Tonight we watched some reality TV. I mean a documentary kind of thing. About Amityville, surely THE 1970s haunted house story, and an event that inspired a book, a movie, some more movies (including remakes) and probably launched a whole swag of paranormal documentaries, including this one.
Shock Docs: Amityville Horror House (2020)
Halloweenometer? We didn't finish it. This is the second in a row ! What's going on?
Mrs Simian only had a passing knowledge of the Amityville story (fair enough), and no knowledge of the preceding DeFeo family murders, which this documentary took sometime in setting up as a backdrop to the story. So, it's a true crime story from the outset, with mugshots, confessional tapes, forensic photos - so far, not really Halloweeny. It was lurid, it was at pains to reproduce a grimy, nicotine-coloured version of the Seventies (good!) But we didn't finish it. The real-life murders cast a pall over any promised spooky ookiness, and so we turned to something else instead. Bah.
Now, I'm not opposed to documentaries, and spooky documentaries, and even 70s flavoured documentaries. Gimme some of those Ghost Hunters - brilliant! And to be fair, the modern streamers do produce a shedload of paranormal-adjacent 'reality' content. Most of it is ridiculously hysterical bobbins, but some I find good. I may be alone in really liking the atmospheric and more leisurely Files of the Unexplained (especially the episode on Myrtle Plantation). But this wasn't it.
No score on the Halloweenometer. We really disliked the voyeuristic over the top aspect of this. It's not our Halloween, But I have a good feeling about some stuff coming up, so stick around!
Companion Piece
Not that it deserves company, let's have a haunted house song, this time inspired by The Shining and provided by Ms Bush just one album before The Hounds of Love (ooh - with a sample from Night of the Demon!) Here's the rather bonkers Get Out of My House:
Eey-oorr!!
No comments:
Post a Comment