At
the end of Amityville 3-D, the evil
house finally burns to the ground, yet somehow it was up and standing again in
the next fourteen films in the franchise. Some were reboots and prequels, but
others just ignored the slightly glaring continuity problem. The latest (though
much delayed) entry has no need of retcons, because it takes place in a world
where the DeFeo murders really happened in 1974 and the series of cash-in
movies they spawned also very definitely exist. The latest teen resident will
even watch the original 1979 movie with her new classmates at the fateful hour
of 3:15 am. That turns out to be a bad idea in Franck Khalfoun’s Amityville: The Awakening, which is supposed to have some sort of
release this weekend, despite its early promotional window of free streaming on
Google Play.
Belle
Walker’s family has just moved into 112 Ocean Avenue, because the price was
right and it was conveniently near her catatonic brother’s doctor. That is
correct, they have brought a possibly brain-dead vessel into a
demonically-possessed house. What a super-good idea that is.
So
yes, Awakening is basically the Amityville franchise mixed with the
Ozploitation cult classic Patrick for
an infusion of new blood. To be honest, it works better than any of us have a
right to expect. Poor James Walker does indeed start showing signs of life, but
in a series of admirably tense scenes, his sister determines there is something
evil in there with him.
Even
though Awakening is a Blumhouse
production from a horror director with a bit of a critical reputation, the Weinsteins
kept it languishing on the shelf. Seriously, what is so hard about marketing an
Amityville Horror movie? Frankly,
their habit of hiding films in the vault or frittering away their release (Suite Française on Lifetime?) is another
reason the industry has so enjoyed their ongoing implosion.
Regardless,
Awakening is probably one of the
fresher Amityville films, since the
original with Margot Kidder (helmed by Stuart Rosenberg, director of Cool Hand Luke). Khalfoun’s take is far
from the scariest film you will see this holiday season, but he keeps it moving
along nicely and the meta-references to the prior books and films are a rather clever
tweaking of the franchise.
Academy
Award nominee Jennifer Jason Leigh is surprisingly creepy as Walker’s
ill-tempered mother, Joan. Bella Thorne carries the film well enough as Belle
Walker, while nicely playing off Taylor Spreitler and Thomas Mann as her
personal Monster Squad. Plus, genre regular Kurtwood Smith (Robocop, Agent Carter) does his thing as
neurologist Dr. Milton.
