cyclops_screener Reviews

Never Let Him Go (2023)

Long search for justice

[8/10 · 12 September 2023]

Haunted by the murder of his brother Scott in 1988, Steve Johnson -- a wealthy tech entrepreneur -- embarked on a decades-long search for justice.

Scott Johnson was a gay America man living in Australia, working on a doctorate in mathematics. One day Scott's unclothed body was discovered at the bottom of a cliff. Authorities conclude he died by suicide, but his brother, Steve, thinks there is more to the story. And there is.

Most of the authorities seemed to operate more out of incompetence and a desire to wrap up what they believe is a open-and-shut case. There is one police officer, however, Pamela Young, who presented herself as a frightfully insensitive, a person utterly without a heart, a "mean girl" who seemed to feel absolute glee at road blocking Scott Johnson's grief-stricken brother. At one point, Pamela actually has to pause because she's laughing too hard at some memory of working on the case -- a murder case. Of the hundreds -- if not thousands of documentaries -- I have seen over the years, I have never seen a person present herself in as shabby a manner as Pamela Young.

Steve Johnson's tenacity paid off. Kudos to Australian police. Some of them listened. Some of them took an interest. Some of them solved the crime.

1982 (I) (2013)

Powerful film

[8/10 · 19 May 2023]

Excellent movie. At times, very difficult to watch. It's hard to remember the catastrophic effects of crack cocaine when it first hit the scene in the early 1980s. The story careens into heartbreak with a pretty severe crash. A man who is working to open a neighborhood laundromat suspects something is wrong with his wife. Before he can do anything about it, she disappears, falling under the influence of a former boyfriend. The man and his wife had a young daughter. The cast is excellent, the story is harrowing, the writing is good and the direction is very good. 1982 is a powerful film that will take the audience to some very unpleasant place, all the while showcasing what is decent and heroic (and often unsung) in people. I didn't know what to expect when I put this on, and got nearly more than I could handle.

The Grizzlies (2018)

Solid film, entertaining & enlightening

[9/10 · 24 January 2023]

Well-written, well-acted. Sure, it's a story we think we have seen before, but the filmmaker deftly brings to this film all the uniqueness, mystery, historical baggage of its very singular setting. Many interesting aspects of the northern indigenous people's culture and ways are woven into the story. There are many humourous, poignant moments, such as when the school's teacher -- a white guy from southern Canada who is in the settlement for a year in order to get a leg up on paying back his student loans -- goes out to see his best player at his home. The best player stands outside, still as a statue with his grandparents. The teacher roars up on his snow mobile, asking the student why he hasn't been at school. The student calmly tells the teacher that he and his grandparents are waiting for the seals. He says, "If you even move your toe, they can hear you... We've been standing here for hours." To which the teacher replies: "Oh, my bad."

The soundtrack is also amazing.

Congratulations to everyone involved in this film! It is first class!

The Apology (II) (2022)

Decent movie, tons of holes

[2/10 · 20 December 2022]

It happens with too many movies -- an interesting premise falls apart because a poor script cannot hold its weight.

A grieving mother, Darlene Hagen, who has mourned her missing daughter for 20 years is visited one snowy and thundering night by her brother-in-law, Jack Kingsley, who confesses to killing her daughter.

What ensues is a reasonably well-acted disaster. When Jack asks Darlene if she would like to see her daughter French book (which he kept from the day he killed the 16 year old girl), Darlene says yes. Jack goes to his car. It's Darlene's chance to lock him out of the house, but the inept script dictates that she does not do this.

Turns out Jack has brought a gun for his protection.

Jack and Darlene struggle several times through the movie, the gun changes hands, Darlene opts to tie up Jack in a few locations in her home, rather than simply shooting him and incapacitating him. It's amazing how many ligatures Darlene has just lying around.

Janeane Garofalo appears in the film and is horribly under-utilized.

How does a film like this get green lit? I don't want to berate the actors or even the writer, director, producer by asking that question. The whole thing is just so weak and filled with holes, the talented actors can only bolster it so much. Ultimately, this weak and, under cooked script takes them down with the ship.

The Writer with No Hands: Final Cut (2017)

Misses the Mark by Miles

[5/10 · 20 November 2022]

Why Matthew Alford did not make his article "Hollywood Hitmen:The Gary DeVore Murder Conspiracy" into a documentary is a mystery to me. It's a fascinating tale. Very few of the most intriguing details from the article make it into this documentary.

