Horror Movie Review: The Amityville Harvest (2020)

It doesn’t seem to matter that the name of Amityville has been run into the ground so much that any movie released these days with it attached is almost assured to be a dumpster fire. It doesn’t seem to matter as they just keep getting churned out.

How? Why? Well, it simply comes down to copyright law and the fact that you can’t copyright the name Amityville as it is a place. So, provided you don’t put the word horror in your title, you’re free to name your movie ‘Amityville whatever’. Even if it has tenuous to no links to the infamous house on 112 Ocean Avenue.

We know a lot about the Amityville series, having desperately been trying to keep up with the gluttonous output over the years. We could list all of the Amityville reviews we have on the site but that would take ages, so instead just go read our Definitive Ranking here. Although, it’s not as ‘definitive’ as it once was because these films just keep getting churned out.

5 movies bearing the name Amityville were released in 2021 and 4 in 2020. One of which was this movie, The Amityville Harvest.

So, what is it this time? Vampires… sort of.

This a confusing movie that admirably tries to do something a bit different but just can’t get the nuances done right. Does that make it just another movie to throw into the dumpster fire that is the series? Not quite.

Written and directed by Thomas J. Churchill, The Amityville Harvest stars Sadie Katz, Kyle Lowder, Paul Logan, Julie Anne Prescott, Eileen Dietz and Yan Birch.

Christina (Katz) and her documentary crew have a scoop interview in the works. They will be speaking with Vincent (Lowder) at his manor house about the Lincoln assassination. He claims to have a different story about it. The true story.

However, he has a dark secret that means the crew might not be getting out alive.

If we’re talking original story ideas, The Amityville Harvest has it. The idea is solid and does create some intrigue. The American civil war is always interesting and to tie it into some sort of ancient vampire is different.

Unfortunately, rather than focus on that, the movie constantly gets distracted with these side plots that feel like cookie-cutter horror. People go missing, see strange things, hear frightening things and genuinely don’t react like a normal person would in this situation.

This lack of focus makes it hard for us to focus. Every time it seems to be building up the mystery of the manor host, the movie veers off to do something different. It might tie into him overall but by the end, it all feels like a jumbled mess.

It’s not helped by some really suspect acting and a villain that just doesn’t exude enough threat. His deadpan delivery might have been meant to come across threatening but it just comes across bored.

The Amityville Harvest has promise at first but it just isn’t able to live up to it in the end. Though, it has to be said that there are plenty of times where it does entertain. It’s not a complete waste of time, you just can’t help but think it could have been so much better.

Watch out for the final shot of the movie where it hilariously gives it the most tenuous link to the original Amityville that we have seen in all these movies to date.