‘Amityville: The Awakening’ Tips Its Hat to Its Amityville Origins [Murder Made Fiction Podcast]

For the final film of Amityville month on Murder Made Fiction, Jenn and I are checking out Franck Khalfoun’s Amityville: The Awakening, the much maligned Dimension release that was shot in 2014 and eventually dumped on VOD in 2017.

The film, starring Bella Thorne and Cameron Monaghan as twin siblings who move into the Amityville house with their mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and younger sister (Mckenna Grace), occupies a strange place in the “franchise” canon.

Unlike most of the other texts, Amityville: The Awakening acknowledges the existence of the other films as films, specifically the 1979 original (listen), the 2005 remake (listen), and the incest-heavy prequel/sequel (listen). Admittedly Khalfoun’s script doesn’t go much further than that, descending into pretty basic/generic ‘Amityville haunting’ territory, but it’s an interesting wrinkle in what was clearly intended to be a theatrical re-launch for the “series.”

The other reason to explore this particular entry is how it handles disability representation (spoiler alert: not well!), tries to capitalize on Thorne’s popularity (she’s fine), and the “franchise”s continued use of solid practical FX for its possession sequences.

Monaghan actually does some really great work as both a comatose teen and a villain, though it’s hard to shake the ickiness of Khalfoun’s resolution, which veers into ableist territory after deliberately avoiding the euthanasia debate for the majority of its runtime.

Still, the film is an odd curiosity that likely would have revamped the flagging “series” had it made its way into more than a handful of theaters. And as folks who have read my ‘Amityville IP‘ editorial series know, this film is directly responsible for the glut of DTV knock-offs, which explodes in the years after The Awakening‘s release (2018-present).

So…that’s something.

Want even more Murder Made Fiction? Be sure to check out the pod’s Patreon feed, where we have nearly 80 episodes and ~59 hours of bonus content including hour by hour coverage of Happy Face and Good American Family, which is based on the complex story of Natalia Grace.