Admirable film.

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Following the tragic death of her parents Fawn Harriman discovers she has inherited a theatre in the town of Amityville. She, along with 3 friends, decides to spend the weekend there looking the place over. Meanwhile one of her High School teachers begins an investigation into the village's past and makes a connection with something that goes back beyond recorded history. Amityville Playhouse feels like a really bad school project that a bunch of kids had to film and unfortunately? It might be even that since the acting, script, story were bad.

The film has the word "Amityville" in it so we know it has to be scary and somehow related to the 10,000 other films with its name in it. And we know this is the REAL Amityville because there is a car with a magnetic sign that says "Amityville" plus other cardboard signs. Pay no attention to the distinctive Manitoba license plate with "Friendly Manitoba" blurred out.Fawn (Monèle LeStrat) inherits the threater from her recently deceased parents who died in a cabin fire by a Canadian lake. She wants to "check it out" with an overnight group of friends. The theater showed opera by day and adult films by night. The theater was shut down in 2010 while the last film on the marquee was "Valley of the Demon" a 2013/14 film.The sound was uneven and the soundtrack consisted mostly of a piano with two keys. I initially laughed at Fawn's delivery of bad dialogue until I watched the rest of the cast, who were actually worse. Director John R. Walker carved himself out a role in a subplot in a confusing teacher's spot which includes an odd scene of Brits discussing American History. Other odd scenes include the motel room rental and the knock out and release scene.The demonic voice enhancer is a dead low budget give away and is normally used in zero budget films. I wasn't sure why they whipped out a Ouija Board and have it play such a minor role other than Ouija boards are cheap. You don't have to use everything you learned the day you spent at film making school.This borders on "so bad it is good."Guide: F-bomb. No sex or nudity. Kyle makes numerous homophobic statements.Congrats Mr. Walker on getting this into Walmart

I wasn't expecting to like this. In my view, the original Amityville film was a distinctly average entry into the haunted house trend that seemed to be prevalent in 1979. Several sequels later, I wasn't hoping for much. Usually under such circumstances, I'm more predisposed to find merit, especially when the reviews seem particularly harsh. However, watching 'Amityville Playhouse' - and there's no getting away from this - is a chore.As grieving Fawn Harriman, Monèle LeStrat injects her role with a consistent disinterest. The flatness of her every delivery is Gielgud-ian when compared to 'bad boy' boyfriend Kyle (Linden Baker) and the other three young people who accompany Fawn to investigate the abandoned playhouse she has been left by her recently deceased parents. As a plus, the wooden performances at least aren't assured enough to adopt the posturing swagger the script seems to want them to possess, and some of the put-downs between the alpha-males might, in more capable hands, be quite amusing.Interestingly, this is filmed in Canada and the UK, giving at least a feel of variety in location. The conversations between all the characters we meet is purely to provide backstory for each other. With the preliminary scenes so clumsy and hackneyed (much conversation seems to concentrate on the peaks and troughs of being a 'douche'), one would hope when the scares begin – because there have to be scares don't there? – that things might improve.Things don't improve. In addition, nothing of any note occurs. A spirit appears to be in possession of the playhouse and the kids meander throughout it all, listless and bored. Any sliver of atmosphere or creepiness is completely out of the question, but while the location is shot quite well, 'Amityville Playhouse' is guilty of the worst crime of any sub-par production – it is rather boring.Unhappily for urine fans, about three quarters of the film elapses before someone has to inevitably 'take a pee' (although as it's butch Jevon (Logan Russell) who is caught short, he's taking a 'p**s'). You would hope this might sign-post as if often does, something creepy happening. You would hope. Meanwhile, Fawn's English geography teacher spends the entire running time haplessly researching Amityville's local history. By the time he makes any progress, sadly, I had long since lost interest.

Amityville Playhouse has no association with the original Amityville films, lets say that right from the start. It is a very slow, dull film, with shaky camera and below par acting. I struggle to tell where the budget for this film was actually spent. Usually I would try and find something to redeem a film, but I am really struggling with this production. I do not think even decent acting could salvage this script. It had no real substance to the story line, I kept waiting for something to happen, but nothing ever did. It is an absolute travesty that they used the name Amityville to try and lure people into watching this film.