Gary Devore was a successful Hollywood screenwriter. When he began work on his most ambitious script, based upon the 1989 US invasion of Panama, he went down a rabbit hole, involving American intelligence agencies, experimental weapons, and the "actual" reasons for the Panama invasion.

While driving at night from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Santa Barbara, California, in June 1997, DeVore disappeared in June 1997.

What interesting points does this documentary miss? Well, it doesn't delve into even the most basic aspects of DeVore's disappearance, such as giving the date or even a basic description of the circumstances. Such as describing the accident:

"The official 'accident' explanation of Gary's death is certainly creative, if nothing else. By the police's own calculations, in order to have ended up in the aqueduct, Gary would have had to have driven in excess of 110km/h without headlights -- they had been deliberately turned off, the investigation found -- the wrong way up a major highway for 3.2km, unnoticed, and through the only gap in the road rail " a mere 5m wide " all without causing any damage to either rail or car."

It does not reveal that the area where DeVore's vehicle was eventually found had been searched in the days following his disappearance. When it was found a year later, many believed the vehicle and body it contained were deliberately placed there.

The skeletal remains in the car were missing hands -- hence the documentary's title.

Hands were eventually found inside the vehicle, but they were later proven to be 200 years old.

There is no mention of a key figure in this whole story -- a good friend of DeVore's named Charles 'Chase' Brandon, veteran CIA case officer.

The doc doesn't mention how Brandon asked DeVore's wife for access to DeVore's home computer. When DeVore's wife accessed the computer she inexplicably found it "wiped". Why would Brandon have done this?

This documentary won't tell you.

I think Matthew Alford simply wanted a vacation in America. I mean, if America had never been discovered there would be no British documentaries. It's a mystery to me the sheer number of British documentaries that find the thinnest of pretexts to travel to the US.

The ending of this documentary is utterly idiotic.

I have looked forward to seeing this for years, and can say I'm honestly shocked at how thin and shallow it is. The article that led me to this case was written by Alford. It's an amazingly interesting piece:

Why Alford did not follow his own article is an absolute mystery to me and a complete injustice to this story.

The Watcher (2022– )

Utterly inept

[2/10 · 15 October 2022]

Hands-down the worst limited series I have ever seen. The premise is interesting enough, but the execution falls apart at every turn. First problem is that it's too many episodes, so much of the "story" seems like pointless filler. The writers butchered this true story. Maybe there was no story here to begin with. The writers tried to make this a Matlock mystery, then a supernatural mystery, then a ghost story, then back to Murder She Wrote mystery. Suspects abound, all horribly obvious, nearly all of them caricatures. Characters are forgotten for multiple episodes. The son of the family is needed for the first couple of episodes, but is dropped after Ep 3. The daughter becomes the central focus for one or two episodes, and then is also dropped -- just another cypher passing by in the background. By episode 5, the story utterly unraveled. Absolutely unraveled. Incredibly, nothing is resolved. It seems impossible, but nothing is resolved. After suffering through bizarre red herring after bizarre red herring, nothing is resolved. Clearly the writers and the director all had conflicting visions, different agendas and attempted to cram them all together. Complete failure.

18½ (2021)

Looks good, story is a total miss

[2/10 · 22 June 2022]

The movie has a fascinating premise: a lowly Washington stenographer in the early 1970s comes across a tape of Richard Nixon and his henchmen listening to the missing 18 and a half minutes from the "Nixon Tapes." Problem is, the filmmaker does all he can to avoid telling the story. The movie is a strange period piece, a vehicle for showing off retro fashions and furnishings. Great attention to detail in those departments, but the story was utterly neglected. The actor playing Richard Nixon doesn't even sound like him.

Bright Green Lies (2021)

Where naivete and shortsightedness collide

[5/10 · 10 May 2021]

"Gosh, I wonder how humans have survived for the past 200,000 years without electricity? Could it be that we really don't need electricity?" says the filmmaker whose filmmaking equipment probably uses electricity. Or, maybe it runs on algae.

"Electricity is a convenience, it is a luxury," says the guy with an electric light burning away right next to him during his interview.

