Exploiting trends in darker art is totally okay. Mirroring a culture in commercial horror cinema is always done and makes sense. When done right and with purpose. Look at the brilliant beast that is #HORROR for example. It uses smart phone and App addiction to serve as the monster itself, the corrosion of the self. The threat. The antagonist. Like the heroin in Aronofsky’s REQUIEM FOR A DREAM is the monster, too.
Fine and dandy.
But today, pop culture shifts so quickly. Technology is extinct every 5 minutes.
Look at this poster.
Why on earth would any studio opt to take a classic haunted house property like THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, “re-invent it” and then sell it like this.
Ugh.
I fear that by the time AMITYVILLE: THE AWAKENING opens on April 1st, that this hashtag-laden, screen-shot one-sheet will be an embarrassment. It most certainly will be this time next year.
Because nothing dates a film more than technology and trend.
We’re hoping that with MANIAC’s Franck Khalfoun directing, there will be more depth to this redux than just the melange of obnoxious tweets and twats and likes and hashtags that this dismal marketing tool is selling it as.
That and Jennifer Jason Leigh is in it. So, hurrah. There’s hope.
But that poster.
YUCK.
James Brolin is rolling over in his grave. And he aint even dead yet! This poster just may kill him!
One hopes that the family doesn’t wake to see “LOL” scribbled on the walls in blood…
Here’s some words from the press release:
AMITYVILLE: THE AWAKENING, is a revival of the popular franchise and a modern twist on the classic horror film.In the film, Belle and her family move into a new house, but when strange phenomena begin to occur in the house, Belle begins to suspect her Mother isnt telling her everything and soon realizes they just moved into the infamous Amityville house.
Excuse me. I need to go watch Burt Young smack around Rutanya Alda now. I need to feel clean…
