and soon mysterious things happen in the house. When James recovers after a flat line, Belle believes an evil thing has possessed he brother.

"Amityville: The Awakening" is another Amityville horror film with terrible story and poorly written screenplay. The characters are not well developed and the conclusion is deceptive. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Amityville: O Despertar" ("Amityville: The Awakening")

I thought this movie was great! It kept a creepy feel throughout and definitely had a few jump out of your seat moments. I don't get all of the low scores. My only assumption is that people are sitting there playing on their phones and not even paying attention to what is going on.

Is this the greatest horror ever made? No.

Is it the worst? Absolutely not.

So it's not the most groundbreaking film, but it's a pretty good sequel to the original film. Let's look at some of the previous efforts in comparison: one will a doll's house, another with an old clock, not to mention the asylum one... all absolutely terrible, with tenuous links to the original story. With this film, it's set in the house (and a pretty good replica it is too) the floor plan is based on the actual house rather than the film version, which perhaps has confused viewers of the original version as the interior was very different, it uses apparent news footage of the Defeo murders, and heavily refers to the book and films made about the supernatural history. This is an absolutely deserved sequel.

The story isn't bad. Some will say that there wasn't enough horror and scares, and that it focused too much on the family, but but for me that made it more successful. The comments about the possession happening too quickly I think is a bit of a misunderstanding. My view is that the events of the film took place over a longer period than immediately evident.

The only real criticism I have is about Jennifer Jason Leigh. Having watched her in a few films over the last few years, she has an air of boredom about each role, with not a huge range of emotion displayed on her face.

I would be interested in seeing what the film was supposed to have looked like before it was cut, but while I think some of the criticism has been about the visual effects (seriously, watch the scene with the bats in 'The Doll' of you want terrible effects!),y feeling is that the cut elementay have included more of these which may have been a detriment to the end result.

Watch with an open mind. It's not half bad.

This film has had a long, strange road behind it. Starting with a Daniel Farrands (Halloween 6) and Casey La Scala (Grind) found footage style script in play, over time it was scrapped. Leading to this film. Written and directed by Franck Khalfoun (P2, Maniac).

Straight away, Khalfoun has a solid list of directed films under his belt. Being said, ones written prominently by other writers turned out a much better product. With this film, cliché and limitations are at play. Early on, this film sought a theatrical release and I can see what changed it all. It is lacking a cinematic punch. Lighting and atmosphere gave way to what was ultimately a tightly wound production schedule. Followed by even more delays. Even so, the film the film is directed well. Some effective scares and setups set a decent tone at times. Again, those missing atmospheric ingredients keep us in the dark with knowing who is at the helm.

I did find this film an interesting blend of the catatonic, ESP driven thriller Patrick with Amityvilles sense of possession an interesting take on the property. It provides a decent backstory and drama to the plot to keep the terrors grounded in reality. Solid writing there.

The rating is a problem here too. Originally an R, it was recut to suit a PG-13. Why? The Ryan Reynolds remake was a hard R and found solid success. This merely added less scares and a plethora of cutaways. Missed opportunities and a waste of filmmakers time and money that could've gone elsewhere.

The actors are actually quite solid, ranging from new stars and seasoned ones. They manage to convey conviction to each of their roles, even when moments seem over done.

The issue here is that this film is an okay film mostly because of its delay, but also because of its redundancy. How many Amityville films do we have at this point? Including redbox DTV's, it's off the charts. Hence why Farrands and La Scalas earlier premise may have been a better pay off.

Instead of replaying the Amityville saga again and again, maybe a modern deconstruction of the age old tale is just what that old haunted house needs to set those demon eyed Windows ablaze again.

This is the first theatrical Amityville release since 2005, the first legitimately high budget Amityville movie in a longtime so expectations were understandably high.

It tells the story of a family who move into the infamous house including a young comatose son who begins a remarkable yet sinister recovery.

With some familiar faces and money behind it this should have been considerably better yet fails left right and centre.

The whole thing is an unoriginal, predictable shoddily made mess to an extent even I didn't expect.

It surprises me that an actor on the upswing of his career like Gothams Cameron Monaghan would agree to do a film like this especially considering how much difficulty they even had in getting it released.

A swing and a miss.

The Good:

Features the actual Amityville house

The Bad:

Predictable

Poorly made

Cast are phoning in their performances

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Amityville has a biblical connection now....

There's just not a lot here to review, honestly. Stuff happens, some of it is creepy, then it's over. The only really good thing I can say about it is Cameron Monaghan delivers quite an unsettling performance, despite the fact his character is immobile for most of the movie.

Considering how one of the main characters is going through most of the movie, I reckon the title is poiting at that. It could also have been Re- Awakening I reckon - pointing to this being the x-version of the Amityville ... franchise/myth - not sure what you would like to call it.

The acting talent in front of the camera surprised me. But I reckon the title had some recognition. On the other hand, we also get a director who really knows his stuff (check his other output) - why he did this? I imagine he is a fan of the original and wanted to do his own take on it. Plus he got paid I assume - money is always a nice motivator to do stuff. No pun intended here either.

