Amityville: The Awakening (2017) -- My take on the movie with spoilers!

PLOT SUMMARY: A family moves into the infamous haunted house only to be confronted by evil spirits. 

Some decades ago, an incident took place in Amityville that shocked everyone. A man shot and killed his entire family and apparently to date, no one knows for sure why he truly did what he did.

Why did he kill his family? Why did he change his story while giving his statement to the police and then again at the trial? Was it really him or something else that prompted the killings?

The fact that no one knows for sure what happened that day, is what made this case's popularity grow.

In fact, every horror aficionado knows about this case, for the simple reason that there is a paranormal connection to this mystery.

Sometime after the murders, a new family had moved in and they just as quickly moved out when they experienced strangers occurrences in their home.

This instance too is not proven to date. The family claims that something unnatural resides in their home, particularly in the basement area. But till today, people can only speculate. Not prove that the house is haunted.

This violent and mysterious incident sparked several movies. In fact, every other year, a movie on Amityville would release and each of them would try to make sense of what happened that night at the house.

Amityville: The Awakening follows the same route the previous movies have taken. 

AMITYVILLE: THE AWAKENING Movie Plot 

A family moves into a new house, they have a dog (nowadays it is extremely important to have animals so that viewers can sympathise with them when they are ruthlessly killed), strange things start happening around the house, an exorcist is called, he fails, and toward the end, the killings still happen but there is a survivor.

But in this case, in this movie, there's a slight twist.

The family that moves in consists of a mother and three children - one of whom is a comatose patient, the son. Apparently, the spirits only possess the male to commit the murders.

And of course, there is a little girl who immediately makes friends with an imaginary person. In this case, it might be the demon who is speaking through her brother.

The main character isn't the mother who is grieving because her husband died in an accident, it's a moody teenager who dresses up in goth attire and spreads negativity around her.

Later, it is revealed that she is actually guilty because she got harassed by some guys and her twin brother when he stepped in to defend her, was thrown from the window.

The fact that she behaves so negatively, doesn't make you want to feel any sympathy for her at all. She is bratty and insolent and seemed quick to want to turn off the machine that was giving life to her brother.

AMITYVILLE: THE AWAKENING Ending Explained with Spoilers! 

But all this isn't a twist. Just a cliché. The twist is when we find out that the mother knew the house was inhabited by demonic forces. She wanted these spirits to awaken her son and make him normal again.

It does work, however probably not as she wanted because the son becomes possessed by an evil entity and soon enough, finds a gun and goes on a killing spree.

The bratty teenager saves herself and her young sister, and in the end, try to get their story straight on what to tell the police.

Surely no one is going to believe that their comatose brother woke up and killed everyone?

Maybe the police will when they find the fingerprints.

The story doesn't pull in much interest, the characters don't make you want to sympathize with them.

The only thing that works is the version of the infamous murders that it presents to the viewers.

It perpetuates the belief that on that fateful night, the murders were committed not due to volatile relationships or an argument but a demonic force that had been part of the house the family had unknowingly purchased. Something had corrupted the minds and caused all those killings. 

I wonder if there would ever be a movie that would look at this incident in a different way and solve this mystery. 

Until then, there will be movies like these that provide nothing new, just the urban legend. Not even scares.

Scare Scale: