The Amityville Haunting (2011)

Review

"This is the house man, shout them all one by one in the head" - Brett

The Benson family, ex-military dad Douglas, keep the family together mom Virginia, aspiring documentary maker Tyler, older sister with angst Lori, and cute munchkin Melanie movie into the infamous house at 108 Ocean Avenue because it is in their price range. Apparently they have had to do multiple moves due to Lori being something of a tart, not quite sure how that works but hey the least of our problems with this movie. Naturally their Realtor immediately keels over dead in the driveway due to an aneurysm after showing the Benson the house. Taking this as a good sign, hey dead real estate salesperson all's good right, the Bensons lay down a deposit and are soon moving into Casa del Haunted. Oh and on moving day one of the removalists falls down the stairs, lands on his head, and is pronounced dead on the scene. But what's a few deaths and lack of Police investigation in Amityville!

Melanie develops a friendship with an invisible friend, John Matthews, and this sort of uncorks the paranormal bottle as all manner of supernatural shenanigans go down. You know the drill, doors that unlock themselves, loud unexplained noises, flies, Dad being a douche bag, the whole nine yards. Naturally no one believes Tyler who has been capturing a lot of freaky deaky on the video camera he seems glued to, Dad thinks he has everything under control, and Mom freaks out a lot. When in doubt home security and cams everywhere, they should have left Amityville in their dust. Ready once more to be drawn into that House with the freaky windows, seems they are not going to stop making these movies?

So through 2017 there was talk of a couple of Amityville movies haunting our review queue but nothing came of it, think later this month one of them is finally dropping in a straight to disc release. So I kept my eye on various places and The Amityville Haunting popped onto my radar, immediately ordered the disc and duly received it. Unfortunately this offering in the long suffering franchise is from 2011, is an Amityville movie in name alone - although they keep harping on about the previous movies, and shockingly is a found footage outing. Now I have nothing against found footage if done correctly and was fairly tearing into the disc wrapper to get this one on the player and see what someone could do with the technique in the most haunted franchise in the U.S. Unfortunately not much would be my answer, and I have an early contender for worst movie viewed in 2018.

Haunting actually starts okay and I was fooled into believing I might just be getting a half decent movie experience. Two teenage couples break into the House, well okay one of the guys knows about keys and such cause his mom sells real estate, for a night of booze, sex, and raising the evil that is apparently dormant. Naturally this doesn't end well for our teenage horny crew and we have blood splattered walls. A month or so later the Bensons arrive, with Dad seemingly having made his mind up about the house before they actually see it, as you do, who needs to see a house before buying it! In the interim someone has cleaned up the dead bodies, and the Realtor doesn't feel the need to mention that slight issue. Actually you don't have to mention murders, death, and mayhem that occurred in a house you are selling in Queensland either, so we'll let that one go back to the keeper. The Bensons are soon moving in and we pretty much get enough character development to at least recognise who is who. Oh and one of the removalists falls down the stairwell and dies, Mom is slightly upset by this, but Dad is of the "let's not dwell on the past" if it suites him sort of a bloke.

Having got the body count happening pretty quickly, hey six and counting, it's down to supernatural happenings and building up the tension. The first thing you'll pretty much notice is this house is not the Amityville house, it's way too small and apparently doesn't have a portal to hell. Which could explain the lack of invisible demonic pigs, though given the production standards here they would no doubt have replaced Jody with Porkie the Pig. The second thing you will no doubt stumble over is the constant cutting to black and simulation of the supernatural effect on video tape, needless to say it's handled like an old dude with poor eye hand coordination who has just foamed up the paws with soap and is trying to hold onto a wet baby. Yes it's irritating and distracts like a bastard. And finally you'll notice the hauntings going down here, revenants and all folks, bare no resemblance to the denizens of the original movie. Don't expect demonic happenings, marching bands, or anything else remotely Amityville like happening. Did I mention we do get flies, in one scene, that goes nowhere. Suddenly "GET OUT!" was some good advice, thanks demonic force.

Now not saying The Amityville Haunting is ripping off the Paranormal Activity franchise, but someone in a director's chair has clearly been spending a lot of time with those movies. Yes we get static cameras, wait for something to happen, doors opening by themselves, including something trying to come out of Tyler's closet. Which just goes to show how well the Paranormal Activity folk did with their movies, director Geoff Meed doesn't have any idea what he is doing with his static cameras, they are just there doing nothing much. We do get a few ghostly apparitions captured, but hey keep it in your pants Meed, as soon as you did this you blew any tension you might have been building. So if you don't dig Katie Featherston doing her thing then you are going to be damn right angry with Haunting.

So pretty much we're talking a mish mash of a movie that dates other movies heavily, but then doesn't call them in the morning. Normally if a Director likes an effect in another movie and wants to reproduce it in his/her project they tend to get it right. Meed here demonstrates a singular ability to complete misunderstand how things work in horror. Given the blurb on the case of my DVD copy, I was pretty much aware that no one was going to survive; ergo there wasn't even some anticipation about who was going to meet a nasty end and who was going to walk away. Disappointment isn't best as a dish served cold; it sucks like a baby at a Hooters outlet. Oops sorry to anyone who is a member of the PC brigade reading this, but hey dark genre site, we have a reputation to maintain.

Needless to say no one was exactly laying down their cards for Oscar night with their performance in The Amityville Haunting. While the cast isn't exactly in the hundreds, hey they could hardly come up with a believable police officer, we're secretly glad the cast lunches could have been held in a two man tent with room to spare. Amateur night at your local repertory theatre try outs comes to mind. Actually folk down my local one have more talent, and they suck the life out of the universe.

Guess I covered the horror elements already, but to reiterate terrible, poorly handled, the worse I've seen in a while outside an Asylum flick. I didn't get a single cold shudder, a jump in my seat moment, or even a shock reaction. About the only scene that had me feeling even slightly horror orientated was the one involving the death of Lori, this involved a revenant going Jason Voorhees or perhaps Toby on her arse. If you don't get the references then write on in and I'll make them explicit.

For the pervs amongst us you do get some T&A action going down. Well okay you get one simulated sex scene which doesn't show much, and a set of boobs, both scenes happening early in the movie. The girls as usual get nada, because chicks don't watch horror flicks or something.

Well another Amityville movie and even more evidence the franchise should be taken out behind the wood shed and put down. I got through the movie, part of the gig Bro, but it was more a case of wondering just how bad this could get by the closing credits than an episode in enjoying myself. Shockingly poor film making, and just checking, yes to date Geoff Meed's only directing credit, which I guess is something of a blessing, hey a silver lining. Clearly I'm not about to drop a recommendation on this one, avoid at all cost would be my suggestion. And before you ask, once we get done with the Child's Play franchise we might just turn out attention toward 108 Ocean Avenue Amityville.