This rendition of the famed New York haunted house where in 1974, 23-year-old Ronald DeFeo murdered his entire family and then made famous again in 1975 by the Lutz story which was turned into the original “Amityville Horror” in 1979. Now this time around, the movie is shot entirely in POV style and of the “found foot-age” genre that has been a growing trend in the realm of horror films.
The movie starts out with a group of teenagers, doing what teenagers do best with empty and somewhat abandoned homes with beds: breaking in. Three of the four know the story and reputation of the house and as the movie opens one of the boys of the group lays down the story of what has supposedly gone on in the house.
As the teens stand in the front of the entrance their camera picks a partial silhouette at the top of the stairs that goes unnoticed except for one, but by the time everyone looks it’s gone.
The camera cuts and when it comes back we find that the teens have spit up. One pair is of course in the upstairs bathroom videoing themselves having sex while the other pair is in the kitchen.
As the camera videos the couple in the bathroom the camera starts to blur and cut out (a trick that will be WAY OVER USED through-out the movie whenever the ghosts appear)only to just capture as the boy is yanked out the door, blood spraying on the wall as the girl screams. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the other couple in the kitchen of what is taking place to their friends, we cut back to the kitchen as the couple is making out. The camera shows the girl look behind her boyfriend, and as a look of shock comes across her face the cuts to black with screams.
We next open on the house as the Benson family meets the realtor in charge of the property. The son, Tyler, who is making a documentary of his family, films them going through the home. (Immediately fans of the previous films can see that this isn’t the house or even the same style of home used before. Where the original kind of sat away from the road and neighbors this one your basic, run-of-the-mill suburban home) Here we find out that the Benson family is on hard times financially and emotionally. The father, Doug, is an ex-marine sergeant and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who has some issues with civilian life as he treats his family like they were serving in the corps. The mother is your basic doughy-eyed woman who most of the time seems to be on a valium cocktail, but she does pose reservations to moving into their new home. But the father is adamant on living there since it has the right number of bedrooms and he’s tired of moving his family place to place because (we later find out is eight times in fifteen months) because of the older daughter’s discipline problems that are, unfortunately, never truly addressed.
As the Benson tours the house with their realtor Tyler’s camera starts with that annoying cutting out because a ghostly presence that we can only really here as voices seem to float up from the vent when he is left on his own for a while.
The realtor leaves the Benson’s alone to discuss what they want to do, and goes outside. And when they family goes out to tell her that they will take the home they find her lying dead in the driveway. I don’t know about you, but I think at this point any reasonable person with a half of a brain cell would not be looking to buy the house anymore. But, needless-to-say the Benson’s do.
After they find the realtor in the drive, the camera cuts to the move in day. Tyler is once again filming the day’s proceedings as the movers take in their belongings. Tyler doing his documentary thing talks with the movers and asks them if they had ever heard of the Amityville house and that this was it. The movers have somehow have never heard of the story and laugh it off when Tyler tells them that the house is haunted. Also we find out the invisible friend is back -only this time his name is Jonathon- and he has befriended himself to the youngest daughter. (later we find out that Jonathon was a victim of the DeFeo killing spree) But as the movers finish up their day, Tyler catches on tape one them falling down the stairs and breaking his neck (again we have that annoying cutting and blurring of the camera). You would think that, again, would be reason enough not to live there, but Doug persists that it was no big deal.
The next day, Doug has found that the back door has been left open and he suspects the oldest daughter of sneaking out. After the two get into an argument, Doug seems to have a change of heart and tells the family that they should go to the movies, and that he and Tyler will stay behind and finish up the unpacking.
As the rest leave, Doug takes advantage of their absence and buys and installs a security camera in the living room that has a view of the front and back doors, and while they do we see a ghostly figure outside the window when the camera is left to operate on it’s own. Tyler also happens upon an iPhone that the kids in the beginning were using to video each other in the kitchen. And when Tyler is finally able to charge the battery and show them that something supernatural is going on the his parents can only focus on the couple and their relations. He also installs an alarm on the doors as well that goes off when the back door mysteriously opens by itself. Leading to yet another argument with the oldest daughter.
Through out the week the Benson’s stay in the house, Tyler makes little vignettes about the days events and the supernatural goings ons.
As the week continues, Doug starts to unravel mentally, his wife grow more adamant on leaving when she’s not valiumed out, and the growing dependency of the youngest daughter and her new friend. But when a chance real break-in of the local teenage stud and the oldest daughter trying to hook up with him gives Doug the excuse that what has been going on is in fact the daughter. And when he chases the boy out the door by gun point, Tyler follows him, only to catch him as he is being dragged off by an unseen force.
The police finally get involved when Doug can’t find trace of the boy after Tyler yells for him. The responding officer pretty much confirms Doug’s earlier thoughts of what is going on is real, telling him that they know all about this kid ands how he hooks up with all the girls on the block, but since he can’t find any trace of him in the dark that he’ll be back in the morning. Upon the officers arrival he discovers a large pool of blood but no body and enlists the help of a detective who lays out the larger story of the house and how nobody that has ever lived there has stayed more than two months.
At this point, Doug, not certain of anything anymore contacts a war buddy, (named) Cut, who comes over and installs more cameras through-out the house. While Cut is making sure that everything works he catches a brief glimpse of a ghost behind but when he turns around nothings there. But as Cut leaves via the backyard the power line above falls down on him, killing Cut. This begins to really drive a spike mentally into Doug as he now believes that there IS something supernatural going on and tries to find a way to combat it.
The last day begins where we finally see (via Cut’s security camera) Jonathon at the table with Tyler and his younger sister and that he wants her to stay with him forever and how she wishes she could as well. Later in the day Doug’s mental brake goes into high gear as he starts reliving moments from the service and waves around his pistol. And for what ever the reason his wife doesn’t just get up and leave with the children and instead says that they are going to her sisters in a couple of days. The night progress with a ramped supernatural problems leading most of the family to spend the night in the parents room. That is except for the oldest daughter who spends the night in hers.
As we watch her sleep via the camera her father had installed in her room we see as she awakes and then we see her get attacked by something unseen. The camera does it’s usual cut out stuff and when it comes back it shows only her legs on the bed and blood on the walls.
Somehow the rest of the family has failed to hear her screams, but after a while the mother awakes and heads down to the dinning room for no apparent reason other than to do so. But as she nears the kitchen she pulled away from the camera view. Her screams awaken Tyler who then follows her downstairs and into the kitchen. He sees nothing on his first pass through but when he goes to turn around he finds his mother on the floor dead and looks to have been burned. Something then grabs his attention off screen but as he turns around he gets grabbed himself and his camera goes dead. The youngest daughter at this point gets up out of bed, the camera cuts and then she standing next to her father who she then stabs in the heart as he is about to get up.
The camera cuts to black a final time but we are able to her the daughter talking to somebody and how she is happy with where she is going to go.
While Amityville Haunting had a decent idea (I’m also a fan of the found footage genre) it lacked quite a bit. The trailer had me sucked in but that was about it when it came to the movie which was a real let down. The parents constant assholeness and complaining and arguing was a real distraction especially when it was combined with the overly used camera flashes and cutting out which was more headache inducing as was scary. However, the old tried and true basic scares that have worked well with other films in thins genre worked here when used and in my opinion would worked far better if used more than the camera work. I would names of the people that played the characters, but IMDB has this movie not coming out until next year sometime and only listed one person in it.
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