The film presents some interesting information that the so-called "green" industry (solar power, wind turbines, "biomas") are not as "green" as they purport. I don't doubt this. Industries exist to make money. Also, the "green" industry is going to have a reasonably big carbon footprint in these early stages because it's in its infancy, and the oldschool, polluting industries are the only ones that can mine and fabricate the components. But this is not near good enough for the purists behind this film. From the absurdity that electricity is merely a "convenience" -- tell that to people who underwent life-saving surgery today, keeping our COVID-19 vaccine doses temperature-controlled, or simply working jobs to support their families.

The documentary is certainly worth watching. No doubt there is hypocrisy in the green industry, but these filmmakers are pretty stark examples of letting "'perfect' be the enemy of 'good'". They are also caricatures of what most people think of as "environmentalists" -- who get choked up over the birds that are killed each year by wind turbines, cats, and sky scrapers (as it turns out, wind turbines kill the fewest of the three, it turns out -- but still receives heavy scowls and deep disapproval from those who love the earth).

People are entitled to their beliefs, but the filmmakers open themselves up to charges of hypocrisy with their rigidness and purity. Electricity cannot be dismissed as merely a "luxury", as something people could probably live without and be happier for it. That is the kind of mind behind this film. I mean, when you tie the solar power industry in with the Holocaust, explaining what a "claim to virtue" is, there is something drastically wrong with your argument.

Watching this doc, I learned about the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, which was fascinating.

In the abstract, many of the ideas voiced by the filmmakers are correct. Capitalism is destroying the parts of earth that sustain human life. Technology isn't the answer to every problem. Often, it's the source of the problem, or exacerbates problems that already exist.

At one point, one of the filmmakers asks "What does the earth need?"

The honest answer is: drastically fewer human beings.

Thing is, that's not going to happen.

The Sleepless (2020)

Loved this movie!

[9/10 · 13 April 2021]

I'm drawn to limited location,limited character stories, movies that look more like stage plays than movies. This small, quirky movie hit all the right notes and more than a few great surprises. The writing, acting and direction are so good, you are unaware of them. The film gets 9/10 stars because it is dialogue heavy. The actors handled this very well, the script is very strong, wide open, going in many directions, but without a feeling of aimlessness. The conversation moves like a real conversation. At heart, I came to care about these characters right away, I was interested in them, their stories, and if and how they would connect. There is not clever plot, no twist at the end -- just what I enjoy most in movies: spontaneity, a pulse, a story told by people who are really committed to the story. I really loved this film.

Dark Legacy (2009)

Look past sophomoric presentation

[7/10 · 28 March 2021]

The graphics in this documentary are unforgivably childish. I cannot explain the disconnect between the research and presentation of intriguing and challenging information with these goofy, immature visuals. George H. W. Bush certainly had a questionable past, and egregious political career. The facts that have come to light over the years are difficult to refute. Whether it was his involvement with the CIA in the early 1960s, something Bush denied under oath when appointed Director of CIA, and throughout his 1988 presidential campaign, or his bargaining with Iran behind the scenes in the lead-up to the 1980 presidential election, George H. W. Bush had a lot to answer for. The information conveyed in this documentary is good. I cannot understand why the filmmaker would undermine his research by presenting it in such a childish manner. Push past the sophomoric visuals and listen to the information.

The Stand (2020–2021)

This series is an absolute mess

[1/10 · 25 March 2021]

Somebody probably thought they were "improving" upon The Stand with this version, by practically rewriting the story. Sure, alter the race of various characters. Fine. But altering the storyline to this degree? Get out of here. And every change is an absolute miss. The story jumps, trips, and stumbles through the chronology, flashing back and then awkwardly crashing back into the present. Whoever was behind this rendering of The Stand just had no idea how to tell a story -- and this is a story that's been told, already. How do you mess that up? This director found a way to do it. Between the changes, gratuitous gore, wobbling timeline, the overall effect is one of overriding dullness. This version of The Stand is boring. I don't understand how that can be because the book is excellent. Even the flawed 1994 made-for-TV mini-series worked. It had its problems, but it was absolute Shakespeare in comparison to this garbage. And one small, pervasively annoying detail: the profanity in this version. All this new dialogue sounds like it was written by a teenager who thinks swearing is edgy. Normally, I couldn't care less about bad language -- except when it's ladled over my head. This version of The Stand is an object lesson in how to dismantle and destroy and excellent story. Such a worthless effort.

