Poor acting leads to dissatisfaction in ‘American Poltergeist’

In 2015, ITN Distribution released their movie American Poltergeist. Since then, it has served as a movie viewers turn to when they want a scare, but do they really receive one from this movie?

Scary movies are a genre that many people enjoy. A lot of viewers enjoy the thrill, the excitement, and the anticipation of watching a movie. Most of the time, scary movies are especially loved throughout the month of October, being that it’s Halloween. “American Poltergeist” is a favorite during this season, being that it’s easily accessible throughout numerous streaming apps.

Summary

Five college students are in need of a home for the semester. While house hunting, they believe they find a perfect house off-campus that will provide them with everything they need for the semester. Right up front, the owner of the house, Diana, is very suspicious. Being that these young adults just need a place to live, they do not think much of it. What 20 something year old would?

In there first few days, these young adults face suspicious and paranormal behavior. On their first night in their new home, Nikki, is found “sleep-walking” in the basement. However, when her friend, Taryn, finds her lurking in the basement, she sees something she never thought she would; dead bodies laying on the floor. But when she blinks her eyes, these bodies are not there anymore. This frights Taryn to an undeniable extent, and she doesn’t feel comfortable in the house anymore. When no one believes what she has been seeing, she decides to stay, but will later realize this was not one of her brightest ideas. The next few days in the house, there are unexplainable events that happen. One thing for certain, these college students will never want to stray off-campus again.

Review

American Poltergeist tries it’s hardest to bring frighten to it’s viewers. However, if it weren’t for the actors, it would be more thrilling than it actually was. Trying to watch this movie felt very drawn out, and that was probably because of the acting going on. The acting throughout this movie made it seem like they were only there for their paycheck, and threw anything out there. If it weren’t for Taryn, one of the main characters, nothing that happened would be believable. The house owner, Diana, even though only saying a few lines throughout the movie, made her character seem creepy.

Even though there were a few bad actors in this movie, it still provided a few good jump scares. However, most of these scares that happened were very predictable from the beginning: a group of young adults move in, something paranormal happens, and then they try to fight whatever demon is haunting them at the end. It was very easy to tell this was a low budget film, but for what they had they provided a movie that will give viewers a few good scares. If you’re looking for a good Halloween movie to watch, you can keep this movie in mind, but you also won’t be missing anything if you don’t.

My overall rating for this movie is 2.5 out of 5 ghosts.