The movie is predictable, though I did not see the nod (almost fourth wall breaking) to the original. Literally on your/their screen - not to be missed. A fun, but also creepy moment. Something that can also be said about the ending. I thought it did a decent job there too.

... But of course my expectations were low given the 4.8 IMDb rating. But this movie was better than a 4.8. For one, it was a unique take on the Amityville storyline. For two, it had Jennifer Jason Leigh. Love her. And for three, it was reasonably entertaining without major gaffs.

In the Amityville universe, I have only seen the original movie, the 2005 (or so) remake, and this movie. I believe there are at least three or four other movies with Amityville in the title. This movie made me think how interesting would be to see a single movie that goes through a timeline of the different families that lived in this house and their experiences.

ABOUT MY REVIEWS:

I do not include a synopsis of the film/show -- you can get that anywhere and that does not constitute a meaningful review -- but rather my thoughts and feelings on the film that hopefully will be informative to you in deciding whether to invest 90-180 minutes of your life on it.

My scale: 1-5 decreasing degrees of "terrible", with 5 being "mediocre" 6- OK. Generally held my interest OR had reasonable cast and/or cinematography, might watch it again 7 - Good. My default rating for a movie I liked enough to watch again, but didn't rise to the upper echelons 8- Very good. Would watch again and recommend to others 9- Outstanding. Would watch over and over; top 10% of my ratings 10 - A classic. (Less than 2% receive this rating). For Lifetime Movies for Chicks (LMFC), drop the above scale by 3 notches. A 6 is excellent and 7 almost unattainable.

After four or five years of countless problems in pre and post production, trying so desperately to get released this movie finally does...in one of the saddest ways that is pretty unbecoming of something that fought so hard for so long, by throwing it out digitally for free, plus with a severely limited theatrical release later on....wow.

The story is about a teenage girl named Belle (played by Bella Thorne) and her family that move into the Amityville house. Her family consists of her mom (Jennifer Jason Leigh), her little sister (Mckenna Grace) and her twin brother who is in a coma for two years (Cameron Monaghan). From there, freaky things start to occur around the house to the point where Belle isn't sure what is real anymore. Within a short amount of time of moving into the house with a terrifying past, it appears that her comatose brother's state begins to improve; however the tensions between Belle and her mother increase, making us wonder where the real threat lies in the family. Her possibly possessed brother or the mother that refuses to let anything stop her from making the family whole again.

Anyways, after all of this time of waiting and wondering what could be so wrong about this movie to warrant such a long hold on this production and I am still not entirely sure what the problem was. It's mostly fine. There are some problems with it for sure; particularly some scenes that are fairly obvious re- shoots/additional content filmed and edited in at a later date from initial production; because there are characters that practically have nothing to do with the plot aside from providing needless exposition about things we already know and also declaring that the "Amityville Horror" film franchise exists as movies in this movie's universe...that's perplexing to say the least. I mean, why? That's just confusing and also is something that kind of makes the lead character look dumb for not knowing about the Amityville house since the movies exist in her reality. I am curious as to what these 're- shoot' scenes had replaced, because I feel like there was probably some more material that delved into the relationship between the family or maybe the medical investigation going on with the brother, but was unfortunately cut and replaced with some pointless characters and uninteresting dialog.

Also there are some disturbing themes that the movie very briefly introduces, but does not flesh them out or resolve them in much of a satisfying way. Plus there is a sequence about halfway into this movie that feels out of place or cut incorrectly because a certain 'scare' occurs in this movie that involves the youngest sister, but then is completely dropped and forgotten literally in the next shot. It was jarring. There is editing like that which pops up here and there, but is never too terrible to enrage or confuse too drastically.

Aside from the gripes I've listed, I will say that this movie is still mostly fine. It has a decent enough story with decent enough characters. There's nothing groundbreaking in terms of its writing, but it works enough to carry itself along in its very short run time. The actors all do well in their roles, especially Jennifer Jason Leigh who has to play this mother at her wits end in her attempts to bring her son out of his vegetative state and will do anything to make that happen. There are times where she feels legitimately intimidating without playing it over-the-top. The majority of the scares work pretty well, particularly since this movie focuses more on character and plot and less on jump scares, even though there are some that happen from time to time. Luckily the jump scares that do happen aren't many, nor all that badly handled.

In my opinion, this is an okay movie; it has enough character development, story, scares and atmosphere to hold itself up. I feel that it has had a lot of fluctuation over the years in its quality and it may have been better if it hadn't gone through all those years of post-production hell. Comparing it to other films that have gone through similar experiences though, I will say it is probably one of the better examples of its kind. So if you give this movie a shot then you'll most likely watch it and be fine with going about the rest of your day. It won't stick in your mind as anything great, but a serviceable flick. Sometimes that's all you need from a little horror movie around Halloween time.

This is the first time I am doing a review on a movie. I was bit sceptical after the poor reviews on IMDb regarding this movie but I still gave it a try. It is a decent good movie.It's not WOW movie but its a good decent movie to watch on a Friday night.It is a movie which am sure I can re watch in few years time like I normally do with good movies.

Please stop making Amityville movies they all suck and make no sense and the makers add nothing new to the horrific story that actually happened.