Last Call (III) (2019)

A tsunami of sentiment

[6/10 · 28 February 2021]

There are many things to admire about this movie: it looks good, the actors are believable in their roles, its limited locations are interesting, and the premise is intriguing. That the movie was filmed in one take, simultaneously in two locations, following two actors, is certainly an impressive technical feat.

Split screen movies can work. This one, often, does not. At times, the viewer struggles to get a sense of each character's setting or movements, and does not quite because the screen is, literally, cut off.

The fact that the movie was filmed in a single take is impressive, but it leaves the audience watching a lot of moments that would have been better edited out. Realism is not achieved by watching characters putter about. For instance, near the beginning, we get to watch Scott walk home from a bar and Beth go out to her car to search for a cell phone charger -- in real time. Whole minutes roll by, taking up valuable time in this 75-minute movie, where the story could be underway.

The actors' performances have some good moments, but overall, there is an ocean of pathos, pushed by voices that border on simpering. We get it, Scott is in crisis, Beth is "thrown in the deep end", trying to help him with limited skills, and heavy emotions arise during their collision. But the watery, bordering-on-crying voices go on so long, they are so one-note, they begin to grate and actually hamper the impact of the scene.

The music is well done. Particularly at the beginning, doing a great job of setting the tone for what we are about to see. As the movie progresses, the music suffers from the same abundance of pathos that weighs down the performances -- a little of the emotional music would go a long way. Here, it's wall-to-wall.

In the end, the actors and music director are wedging themselves into the workable spaces left by the filmmaker's central gimmick: filming in real-time, split screen, no cuts. It would have been very interesting to see what this film might have looked like without the gimmick, which would have provided the space needed by the actors and music.

Nomadland (2020)

Excellent

[8/10 · 28 February 2021]

Nomadland is a story that is all too familiar across the American landscape: people with skills, long work experience, who have suffered some bad breaks, struggling to scratch out a living to support themselves. Menial job followed by menial job, these inadvertently transient people criss-cross the country, making momentary connections, always looking for that next seasonal gig. It's a rootless existence that really brings into stark focus "what is life all about" without overtly asking that trite and cliched question.

Frances McDormand and David Strathairn give sutble, powerful performances as "two ships in the night", working these forgettable jobs.

There may not be much story to the movie, but the character study is fascinating and sad. I'm sure there are people who enjoy living this sort of life, I just don't know any of them.

When Frances McDormand's character delves into her past and makes a physical return to a significant location, the loneliness and depth of loss she has experienced becomes very real for the audience.

The movie is worth seeing. It's melancholy. It will make anyone who sees it very thankful for whatever level of stability they have in their own lives.

Let's Talk About the Facts: The Cecil Hotel (2020 Podcast Episode)

SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!

[3/10 · 18 February 2021]

Few times have I seen a documentary series meander and drag and milk ancillary storylines and footage like this series. It's slick, the core story -- the disappearance and fate of Elisa Lam -- is interesting, but the filmmaker pads the story so much it's like a meal made out of 10 lbs of Hamburger Helper. Even watching this in fast forward, skipping and skipping ahead, the doc dragged. There could have been an interesting series here, but the filmmaker chose to make a documentary about everything EXCEPT their central subject. The doc is a history of Los Angeles, a history of the Cecil Hotel, of Skid Row. I knew I was in trouble when the filmmaker chose to have an actress read extensive excerpts of Elisa Lam's Tumblr blog. All these things may appeal to some viewers. For me, I want more focus in the docs I watch. It's like this documentary crashed into Wikipedia.

NOT RECOMMENDED.

Refuge of Last Resort (2006 Video)

Absolutely harrowing

[9/10 · 12 December 2020]

As with any documentary, this is but one perspective of an event -- in this case, a harrowing, difficult-to-dispute, unflinching look at the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The story documents the experience of an ordinary, middle-class family faced with having to evacuate their home as Hurricane Katrina approached. Like most people, they didn't have the means or resources to do this, so they remained in their home. Certainly, some remained in New Orleans for the thrill of being able to say they survived a hurricane, but the vast majority of people who weathered the storm did so because they had no other choice. These were level-headed, responsible people who simply didn't have the cash to drive to a safer area and stay in hotels for weeks.

