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Amityville: The Awakening (2017)
Amityville: The Awakening (2017)
2017 | Horror, Mystery
2
5.0 (5 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Not much (2 more)
Stays within the Amityville realm
Shows footage from DeFeo's crimes and mentions the Amityville history/"haunting"
Slow and drags on (8 more)
Boring
Tense in a teen angst way
Poor character relationships
One-dimensional characters
Vague plotlines
Visually too dark to see most action
Unoriginal
Flat acting
Drags on and on and on and blah.
If you expect a family to move into the Amityville house where DeFeo murdered his family in the 1970s and be haunted or possessed by a ghost, demon, poltergeist, etc., you are 100% correct. That premise could be interesting but unfortunately, this film falls short. It is tense because of the relationships between the characters and not from suspense. It's pretty boring and relies on a few jump scares and flashes of horror. The storyline is unoriginal and poorly done. The lighting is so dark that it's difficult to see the last 30 minutes of the action. You might as well be listening to an old-fashioned radio show or horror podcast instead. This movie is problematic from beginning to end. There are much better films out there with a similar premise so unless you're extremely bored and like to torture yourself, avoid this one.
  
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Joe Dante recommended The Old Dark House (1932) in Movies (curated)

 
The Old Dark House (1932)
The Old Dark House (1932)
1932 | Horror
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"To go back to the ’30s, which is the movies I saw when I was growing up on television — it was one that they never showed, because it was lost for years and it was by James Whale. It’s called The Old Dark House, 1932. It’s currently about to be reissued on Blu-ray. For years, all you could see were these sort of beat-up prints I think they found in the mid-’60s, and they had been lost, because of a remake and some rights issues and stuff. Now, it’s sort of come back, and it’s got a great cast of Charles Laughton, Gloria Stuart, Boris Karloff, Melvyn Douglas, Raymond Massey. It’s the classic “travelers stranded in the haunted house and the bridge has washed out”, but it’s the template for all the movies that followed it. It’s still one of the more watchable and disturbing movies from that period. And it’s a shame that it isn’t better known; it never got television distribution, and it wasn’t included in the package of Universal horror pictures because it wasn’t in their library anymore. It’s a chance, I think, for people to catch up with it now. I’m a big James Whale fan, and this might be his best picture."

Source
  
Identity (2003)
Identity (2003)
2003 | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Sadly Predictable
This is old-dark-house stuff. A group of people stay at a motel and start dying. My first complaint: I don't like gore. To me it's a good indicator that the people who made the film don't think they have a strong enough plot-line to engage people.
It's not over-board in this film, but there's more than I am comfortable with.
It's not a bad film, and it ticks along quite nicely ,with all the usual, 'we've got to get this guy','we have to stick together' stuff but the trouble is it is usual: seen before in a hundred other films. Eventually the filmakers paint themselves into a corner from where they can only head for an ending that is weak and predictable - although I'm not sure what ending wouldn't have been for this.

A good, strong cast including Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet, Alfred Molina, Jake Busey,and Rebecca De Mornay, class acts all, sadly let down by the material.
  
    The Rock

    The Rock

    Robert Daws

    (0 Ratings) Rate It

    Book

    The Rock. Gibraltar. 1966. In a fading colonial house the dead body of a beautiful woman lays...