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AN AMITYVILLE POLTERGEIST (2020)
Directed by Calvin Morie McCarthy.
Written by Jon Ashley Hall, Calvin Morie McCarthy.
Starring Conor Austin, Parris Bates, Airisa Durand, Jon Ashley Hall, Rebecca Kimble, Natalie Lucia, Calvin Morie McCarthy, Alex Onda, Jason Reynolds, Sydney Winbush
In need of quick cash, Jim (Parris Bates) takes a housesitting job for the weekend, not knowing the place is haunted by evil spirits. His friends think it’s a great opportunity to party, but they weren’t counting on those pesky poltergeists.
AN AMITYVILLE POLTERGEIST is a zero budgeter, populated with non-actors, utilizing the barest of camera expertise and sporting haunted attraction fright makeup. For those used to polished cinema, this would be a hard pass, but if you’re like me and try to look past the no budget exterior, sometimes there is some fun to be had. And I did have some fun with AN AMITYVILLE POLTERGEIST. Sure, the Amityville title has been beaten like a red headed dead horse, as you can’t trademark an existing town. This means we’ve have everything from AMITYVILLE ISLAND to THE AMITYVILLE CLOWNHOUSE. There’s even an AMITYVILLE IN THE HOOD, believe it or not. Can’t wait for THE AMITYVILLE SHE-SHED or THE AMITYVILLE DOG HOUSE—I’d better stop, I’m giving them ideas.
Still, AN AMITYVILLE POLTERGEIST at least tries to be scary and accomplishes that goal quite a few times with an abundance of jump scares and authentically scary imagery. Yes, that imagery has been stolen from THE RING, THE GRUDGE, and just about any other J-horror film utilizing a creepy, pale girl with hair draped over her eyes, but the scares actually are there in this one and I have to give it to them for making me jump a time or two.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m against these AMITYVILLE movies because they dilute what is actually a tragic and harrowing story, and this is a pretty low budget flick hoping to get attention by using the name. They don’t even attempt to find a house that even looks like the original iconic home for the exterior shots and the interior shots look like it was filmed in a dorm room. But it was an ok zero budgeter. I’ve definitely seen worse and I’d recommend it to those who can handle no budget flicks.
MLMILLERWRITES / MLMillerFrights 
Mark, can you explain the comment, “I’m against these AMITYVILLE movies because they dilute what is actually a tragic and harrowing story … ” a little further? Do you mean the movies? None of it ever happened in real life, so I doubt you mean that … unless you do. Just wondering.
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I meant that all of these tame sequels kind of take the potency of the original film and the remake, and some of the early sequels.
I was under the impression that there was some kind of true story linked to the Amityville case where Ronald Defeo killed his family, which supposedly started the whole thing about the place being haunted. That’s the tragic part.
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Great survey, I’m sure you’re getting a great response. Buy Colonel E.H. Taylor’s Online
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