Have Cheetah,Will View #486 – “The Amityville Harvest” (2020)

   So the cheetah and I were waiting patiently for the copy of The Amityville Harvest to go sale at our local Family Video. Last Sunday I made a run to my store to see if it had been put on sale and happily it was. So I picked it up and dashed home where the cheetah was waiting with iced coffee and the remote.
  This will be our 2nd trip to Amityville and with our bags packed,the cheetah and I headed north….

  The film starts on in the Miller Funeral Home where a young woman is having a service for her husband.
The attendees slowly filter out leaving the young woman along with two funeral home workers. As she tries to leave,she finds herself looked in,no matter which she tries,she is unable to get out. Worse yet,no one hears her screams and a figure of doom comes for her……

 

 The movie then moves on as we meet Christina (Sadie Katz) and her younger sister Nancy (Alexa Pellerin) as they are part of a documentary newscrew who are getting to debut a new segment called “My Civil War” in which they interview various folks whose relatives had endured the War.

  While Christina is pulling together her team and getting ready to drive up to meet Vincent Miller,a pair of lovers break into the funeral home in order to have sex. They of course are soon caught and dealt with by an mysterious figure.
Christina and her crew soon arrive where they are met by some local talent to help them with the segment.  They meet the old lady who acts as Vincent’s greeter and helps the team settle in. As soon as they settle in for dinner,they all start to hear strange noises and voices. One of the crew is killed by a pair of ghostly Confederate soldiers and no notices him missing until the next day.

  So we see some of the “crew”has a different agenda,they have been hired to find the lady who was the first victim. They intend to search both Vincemt’s house and his funeral home for clues
    Their host Vincent (Kyle Lowder) turns out to be a smooth talking and affable host as he shares his family’s connection to John Wilkes Booth and his killing of President Lincoln.
Vincent spends 3 hours telling his story but to the dismay of Scratch the soundman and Robbie the camera man,no video has been recorded and Vincent himself hasn’t been recorded. Everyone has been but Vincent’s long story is lost. As Christina and her crew try and recover it,we see Vincent’s secret revealed.
   As the crew experiences more and more strangeness,they also begin to be killed one by one…..until only the last two remain to face off against Vincent and his strange home.

   Whew……looking at my review,this looks like a totally fun Halloween horror film.  But I am torn because while I enjoyed elements of “The Amityville Harvest”,I was left completely frustrated with others….like the damn editing,I haven’t seen such a horrific job of editing in forever. The first third of Harvest looks like it was put into blender and turned on to “high” and then forgotten about. The flow of the film was never established and while it appears that director Thomas J. Churchill was tossing several interesting ideas around including making Vincent a vampire,the editing chopped this ribbons. Characters who were cool with each other in one scene are suddenly shouting and snapping in the next with zero reasons shown. Several plot ideas never get a chance to breath because of the severe chopping going on. 

   After 30 minutes of chopped salad editing,the film starts to flow better and we get to actually some fine acting especially from Kyle Lowder who steals the film as Vincent. I really enjoyed his performance and if Churchill wanted to bring him back in another film,that would work for us. Of course just as we start to settle in for the final act,the return of chopped up editing returns…..*sigh*. 
   Two other performances were of note,George W. Scott as Otis,the only character who got to display some humor in the film and Johanna Rae sparkled as Janet the hearing impaired make-up artist. She matched Lowder in intensity,you really could feel Janet’s distaste for Vincent’s home as she walked through it. 

  The rest of the cast was pretty solid,Sadie Katz is one of the best scream queens in horror today,she is a lot fun to watch. Her voice is so distinct that you’ll instantly will know after hearing it once. She is one of my favorite new actresses to watch (new as in new to me).
  The biggest question that I have seen being tossed around is The Amityville Harvest a Amityville Horror movie? Of course not…..it’s a vampire movie that just happens to take place in Amityville. Amityville is never mentioned in the movie and only a last second glimpse of a “Amityville” sign even establishes that the story takes place here,not the first time I have seen this trick.  

  The Amityville Harvest reminds me of “Hunter’s Moon”,a really fun idea that gets tripped up in its own feet,in Hunter’s Moon by too many hands stirring the pot and in Harvest by two editors doing a really shit job. That is a real shame because both films deserved better then what they got. 
   “The Amityville Harvest” is rated “R” for language and violence and has a 92 minute run time.
There are no special features. Being that this is a Lionsgate release,you can find this film at Walmart,Best Buy and at the Lionsgate website.

The cheetah and I split on this one,he gave it a paws down while I thought Lowder,Rae and Katz did enough to recommend a watch.