Amityville: The Awakening was made in 2017 and stars Bella Thorne as, strangely, a young girl named Belle. Her mother moves her, her sister, Juliette, and her comatose brother, James, into the Amityville house. After a short time, James seems to be improving, however is it the house or is it actually James.
Okay, so this wasn’t a great movie, but I found myself enjoying it because it didn’t rely on jump scares as much as most horror movies seem to. In fact, it relied more on slow door openings, which could be overdone, but was not in this movie. I was disappointed that the dog, of course, died. I think this is why in the remake of the movie The Hills Have Eyes people cheered as the dog did not die.
Bella Thorne was actually cast perfectly in this movie, and strangely I found myself enjoying her skepticism and flat demeanor when needed. She had some emotions when she should have, and I would have liked to see her a little more animated when she was supposed to be scared, but her acting was better than a lot of actresses in horror movies (who are overly scared and run around with high heels on, I know, I know, that’s not their choice). She played the perfect goth girl in a small town. I would have liked a little more backstory or character development, and some things in the movie did seem a little rushed, but given the time they landed on, a cool hour and a half, it wasn’t too bad.
I can’t say if this movie added anything to the Amityville mythos, but it did take from the first movie, with the red room being the heart of evil in the house. It was smart to take this movie back to the first movie, even though the actions in this movie happened forty years after the murders of the Defeo family in the house, it brought things full circle, and let the audience know that the house still had evil growing and thriving and waiting inside of it.
Now, I can’t say that the house is haunted, as there are several reports that the Warren’s made everything up and coerced the original family who bought the house after the Defeo murders into making it seem haunted. But I have never stepped foot inside the house, so I can’t say if there are demons or ghosts or even a red room in the basement that is full of evil. With only a little research one can find out that many families have lived in the house, and most haven’t said anything about unusual experiences, nor have they run screaming and defaulted on their mortgage.
If going back to the movie, it’s short, so go ahead and stream it, or pick it up as a rental. It isn’t scary, but it can be tense, even though you might pick up early on what happens in the end.
Stacy Kingsley 
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