Amityville: No Escape (2016)

(out of 5)

Amityville:  No Escape (2016)
d:  Henrique Couto
s:  Julia Gomez, Joni Durian, Josh Miller, Allison Egan, Alia Gabrielle Eckhardt, Ira Gansler, Duane West, Michael William Ralston
format:  online screener

     Say hello to Henrique Couto's scariest film!  Henrique in my humble opinion is a master of the craft of independent filmmaking.  His comedies are his best for sure but I fell in love with his horror films first and this definitely falls under that category.

     What can be said about the Amityville franchise?  Good?  Bad?  Yeah I'd say a little of both.  I myself have a thing for the Amityville movies.  So when Henrique told me he was making an Amityville film I was more than intrigued.  Most especially since I had no idea he had made another movie so secretly.  I have to admit when I first saw the poster I was unsure of it.  Not a fan of cgi for the most part unless it's perfect and needed.  The face on the poster made me think of a cgi ghost woman running around so I was still excited but apprehensive.  Then the movie started and I saw Josh Miller, Joni Durian, and Allison Egan which made me forget all that.  Two Couto regulars and Ms. Egan who has starred in Eric Widing's Primordial and is a regular for Dustin Mills' films.  All favorites of mine and all very skilled at their craft.  Josh Miller seems to play a completely different character in almost every movie I see him in.  Alia Gabrielle Eckhardt put on one hell of a performance as well.  This wasn't the first I have seen her, she also had a small but memorable performance in Couto's film Making Out.  There really was no serious acting flubs at all in this but then again what can you expect from that cast listing.  Probably the shining star for me was Julia Gomez.  Her performance just seemed natural and authentic to a "T".

     The dark woods shooting and found footage style of the whole film really made it great for me.  It definitely had the Blair Witch thing going for it.  However I think the one thing that made me love this movie the most was the go back and forth routine of two different Amityville stories.  We first have a small group of young people out on a quest to finish a thesis on fear.  Their story begins with the five of them driving to the haunted town of Amityville for a night in the sticks.  Then we have a vhs tape from 1997 chronicling one of the inhabitants of the haunted Amityville house named Lina.  Lina just moved into the house alone.  Her husband was away in the service and she was left alone to unpack and organize the house.  Both stories are essential for Henrique telling the complete story here.  Very well edited.  Not once did the story-line get confusing or repetitive, kudos Mr. Widing. 
     FX wise this movie did have some good kills and all of them had simple but effective traditional fx.  As mentioned previously the original poster made me think it had a bunch of bad cgi but no this was not the case.  Never judge a book by it's cover.  I can't really say the film is gory but it defitely has implied gore and enough blood to satisfy this style of filmmaking.
     There was not a whole lot not to like about this movie.  There was one point where two of the characters decide to split up in the dark woods and for me that was just a long stretch of reality.   Other than that though the movie set a certain tone and did not deviate from that tone once in the whole movie.  So many movies have no idea what their tone is.  Especially indie movies.  This movie was serious and scary from the get go and did not let up once the kids were in the woods.  There were no silly out of place characters, no dumb jokes to lighten the mood/take the viewer out of the movie, and there was no change of shooting style.  Even the switch back and forth technique had a flow and a tone to it. 
     Highly recommended to any Couto fans out there and most especially fans of a good scary ghost story because that's exactly what this is.  5 out of 5 Bloody Hands!