Interviews with people who lived through the disaster painted a very grim picture of what life was like on the ground, following the storm. It's easy to criticize the official response to the aftermath, but in this case the deficiencies are glaring. If American authorities ever enjoyed a reputation for competence, it is only a memory, or maybe it was only a myth, to begin with.

Although the narrator occasionally editorializes, there is no disputing the images captured by the camera.

Room 237 (I) (2012)

Nope

[2/10 · 13 December 2019]

The theories expounded upon by these Shining "experts" range from thin to non-existent to delusional. To say they are "reaching" in their interpretations of the movie is an understatement. The "experts" speak ardently, for sure. They are utterly convinced of their theories, but somehow do very little to convince the viewer, though there is no end of "evidence" gleaned from The Shining. One particular interviewee cannot stop giggling at his own cleverness, which is highly annoying to listen to. Another interivew is interrupted by the "expert"'s child -- a part that obviously should have been edited out, but was left in either by sloppiness on the part of the filmmaker or that it somehow aided the "expert"'s argument about the film.

The one positive thing to come out of this documentary, was hearing that the film had been viewed at an art exhibition, in forward and reverse at the same time -- two copies overlaid and semi-transparent. It was very, very interesting seeing how images from near the end of the film lined up with images at the beginning.

For all of Stanley Kubrick's obsessiveness and OCD in making his films, doing dozens of takes, driving actors crazy, there commentators really only point out continuity errors in the movie. They claim these are not continuity errors, but intentional "signs" from Kubrick, but that just doesn't pan out. Their reading of The Shining is about as deep as Charles Manson's interpretation of The Beatles' White Album. Not recommended.

Einstein's God Model (2016)

Excellent movie!

[8/10 · 1 December 2019]

Briiliant concept, smart script, surprisingly strong acting and stellar special effects. I put this movie on wondering if it could possibly live up to the intriguing premise. It absolutely did. There is no end of indie films attempting to take on lofty themes, but few deliver. Einstein's God Model definitely delivers. It delves into the complexities, vagaries and impossibilities of the living communing with the dead in a shockingly plausible way. Well done, filmmakers!

American Anarchist (2016)

Five Stars for William Powell, Zero for Siskel

[5/10 · 9 July 2017]

Good for William Powell sitting down to speak at length about his controversial work, The Anarchist's Cookbook. Boo to Charlie Siskel for his heavy-handed, one-dimensional approach to a very interesting subject. Siskel makes no mystery of his attempts to demonize Powell, to the point that even Powell asks the question that rises in the viewer's mind, "What is it you want me to say?" Powell takes responsibility for his controversial work, pleads to more guilt, really, than he should, and Siskel is still not satisfied. Powell pretty much disavows the work, and none of it is enough for Siskel. The fact that some crazy people who have perpetrated heinous acts also possessed The Anarchist's Cookbook is no more relevant than if they owned a copy of the Bible. The material Powell published was all in the public domain. He wreathed it with hackneyed radical verbosity of the era and published it. Is he responsible for someone hurting others using the knowledge he shared? It's an interesting question. It's a question too far over the head of Charlie Siskel, who will hopefully move on to another line of work. Infomercials would be a much better fit for his worldview.

Holy Ghost (2014)

"Can the Holy Ghost direct a movie?" No

[1/10 · 16 November 2014]

Darren Wilson's "Holy Ghost" is like Christian "Crocodile Hunter", in which a band of white, Christian American males set out to prove the existence of the Holy Ghost. There is no script, no plan. The film's tagline is "Can the Holy Spirit direct a movie?" In a word: no.

Traveling across the globe with his fans' Kickstarter money, Darren Wilson and crew basically perform Christian Criss Angel street "magic" (but without even the illusion of anything happening), approaching strangers, praying with some and performing "miracles" (which is in parentheses because they are not medically verified). The screws of the already painful Criss Angel schtick are tightened further on the viewer when these street evangelists become like medium John Edward in their aggressive interrogation of the recipients of their prayers, pelting them with questions like: "Did you feel that? What did you feel? Tell me what you felt?" It's clear the recipients are pressured into saying they felt something, that the "healings" actually worked.

The Christian street magic is interspersed with a curious debate about "cessationism". For the vast majority of the world which has no idea what this term means, cessationism is the belief among some Christian sects that when Jesus Christ's apostles died, the Holy Ghost went with them, departing this world. The makers of this film don't believe in cessationism and eat up valuable screen time making a point that, to most viewers, doesn't have to be made.

