thomasellery

There's nothing amazing or unique here, but if you're a fan of the Amityville legend, then it makes a harmless little watch.

It's one of those tv style documentaries that loves to recap, so you can nip off to the kitchen and grab a snack and not really miss anything.

It delves just deep enough into each aspect to keep it moving along without dragging to much over one section. The actual events and phenomena surrounding it make it pretty easy to keep it interesting.

I get the TikTok cross over was to highlight the generational interest, but they didn't blend that well, a small montage would have done.

There's a nice amount of archive footage, maybe a bit to intrusive modern footage and a good variety of vox poppers, so overall it does what it's supposed to do and mildly entertain with a recap of a story you probably already know.

Okay this movie has become more of a background asthetic for October's spooky season than a horror to me. That doesn't mean I'm not a fan, but it's perfect for autumn vibes with retro feels.

By today's standards it's nothing special, but if you're viewing it as an older movie without judgement of comparison, there's still some fun to be had. Think more campfire tale of a modern urban myth than horror, but with Superman's girlfriend and James B looking 70's hot in briefs.

It helps to know a lot about the hype around it, get the supernatural movie boom it was caught up in and understand why its popularity was partly due to American family financial struggles at the time of its release. It's like the visual final piece of an urban legend phenomenon jigsaw, that completes the picture. Maybe that's the old film studies student in me romanticising its nostalgia though.

Plot wise it's basic, but at least the characters have a bit of depth, (even the hammy ones), and it all flows along nicely enough. Although the priest's and cop's plots just end without any real purpose or conclusion.

The haunting is more the wind blowing and doors slamming kind, but there's some iconic "get outs" in there as well. The nun puking and that babysitter's head brace were hilarious when I was a kid in the 80's and I love their pop cultureness even more now.

The house really had it in for Father Delany though and somehow haunts him when he's not even there and the absolute hammy performance given, makes these moments cringe greatness, so if that's your thing you're gonna like this movie.

The music is great though, there's some nice cinematography in parts and it's covered in dusty golden autumn tones and James actually did a pretty good job of a man becoming doppelgänger possessed.

Overall it's a horror your kids can watch, it's more a traditional spooky tale than horror and let's not forget someone did actually shoot their whole family to death in real life.

I've actually taken a selfie outside the real house (they've taken out those windows - but the house opposite looks like the movie version) so I guess I'm biased on my score to have that level of fandom, but like a window slamming down on your fingers, I don't care.

The reason this got any stars is for the aesthetics, there's no denying the set design, colours and outfits are all a visual feast with retro vibes and pastel shades oozing in every inch of the screen.

Unfortunately the film itself is a snooze fest. It's painfully slow, it always feels like nothing much is really happening even when it is and I can't figure out if the monotone deadpan delivery of every line - that's EVERY line - is deliberate or just bad acting, either way it's gets very tiring very quickly and sucks out any possibility of emotional depth.

Plot wise it lacks well everything really, I guess it's linear and easy to follow (at an incredibly slow pace) but I felt no investment in any of it. I was more impressed with how square the male actors jaws were than anything their characters did.

It's like flicking through a really beautiful Instagram post in slow motion, you love how it looks, but you wish it would hurry up and move onto the next bit.