Yes, at long last… it’s Amityville: The Awakening (2014… no, 2015… no, 2016… no, 2017! We mean it this time!).
So was it worth setting the alarm for this Awakening? Oh, of course not. It’s not as painfully bad as its multiple reshoots and reschedulings might have led us to believe, but the final product is so depressingly generic that I found myself wishing I were watching Amityville Death House instead. Give me enthusiastic incompetence over dreary corporate-approved indifference any day!
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCMENT: Amityville: The Awakening is free to watch on Google Play from now until October 28, 2017.
UPDATE: Sure enough, Amityville: The Awakening was released to theaters for a very limited run on October 28, and its nationwide gross was… $742. This sort of thing just makes me mad.
Will Laughlin is the Braineater.
#1 by Ken on October 13, 2017 - 10:54 pm
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That rather strains the definition of “public service”…
#2 by lyzard on October 13, 2017 - 11:03 pm
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I could answer your question by saying *I’m* the expected audience, but that doesn’t address the overriding issue.
Your remarks about The Conjuring 2 are fascinating: surely the people who recognised what that shot was doing are the “missing” audience for this film?? – or were before it got watered down to tepid inoffensiveness. Did they think they had lost their audience *because* of The Conjuring etc.? (They don’t know anything about horror fans if they thought that…which probably therefore is the explanation.)
It moves listlessly from jump-scare to jump-scare
If it *has* jump-scares, it’s doing better than the previous two sequels (and Death House, which I have watched…for my sins).
Flies? Check. Stained wallpaper? Check. Opening windows? Check. Red Room? (Sigh) check.
None of which have been present in the franchise since The Possession.
Not that I’m in any way, shape or form making an argument for this film, except in the most extreme, lowering-of-the-bar sense; clutching at hairs rather than straws. Microfilaments, even.
But when you’re dealing with sequels that don’t seem to have the slightest clue about the franchise they’re purportedly a part of, even obnoxious self-referentialism can have an up-side.
Anyhoo— I thank you for the sacrifice, and console (!?) myself with the reflection that I have another six sequels to plow through before I need to watch this…
#3 by Braineater on October 14, 2017 - 5:37 am
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As far as the checklist was concerned, I was thinking mostly of the original book and movie, since they’re the reference points this installment takes its cues from (ineffectively). Trouble is, it checks them off without any understanding of what made them effectively scary plot devices — er, excuse me: “horrifying true events”. And the one original point it comes up with so neuters the Evil that it completely ruins one of the most troubling aspects of the “true story”, and the plot motivator that kept the franchise going: the Presence’s ability to move beyond the house and follow its victims anywhere.
#4 by RogerBW on October 15, 2017 - 4:14 pm
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Tax writeoff? But then they probably wouldn’t have bothered with the reshoots.
#5 by Richard on October 18, 2017 - 11:42 am
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Love the version of the movie poster!
We need more like that:
http://www.chud.com/80642/james-dean-in-drive-shatner-in-avatar-and-fritz-langs-inception/