As the Crusaders venture abroad, the stories of "miracles" continue, leading up to the grand climax -- a visit to Varanasi, India ("the oldest city in the world" as Wilson proclaims. Actually, the oldest city in the world is Damascus) where they intend to worship Jesus in a Hindu temple on the banks of the Ganges and to pray for people there. Wilson admits that he'd been told that to attempt this would be "suicide". This is where the militants live "and Christians were not allowed". The intercut interviews, afterward, with the crew shows a near-giddiness at the prospect of running into opposition. The guys sound almost hopeful that they will be attacked. The Regional Director of TellAsia Ministries says to that go to this region and openly worships Jesus could well lead to someone being killed.

Quite a build up.

A Christian musician in the group sits out in public and plays some songs near the Ganges. As would happen anywhere in the world, people are drawn to the music. The filmmaker believes it's more than that -- it's the Holy Ghost. After a modest crowd gathers to listen, the musician walks down narrow lanes, singing, playing. The group soon move on to a temple where the Buddha had once preached and a bigger crowd gathers.

As the musician plays, an evangelist works the crowd "healing" people.

The closest the group comes to a kerfuffle of any kind is at this temple. The musician sits upon some ancient stone structure and plays his guitar. People come forward to shake his hand. He shakes hands with them. Then comes The Moment. Some guy comes forward and instead of shaking hands, he tries to pull the musician from his perch! As has been done throughout the film -- particularly during the street magic section -- the drama is completely overblown.

The arrogance and cultural insensitivity at the heart of this excursion to India cannot be understated. This gaggle of white Christian men trample through some of India's holiest sites as though moving through the food court of a mall in California. They fully expect hostility -- they invite it with their actions -- but have no understanding why it might occur. Xenophobia runs high in the descriptions of where the group is going and what they plan to do. The end result is a dramatic fizzle that only compounds the widely held view that white Christian American men really don't have any respect for anyone's culture or practices but their own.

The film ends with an equally stark, incongruous and indelible image. With the remainder of the fans' Kickstarter money, Wilson and crew go to Rome, Italy. Rad evangelist Todd White walks right into what is described as a "Roman mob". Really? A mob? It's a march. From the looks of it, it was a completely peaceful march richly interspersed with good looking women. Talk about going into the lion's den! Undaunted by the peacefulness or the beautiful women, White wades in saying he's going to touch as many people as possible and doesn't even care if he gets punched in the face. It's unclear why he would think Christians are under fire in Italy, given the fact that the Vatican is located there and Christianity has flourished there for millennia. But even among friends, white Christian American males feel threatened.

In a stunning, but unsurprisingly ego-maniacal move, White sees a guy carrying a megaphone and risks a punch in the face by asking to use it. As with the militants in India, he is met with absolutely no opposition. The guy hands over the megaphone without question. White proceeds to shout "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" into the mic.

What humility! That moment completely embodies the film.

Darren Wilson and his crew set out to find the Holy Ghost and found their egos instead.

My Amityville Horror (2012)

Danny Lutz says he wants to tell his tale -- why didn't he tell it?

[6/10 · 8 March 2014]

For a person who claims he wishes someone had asked him to give his version of events in the famous Amityville Horror haunting story, Danny Lutz shares very little of it in this documentary. The man is clearly in pain, clearly carrying a load of emotional baggage. However, the more he talks, the more it seems that Danny Lutz's angst centered on his hatred of his stepfather, George Lutz.

For all the interview questions asked of him, for all the talking he does, Danny Lutz says very little. The Amityville Horror story has become very murky over the years. The only thing anyone can seem to agree on is that the book and movie were wildly inaccurate. OK? So, what's the real story? In interviews, George Lutz spent much of his time talking about what DIDN'T happen in the house. Danny Lutz doesn't take that route, but he's clearly holding something back.

Are the few paranormal experiences Danny Lutz shares convincing? Not especially. He does himself no favors claiming to have witnessed George Lutz moving tools around his garage with telekinesis.

Out of the 90 minute only two things were made clear: Danny Lutz hated George Lutz. Danny Lutz hated being identified as "that Amityville Horror kid". Neither is much of a revelation and neither sheds any light whatsoever on this campfire story that just won't go away.