Good concept, poorly executed.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The umptieth rip-off of the Amityville story, apparently it can go on forever. But when you ignore the feeling of exhaustion that overcomes you at the start, you'll get a pretty decent movie. Okay, all the cliché's are there (every night a new thunderstorm sweeps over the house!) but in this one they brought in a new idea with the comatose son/brother that is nursed at home and gradually gets possessed by the evil powers that still infest the house. This storyline is worked-out rather well and gives us some pretty creepy scenes. The acting is actually very good, mother Jennifer Jason Leigh is truly convincing as the overbearing mother who is obsessed with her sick son, and Bella Thorne plays the daughter very well. She starts out as an emo girl with all the necessary make-up and paraphernalia, but gradually changes to her bare self, which gave the story a nice touch. There's no gore or complicated CGI, it's all about creepy atmosphere and that really worked for me. Oh, and they put in a funny wink at their own Amityville franchise: the daughter hooks up with some school-mates who show her the original first Amityville movie on dvd! In short: not the long awaited spectacular re-make, but still an entertaining movie in it's own right.

I grew up around the time when the story of the Amityville haunting was hot news and the eagerly anticipated Amityville Horror was released in theaters. It was a hit and one that is still a good watch despite the trend for most modern horror films to focus more on gore or jump scares to grab the audience. I was hooked and read everything Amityville related to the case, watched documentaries, and indulged in every new film that came out, even the ones that were quick cash grabs by using the Amityville name while straying into poor cinematography, cheap scares, and ludicrous plots. Most of the later films are more Mystery Science Theater fodder than anything else. Flash forward to Amityville: The Awakening. I do not consider it a terrible film, but considering the film was cut to back away from an R rating I have to wonder what the original version would have been like. As it stands, it is an enjoyable watch, but one that fails to completely break new ground in the franchise. Like the header says, I see this as the Force Awakens of the franchise. It does a godd job calling back to the original lore and story of the first film, and tries hard to bring some real quality to the production with the cinematography, effects, and acting, but is not as intense or truly frightening as it should have been. In all I found myself liking it more for the nostalgia than anything else. The plot element of the mother being aware of the house's demonic history and believing she could use it to cure her son is a bit contrived, to be honest. There was also at least one plot element that had potential, which was when the doctor caring for the boy in the vegetative state is attacked by flies, but once the scene is done we hear nothing from the character again until the end. It would have been interesting to see the doctor suffer further from the attack and how he contends with it. Given the predictability of the story, its lack of genuinely disturbing or tense moments, I can only say this is an average horror film, but at least one that rises above many previous installments in its production quality. You can tell the people making the film were trying to "do it right" and were it not for this the film would have recieved a much lower score in my opinion. If you are a fan of the franchise, I highly recommend you give the movie a try. It is definitely worth at least a one time viewing but I caution to not set your expectations too high.

Both the script and the acting were sub par at best. Many of the scenes make no sense let alone have much to do with the movie. There is a reason it went straight to dvd

Rebooting the franchise, "Amityville: The Awakening" does not take a fresh look at the haunted house that terrified a generation. The film does not escape the classic recipes of the genre and it is not a very enjoyable B-movie horror. Horror fans can probably give it a single viewing but if you aren't a fan of the genre, you could skip this one. Instead of tension and thrills, there's just a bunch of cliché and an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. "The Awakening" often feels as if it's starting all over again from scene to scene with Belle Thorne -she is a good actress but this movie was a bad choice- to wanders one shadowy corridor after another. Unfortunately the director and screenwriter Franck Khalfoun he has no clever ideas to justify the very obvious incidents.