Well, this 2020 movie having the word "Amityville" in it already made some alarms go off. Usually movies that have that word in the title tend to be dubious at best. There haven't been any proper horror movies with that name in the title for quite some time.
So it was with some reluctance that I sat down to watch "Witches of Amityville Academy" from writer Tom Jolliffe and director Rebecca Matthews, and I wasn't really having much of any high hopes or expectations to the movie, to be frank.
But I will say that "Witches of Amityville Academy" was actually not as bad as it could have been. Sure, this is by no means in the league of being an extraordinary horror movie, by no account. But there are far worse additions out there to the horror genre, so it wasn't all bad.
The storyline was pretty straightforward, actually to the point where it felt like director Rebecca Matthews was just running the show on auto-pilot. There weren't really any grand ups and downs along the way as the movie progressed, which made for a rather bland and monotonous storytelling.
Sure, the movie had a "Gilmore Girls" feel to it, and that was mostly because of casted actress Kira Reed Lorsch. And there was also a tingling at the back of my mind going: "this is very reminiscent of The Asylum trying to cash in on the 2020 remake of "The Craft"..."
The acting in the movie was adequate. I mean, it was not stellar performances, and some of the dialogue was delivered with lukewarm gusto, but all in all the performances were sufficient to carry the movie.
What surprised me about "Witches of Amityville Academy" was the special effects. While it wasn't blockbuster Hollywood CGI, the effects were actually good enough and definitely served their purposes and brought the movie to life in a satisfactory enough manner.
"Witches of Amityville Academy" was actually adequately entertaining for what it turned out to be. My rating of the movie settles on a four out of ten stars.
