Director: Dustin Ferguson
Year: 2016
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: The Amityville Legacy
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Coming together for a family reunion, a large family finds that part of the celebrations include a treasured replica toy from their father’s youth which inadvertently causes a past tragedy to come to light in a series of brutal murders that they soon realize is tied to one of the most shocking crimes in history.
Review:
For the most part, this was a pretty solid effort. One of the better elements here is the enjoyable release of the supernatural haunting on the family. Getting the heart and warmth of the family gathering for the birthday out of the way early on, the toy present given to him that starts everything is a rather fun idea as the scene makes for a generally creepy time with the hallucination and distorted reality. That this turns into a wholly impressive series of psychological mind-games involving him slowly being influenced by his father’s spirit into an obviously unnatural yet barely acknowledged state throughout the course of the weekend.
As time goes on and he gets even crazier while under the influence of the spirit, the slow dawning realization that he’s knocking off the family due to that influence provides some thrilling scenes. This includes the ambush of the couple up in the bedroom or taking out the various family members as his frustrations offer up some solid scenes here. The series of chases and confrontations that appear here give this a much more rousing finish to this one which goes quite nicely with a hilariously metal finale coda to offer up a truly fun and cheesy effort which all holds the film up for the most part.
There are some issues here. The main problem is the wholly unexplained matter of how he comes under the influence of his father’s ghost as the acceptance is completely nonsensical. That he appears out of nowhere telling him to begin killing the family is entirely coincidental and has little about it that becomes coherent about following the toxic masculinity-spouted by his spirit. This whole reasoning is quite illogical, just like the somewhat obvious cheapness of display which covers most of this one, from the lack of being anywhere except the house or the lack of blood featured in the kills. These are the issues that bring this one down.
Overview: ***/5
A generally fun genre effort which is more than enjoyable enough even with a few minor elements that do draw this back a bit, for the most part, this is a better-than-expected effort. Give this a look if you’re a fan of these supernatural indie films or of the creative crew, while those looking for something truer to the franchises’ roots or turned off by the style should heed caution.
Comments
Post a Comment