I don’t even know where to begin with this review so I guess I’ll start by describing the events that lead up to me watching it.
Picture a bitterly cold Monday afternoon, you’re sitting at home writing some Javascript code(as you are wont to do) in preparation for an important job interview. Your brain tells you to take a break so you instinctively turn on Netflix.
Perusing the horror section, you find that making a decision is difficult so you close your eyes and scroll for a solid 30 seconds until you stop on a movie. That movie happened to be The Amityville Haunting.
I will never forgive myself for not scrolling for 29 seconds instead. 31 seconds would have also been okay.
This movie is just a giant mess. When people tell you that they hate found footage films, this is exactly what they’re talking about. This movie is shot/framed/acted/written so terribly that it actually hurts my soul. I say that without any and all hyperbole, this movie hurt my soul.
It’s a generic, trite cliché mess that brings absolutely nothing original to the Amityvlle story and uses cheap narrative techniques to squeeze as many kills as possible into its mercifully short running time. There isn’t a single redeeming quality to this film. The knowledge that it exists will forever be a burden on my soul. My kitten caught a 30 second glimpse of the movie and I don’t think she’s recovered yet. As I type this she’s in the corner sleeping, but who is to say what her dreams are full of. I despair to wonder what is going on in her little kitten mind. Poor, poor kitten.
The only movie I’ve ever seen that’s worse than this one is Dracula 3D and that should say something. If somebody tries to recommend this film to you they aren’t really your friends and are probably on the payroll of the movie studio.