REVIEW — Amityville Awakens (Robert P. Ottone)

The Dutch Colonial house sitting at 112 Ocean Avenue is likely one of the most famous homes in horror history. The setting of the Amityville Horror series (and of course, real life murder scene), is once again creeping its way into our own safe spaces with author Robert P. Ottone’s Amityville Awakens novel.

As it turns out, tearing down a supposedly haunted house doesn’t get rid of the haunt itself. When this infamous home is finally torn down, people all over the area start to disappear; what’s worse is that a couple of those people start to cause panic and spread death via an ashy red and black gunk spreading from the site of the home. Amityville Awakens follows multiple people throughout the story, detailing their run-ins with the demonic entity emanating from the home’s remains, hoping to end this cycle of destruction before it’s too late.

Though I am not as versed in the Amityville Horror series (seeing only the original 1979 movie and 2005 remake, but none of the others and not the books), I found Amityville Awakens perfectly suitable for anyone to start and be caught up on the story. Essentially, after a highly-publicized family annihilation in the 70s, multiple other people moved into the home claiming the house had been infested with an evil presence. While some believe it entirely, others put it off as spook stories. Amityville Awakens starts with a construction crew beginning the process of tearing down the now-derelict house; unfortunately for the townsfolk, this only lets the demonic presence spread throughout the town, starting with the less wealthy, and finally affecting the more affluent neighborhoods. Throughout the story, we are subject to racist viewpoints, familial abuse, inner turmoil, and religious conflict that only help to enhance the crazy situation the town is falling into. Amityville Awakens is more than a haunted house story — it’s people at multiple stages of live learning to overcome impossible obstacles and face adversity (both human and demonic) face to face.

Amityville Awakens gives perspectives, but a majority of it is based on two teens, Terri and Joey, who — despite their coming from different backgrounds — bond over tennis and fall in love. All aspects of their relationship are challenged, from Joey’s family being attacked to Terri’s ever-increasing abuse at the hands of her brother. Since the house’s demolition, the influx of demonic activity inches closer and closer to the pair until they can do nothing but find a way to fight back. Whereas Terri and Joey act as stand-ins for the reader, other characters, like Pablo “Paul” Mendez and Brenda Meeker give us third person views of what it’s like to see and experience the evil up close and personal. Ottone’s description of the entity — how it moves, what it sounds like, and even its smell — are perfect, letting you experience it yourself as you read through the chapters.

Which leads me to the scare factor. Amityville Awakens leans fairly heavy onto the religious/evil aspect, which makes sense, since this is story based in reality (as in, the real life counterpart has a religious aspect to it). While I didn’t find any of the exorcism-style actions to be particularly scary, the moments of violence and terror towards children and against family members was deeply unsettling. A rampage through the pediatric ward at a hospital felt like reading news stories about school shootings. Terri’s brother Marvin (who I am still debating is affected by the house’s entity, or just born evil) becomes forcefully incestuous, leading to greater tragedy for our main characters. The horror coming from events that could actually happen are the chapters that will make you squirm the most.

I quite liked Amityville Awakens, finding it especially compelling having it read to you (I used a PDF/e-reader). Its mix of raw emotion, crippling disaster, utmost insanity, pure moral corruption, and overall great writing successfully brought the house on Ocean Avenue into a new light. Whether that’s a good thing or bad thing is yet to be shown, but at least we got a good story out of it.

Amityville Awakens is available to purchase on Amazon. For more, follow Robert P. Ottone on Instagram.