The film opens with 5 college kids renting rooms in a house in Fall River, Mass. (Don't get ahead of me.) Taryn (Ashley Green Elizabeth) is the main character. Included in the group is her brother Michael (Luke Brandon Field) and his self centered girlfriend Nikki (Nikole Howell). Taryn's BFF Jenna (Jamie Sarchet) and her church friend Scott (Jakob Renken) who comes across as "unnamed guy in landing party." The film moves into a birthday party for Nikki with 5 extra invites while weird stuff is already happening, like Nikki sleep walking with an axe in her hand. At 40 minutes into the film, the plot is suddenly explained without any real clues about Taryn. The house is owned by Diana (Donna Spangler) who is described as "cool and eccentric."

The acting wasn't great, but I have seen worse. The sound track did nothing for the film, playing ominous music seemingly at random. If you mention "church" you get a big knocking sound, apparently a denominational ghost. You will see an axe, or a body being dragged, by no gore or horror.

Guide: 1 f-bomb. No sex or nudity

'American Poltergeist' drew me into seeing it, with a cool poster/cover, an intriguing if not particularly original premise and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive as well as the low rating and poor reviews.

It is sadly however yet another film seen recently, hence some reiteration because the exact same strengths and flaws those films have are present here, that to me was incredibly disappointing considering its potential which it doesn't do anywhere near enough with. 'American Poltergeist' is terrible, with a plethora of problems (huge ones too) and doesn't do enough with its potential, which was hardly small. There is really nothing to recommend.

Lets start with the sole positive. The setting, while simplistic, is fairly spooky at times.

Unfortunately, it is not done justice by the rather direct to video schlocky way it's shot and edited and the drab colour palette, so much so it was hard to appreciate it, it was very clear that the film was made in a rush with no care or enthusiasm. In particular, the camera work was a nauseous assault on the eyes with its excessive amateurish-ness.

Going on further to the negatives, the story does feel paper thin, disjointed and over-stretched and some of it feels vague, under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less scary. Too many characters are too sketchy and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. Their annoying and illogical decision making and behaviours frustrates.

Making the film feel bland and forgettable with not enough heart put into it. The effects are ropy at best, the sound quality is obvious and utilised cheaply (being too loud in the build ups and people's reactions) and it's best not mentioning the uniformly lumbering and histrionic acting that shows a huge indifference to the situation and what is going on and extremely awkward prolonged pauses. Donna Spangler and the wooden lead are especially bad.

Dialogue can be stilted and rambling, with lots of clichés, lots of unintentional humour that makes some of the film play like a really bad spoof and no depth whatsoever, while the pace goes to a standstill very quickly and drags on forever with very little going on worth caring about and useless padding, never recovering. Found too many the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the supposedly creepy atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness, a lot of dumb and vague moments and explanations and the lack of tension and suspense. Would not have minded the lack of originality (the film is extremely derivative and in a dumbed and watered down way) if the story and atmosphere were at least alright in execution, in reality they were both incredibly poorly done.

A lot of 'American Poltergeist' has underdeveloped plot elements and often nonsensical and confusing character motivations, while too many of the things to make you jump or shocked are far from creative or scary and are pretty tame. The ending makes the film finish on an incomplete and confused whimper.

There is not enough threat, and what there is of it tends to be used poorly, it is completely unimaginative and more odd than creepy, completely failing to show any sense of horror or creativity. Everything here is neither creative, suspenseful or nail-biting. Some badly sagging momentum too. The direction is leaden and like their heart was not in it or ill at ease, with the chemistry between the characters and actors coming over as constantly random and aggressive with the subtlety of an axe. This is very dreary and amateurish stuff.

Overall, awful with no redeeming value apart from an element that is difficult to appreciate with it being complemented so badly. 1/10 Bethany Cox

This one has it all, bad acting, bad plot, bad writing.. You never get to like any character, and it had the feel of one of those porn films someone tried too hard with and tried to make entertaining. Porn film without the porn. It isn't scary at all and used every tired horror cliché. The back story surely could have been better if they hadn't tried to tack it to a real historic and researchable case. A little more imagination could have gone a long way. The acting is so wooden that it could have been done better with hand puppets, though in the case of the creepy house owner, that very much serves the story. I'm wondering if this was intended as a quasi comedy along the lines of "Birdemic- Shock & Awe" in that its so bad its strangely good? But this doesn't have the same kind of appeal. It's just a horrible horrible movie that has already been made a hundred times over. Don't bother with this film I'm sure there is some drying paint that needs watching?