The Amityville Haunting

Yet another film made to look like "real" footage. The only way for these types of films to be truly successful is to actually believe the footage may be real. First, the "father" character is so poorly acted you cannot get past it. His behavior has no clear motivation. It is completely unclear whether the "house" is making him crazy or if he is actually crazy all by himself. Second, the film is about one of the most recognizable icons of haunted house stories in American lore. We never see a sweeping view of the house, to prove it is actually the Amityville House. The Amityville house has three stories, amazingly, the house in this movie only has two stories. Thirdly, just pass this movie up completely and watch something else.

so the movie starts with the words "what you are about to see is real" this is so not true, in fact, its another one of those Paranormal Activity "true story" plots where one person is shooting the video the whole time: it reeks of horror movie cliché. i don't really mind the whole 'shaky camera' trend in "real" horror movies these days, but what really gets to me is the fact that these people record the whole incident but don't bother to check what they have recorded until the very last moment. i mean whats up with that? aren't you even a little bit curious to see if there was any haunting recorded until you realize that people are dieing around you?

Please note: I didn't realise THE AMITYVILLE HAUNTING was produced by The Asylum before I purchased it, otherwise I might have had second thoughts. This turns out to be a found footage twist on the whole AMITYVILLE HORROR franchise, which inevitably rips off just about every found footage movie in existence.

The main "inspiration" behind this film is, clearly, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, although this movie makes that film look like a masterpiece in comparison. Everything about it is horrible: the acting, the style, the distinct lack of a story, in which the writer just throws everything into the mix in an attempt to make something stick (nothing does). So we get ghostly kids, intruders, doors opening on their own, murders. It's all ludicrous.

The film's main character is a kid, and about half the running time seems to consist of him pointing the camera at the floor while his parents argue; this doesn't make for a good use of screen time. Instead, I was bored witless by it. The only thing that kept me watching was the bad acting of the father, which was pretty amusing. There's quite a bit of incident in the last five minutes (none of which makes much sense) but it comes far too late in the game to make THE AMITYVILLE HAUNTING an interesting film.

The actual film was a parody of paranormal activity and the Amityville Horror, although it is the 'same' house it is now in the suburbs rather than countryside... but we need not mention the finer details. I loved both the original and Ryan Reynolds version of Amityville Horror so I thought that I would give it a chance regardless. It's not the same story or even a good sequel. It's shot like Paranormal Activity and seems to be an improv situation as no one really seems to know what to say. They try to add narrative with a child and a video camera who feels it necessary to annoy everyone in the film with the camcorder and me with his recap of each bad 'horror' segment. Where as in PA (which I did like) the characters seem scared... Not this kid, as he says things are 'really creepy'- Yes Tyler (or whatever generic name you have) it is actually if I was you I'd be like maybe we shouldn't be here rather than worry about your future career in documentaries.Although, he may get a job in one as he can't act.

This films acting I have got to say is pretty bad... really bad. I will watch films that give chance to new/young actors but I genuinely think they found these people on the street. I don't mean to offend but the emotions come across as if they were taken out of a labelled jar. The actors don't morph as a cast and the Dad's tone from the start makes me think that they casted him because he has the attitude of a serial killer with a slow mono-tone voice, and thats pretty much it.

I wanted to like this film due to my likings of any horror with a half decent storyline and OK effects. But even as low budget I cannot see any need for this film... No one is going to get a career from this.

The Amityville Haunting was yet another movie filmed in the ultra- irritating 1st person style. The title has the word haunting in it, which to a lay-man like myself, lends itself to indicate there might be a chance you will be scared. I can only tell you there is no such scene. Sadly, this was an awful movie; there was so much script material, and different avenues that could have possibly been explored. Yet, the writers and Directors failed to follow any type of format that would resemble a professional movie; you might say, whatever does he means. Well, allow me to expand, this movie was filmed in such a way, that we are to assume that a child filmed it, really! Why, would anyone want to pay to see a film that has no plot, flow, professionalism, or natural progression, nothing! Yes, I am slightly perturbed, I actually was rooting for this whole family to be mutilated, and that's how annoying this movie was. I rooted and kept thinking to myself: I can't wait for this annoying kid with the camera to get it!