Rating: D-
Dir: Mark Polonia
Star: Jamie Morgan, Danielle Donahue, Jeff Kirkendall, James Carolus
The whole “Amityville” horror thing is weird. Sure, there was original The Amityville Horror in 1979, and its official sequels. But beginning in 2011 with The Amityville Haunting – an Asylum production, naturally – there have been close to a hundred horror movies directly using the Amityville name. That’s not even including the likes of Amityvillenado. You cannot trademark or copyright a place name, so it’s fair game. We have therefore had Amityville Vampire. Amityville in Space. Amityville Karen. Amityville Death Toilet. Amityville Emanuelle. God help us, Amityville Vibrator. I am not kidding. Many appear irredeemable. On the IMDb, you need to try really hard to get a rating below 2.0. There are eleven Amityville movies which have reached those depths. Unfortunately, including this one, and it’s fully deserved.
Maybe it’d make sense if I’d seen any other entries? It begins with Kelly Jo Knight (Morgan) moving to Amityville, buying a possessed doll at a yard sale, then going berserk and killing her – or someone’s, anyway – kids. She’s sent to death row, which resembles a cupboard. Kelly Jo is then shipped out, along with frat house arsonist Renata (Donahue) to become test subjects for scientists Dr. Ormond (Kirkendall) and Dr. Tyler (Carolus). They are attempting to create super soldiers. Or zombies. Or maybe zombie super soldiers. In a lab, bizarrely, where one wall is covered in tin-foil (top). Despite the poster, this is not a shark movie. A badly-drawn CGI shark eats a guard off a boat. That’s it, and is so poorly executed, you will resent the makers for having tried.
I am less sure what kind of a movie it is. The possession stuff is largely forgotten after a ludicrous sequence where the demon (or whatever it may be) randomly transfers itself into a conveniently passing bear, for no good reason. Similarly, the women in prison elements are limited to a woefully staged fight sequence between Kelly Jo and Renata, so the warden can stream it online. There’s also a plot about a journalist investigating the happenings in Amityville. If you’re expecting this to link up with the rest of the plot, you will be sadly disappointed. Indeed, almost regardless of expectations, you will be sadly disappointed. It rarely has the courtesy to be bad in entertaining ways, outside of the bear scene. It’s mostly just bad.
I have enjoyed other Polonia films before, such as Cocaine Werewolf. To be fair, he had only directed fifty-odd features by this point of this one, so was still clearly finding his feet. Why, yes: that is sarcasm, thank you for asking. It wasn’t even his first Amityville movie, having previously given us Amityvilles Exorcism and Death House. What is surprising, is that it was Chris who wanted to watch this one, though she was denying it before the movie so much as started. I’ll admit to slight interest: that volume of genre product has a near-gravitational pull on me. Now? Consider all curiosity sated. Although there would be plenty of material, I will not be embarking on 31 Days of Amityville any time soon.