Amityville No Escape (2016)

George is doing a thesis project on fear, which involves taking his friends into the woods and asking them what they fear.  Based on George's research methods, he is definitely going to fail.

He manages to get hold of a VHS tape from 1997 of a woman who lived in the infamous Amityville house, and unbeknownst to his friends, they will be camping near the house. Oddly enough George never tells them and the house is never an issue.  He brings his girlfriend there one night, but it seems odd he insist they camp there, but never use the house as a way to test fear for his thesis.

The movie switches between footage of George and his friends, and the 1997 VHS footage of Lina. She and her husband, who is deployed overseas, bought the Amityville house without knowing it's history. They also never saw the house in person and didn't do a walk through before signing the papers because Lina is surprised to see how much stuff the previous owners left behind. 

Lina records messages every day for her husband, which includes her doing aerobic routines.  I'm not sure if she is randomly doing moves on her own, or there is supposed to be a video playing with the sound off.  She is overly cheerful to the point of discomfort. There's a lot of laughing even though she's not saying anything funny. It's more how you'd talk to someone you weren't comfortable with, rather than a spouse.  

Meanwhile George goes to investigate a sound in the woods and runs into a man with a gun. The man warns George the woods are dangerous at night and to stay at their campsite to avoid the animals. George gets huffy but heads back to the campfire. When another member of his party sees a little girl in the woods, they go out to look for her.  They theorize she saw their fire and wants help. Yet that makes no sense since the little girl is nowhere to be seen. If she saw you and wanted help, you'd see her. Yet they continually tromp through the woods looking for her. 

George raises a big red flag by asking her girlfriend if she loves him and would do anything for him.  Of course, she says.  Soon George is forcing her to go into the woods with a camera all by herself so she can  face her fears. When she asks if they'll come get her if she's scared, he says no. They'll wave flashlights and she can find her way back to them. Damn, George is cold.

The only thing that matters to George is his fear thesis and he pressures the group into staying or doing things they don't want to by saying they are there to document fear for his thesis. Since everyone is afraid, that is good for his thesis.  What a tool.

The sad thing about movies with Amityville in the name is you know they're going to be terrible.  It's a way for low budget films to get people to watch them.  And it's not like I don't know it's going to be bad going in. I'm just curious as to how bad it will be.  Add found footage to the mix and you've sunk down another notch because FF films are a cheap way for bad films to be made.  

I will give credit to them for one thing though. The footage was shot so that it didn't induce nausea.  If you're making found footage, at a minimum you should incorporate professional filming techniques so that the viewer doesn't get motion sick.  So kudos on that aspect.

I found Lina's incisors very distracting.