The new Amityville flick, The Awakening, hit Blu-ray this month. We picked up a copy, and were happy to get to see it, since the Weinstein scandal prevented its wide release. Amityville showed in only a handful of theatres, and grossed a total of 800 bucks. My underground metal albums made almost that much last year. So I feel good!
The question regarding any Amityville flick is always, “How do you make a decent 90 minute movie about some guy wasting his family with a shotgun?” In reality wasting everyone probably took five minutes and wasn’t that interesting. Normally the answer is to have a bunch of gratuitous dead kid ghosts, as well as boring family scenes to build a sense of (boring) characters. And there is some of that in this film. However, what made this film interesting is the neurologically impaired crippled character who is getting possessed by the house to kill his family. This all happened because the (stupid!) mom has moved the family to that house specifically to harness evil powers to heal his ass, since God failed. This backfires (obviously). The crippled character is played by Cameron Monaghan, and he does a splendid job in the role. I had a client with a similar condition to his when I was a caregiver, and this character he portrayed was unusually believable. The house heals him so he can kill his family. When he does have control of himself , he uses the power-chair wheel imprints in the mud to put a protective voodoo circle around the house. Isn’t that heartwarming?
Bella Thorne, famous from God knows what, also excels in her role as the dumb teen girl who moves with her family to this Godforsaken house. Normally I don’t like those super skinny white girls, but this girls hot, and she does a great job of prancing around in her underwear throughout the film. In light of the Weinstein sex scandal I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but if she is over 18 and had shown her tits (small tits have their fans too!) I would add a whole star . And her acting isn’t half bad.
