User reviews

Wow, I've seen a lot of indie horrors, small projects, but genuinely nothing like this. Everything was below amateur style, with terrible acting, it tried to present 2 stories in this so called plot, that was confusing and confused, and even more amazing is the fact that they managed to fill 90 minutes somehow.

Simply put, NO horror, no real story just time passing by and frustration growing more and more. It was a harsh experience, that I did manage to finish, but I have to say that I regret starting it. I gained nothing after viewing An Amityville Poltergeist, well, the question How did they manage to link this to the Amityville did stuck with me for a while. It's all that I have left.

For real this is worst than an Asylum production, and that is saying a lot. Be careful, whoever you are and whatever your intentions are. You won't get this time back.

Cheers!

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.

"I had a nightmare I think someone was there in the house."

The same rehash plot being used in these types of horror films.

The title is floating as it has nothing to do with The Amityville or The Poltergeist.

The cinematography has colors such has blue and purple however, there's nothing in the movie to worth looking for.

Giving it one star since they attempted to accomplish something yet the outcome is feeble as dementia.

Likewise, the poster is misleading, I lament watching this and I definitely want to save some a few eyes being paralyzed.

While smoking weed with two of his friends, a young man named "Jim" (Parris Bates) happens to notice an ad on his computer for a house-sitting job that pays pretty good money. Curious about it, Jim responds to the ad and discovers that all he has to do is stay in the house for several days and basically keep an eye on an old woman named "Eunice" (Rebecca Kimble) who appears to be suffering from dementia. Naturally, considering how easy everything seems to be, Jim accepts the job immediately. What he doesn't count on, however, are the recurring nightmares he has whenever he closes his eyes--and he isn't the only one who is affected by them. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was yet another low-budget horror movie that slapped the word "Amityville" on its title in order to draw more attention. At least, I didn't see any connection to Amityville. But I could be wrong. Regardless, this film has a number of flaws, with the first being the rather confusing plot--with the nightmares or hallucinations never seeming to have any real impact on any of the characters involved. At least, not until the end of the movie. Additionally, although the script could have used some improvement, the acting itself wasn't too bad, with Parris Bates, Sydney Winbush (as "Alyson) and Airisa Durand ("Donna") performing adequately for the most part. But again, the rather incoherent plot certainly didn't help matters. That being said, while I don't consider this to be a terribly bad horror film, I honestly cannot rate it higher than I have. Below average.

Wow! Everything from the plot, the acting, sound, the dialogue and the cinematography was appalling. Who on Earth thought this film was a good idea??? A special mention for the make-up people who did the so called "scary" parts, I hope they get well soon.

I honestly thought it was worth watching. Fun night with the friends! Spooky, fun. It's low budget but well put together! I understand that distribution retitled it from "Don't Sleep" so going in I knew not to treat it like an Amityville movie, because that would be unfair. It's its own movie an entity. 100% no regrets, worth watching!

Compared to the other B grade Amityville movies I have seen, this one was able to provide a few genuinely creepy moments, reminiscent to The Ring and Grudge.

The acting wasn't great, but I have seen much worse.

How it has the same low rating as Amityville im the Hood..No idea!

I't's better than that. This is actually able to keep you entertained and provide a few chills.

And the CGI whilst obviously B grade didn't stray too far off nailing the eeriness of the original grudge movies. In all honesty, I might Give the recent Grudge release another chance. But I actually thought this was a better film.

AN Amityville Poltergeist is something of an enigma. It's clear is was never intended to be an Amityville film, and it just had the title slapped on to sell to horror fans.

It's not great, and obviously extremely low budget, yet...it does have a different feel to it than some of the other cynically made "sequels" in the franchise. The movie is at least trying to be scary. It's trying to hold your attention. It's trying to be better than it is.

For all intents and purposes, I'd say it punches above its weight class.

Taking a special job for a friend, a man becomes a special housesitter for an elderly woman looking over her house while she's away for treatment, but the more he and his friends stay there, the more he becomes convinced her stories of something deadly living in the house are true.

Overall, this was a decent enough if somewhat problematic genre effort. Among the brightest elements within this one comes from the great atmosphere and generally appealing storyline that provides this one with a fun starting point for the later shenanigans. The simplistic idea of getting him to the house as a housesitter by doing a favor for a friend who's in no state to watch it by herself and needs a younger body to help her look after the strange things going on inside is a decent enough concept to bring him and his friends together at this kind of location. When it's revealed that there's something wrong with the house due to its history, and the background information is revealed about what took place on the property years ago, giving us a chance at utilizing the famous backstory of the house, there's a lot of fun to come from bringing about the supernatural hauntings later on with this kind of setup. That comes about rather nicely as those supernatural hauntings are generally creepy enough. The initial signs of something happening just out of the corner of someone's vision or seeing the hallucination visions of someone's face materializing into some kind of demonic entity are predictable enough means of something happening, while also serving to bring about the kind of energy that gives this enough of a chilling mindset within here. That means the finale, where it brings back the series of hauntings and ghostly figures here into a series of encounters within the house as the ghosts come back for their own form of revenge in some genuinely creepy moments here, provides the film with the necessary frantic and fiery style of encounters that it requires in this type of setup. Overall, these all manage to give this one a lot to like, while there are some big drawbacks to this one holding it back. The main issue here is the somewhat problematic and generally sluggish pacing that manages to keep the film somewhat slow-going and hard to get into for much of the running time. Since the storyline is geared for a small, contained cast to wander around in a singular location environment, there's very little break from a monotony of interactions that are built around how he's adjusting to his duties or hanging out with his friends, which all keeps the film generally slow and repetitive. There's also the big factor involving the confusing storyline, where it never makes it clear if jumping around as often as it does to the various dates is supposed to mean or why they'd even be willing to stay, considering some of the interactions showcased, as the idea of constantly jumping around instead of being linear in its presentation makes for a troublesome time.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Graphic Language.