Well, a couple of alarm bells went off when I saw the cover for this 2020 movie, yet I still opted to sit down and watch it. Why? Well, because it was a movie that I hadn't already seen, so why not?
And the alarm bells that went off here were first and foremost the mentioning of the name Amityville. Yeah, that instantly made me think 'oh no, not another dubious movie cashing in on the Amityville name and the old classic from 1979. And then there were the mentioning of a poltergeist, which seemed rather out of place when set in Amityville. And of course there were the strange Gollum-like creature sitting at the front of the movie's cover.
Let me just be the first to say that "An Amityville Poltergeist" is a boring movie. So incredibly slow paced, boring and downright pointless. It felt like writers Calvin Morie McCarthy and Jon Ashley Hall weren't even trying to churn out something wholesome and worthwhile.
The storyline is just unfathomably boring. I kid you not when I say that there weren't a single scary moment in the entire movie - well, unless you consider being bored to an early grave as being scary. And the writing was just laughable, which goes for the characters, the dialogue and the happenings throughout the monotonous and slow paced storyline.
The acting in "An Amityville Poltergeist" was pretty much as you would expect from a movie such as this one. But it should be said that I have seen worse performances in other movies, so at least they were on the right track here. Just a shame that they had literally nothing to work with in terms of script, dialogue and characters.
Visually then "An Amityville Poltergeist" was just a swing and miss. There was nothing even remotely near to being proper horror here. The entire movie was just permeated by a very distinct feeling of a homemade horror movie project. So don't expect to be sitting down to watch a movie with great special effects, make-up or props. It just simply isn't with miles reach of the movie.
I gave up on "An Amityville Poltergeist" with just 20 minutes left. But by then I was so bored out of my mind that I just couldn't take another minute of the torture and boredom that is "An Amityville Poltergeist".
Oh, and before I forget, there is no ties to the Amityville at all here, aside from cashing in on the name. As for there being a poltergeist haunting, nope. And that strange Gollum-like creature? Nope. I don't even know why it even made an appearance on the movie's cover actually.
My rating of director Calvin Morie McCarthy's 2020 movie lands on a two out of ten stars. There are worse movies out there, believe you me. But "An Amityville Poltergeist" is definitely a contender up far on the list of bad horror movies. I can't recommend that you waste your time, money or effort on a movie such as this. Some of us suffered through the ordeal to greater or smaller extend, so you don't have to.
