Review

Lisa Templeton needs a new job and applies for a position as a cleaner at High Hopes, a mental health institution in Amityville, Long Island. Surprisingly, after a crap interview, she gets the job and starts working with resident cleaner Delaney. Lisa is required to work through the night, as apparently nursing staff take care of cleaning duties during the day. Clearly the Nurses' Union isn't strong in Amityville.

It's not long till Lisa starts to see people who aren't there and hear ominous warnings, which would have must people quitting on the first night. Lisa and her friend begin to investigate High Hopes and discover that the Hospital is built at 112 Ocean Avenue! But that's not all folks, a Native Indian tribe of a 100 or so people were massacred on the site with their leader promising vengeance. Seems the Indians were practicing a type of witchcraft and required six sacrifices to gain immortality from their god "The Dark Master". And it just so happens that a patient in Ward X, the criminally insane ward that is apparently in the basement, is practicing the same black magic with "The Dark Master" due real soon now. Oh my, can Lisa stop the dark Satanic plans or will even more victims be claimed by the infamous site or do we even care by movie's end?

You know what I've discovered; a production house that is even worse than The Asylum, added bonus is its English and is trying to pump out American movies. On the back of the huge success of Night of the Living Dead: Resurrection North Bank Entertainment have turned their attention to Amityville with a horror movie that has nothing to do with the infamous house but uses the name to get a few extra bums on seats. Sorry folks if expecting more shenanigans from Jody the demonic pig then you are fresh out of luck. Actually thinking about it Resurrection didn't exactly set things on fire either, but what the hey let's get back to Amityville. A loosely based movie that uses events at 112 Ocean Avenue for some local colour then, pity the movie was shot in Britain, but we can't have everything, unfortunately that extends to getting a decent movie as well.

Things kick off in what I was thinking was a surreal artistic style. We're back in Amityville in 1974 and someone is handed something that looked like an ice hockey stick to me. We're then subject to people being shot in such extreme close up that it's hard to make out what's going down. Guess Director/Writer Andrew Jones is referencing the Defoe murders in the most cynical fashion since Bert Young invaded the avenue in Amityville II. You are meant to take the reference that Butch shot six family members, but I was just left wondering if the Director had any morals at all. While I'm all for movies based off famous cases, okay that doesn't sound right - movies like Snowtown that seek to explain what happened, I'm not best pleased with movies that take a tragedy like the Defoe case and then use it as a plot point! Anyways from a cinematic point of view the cameraman is clearly near sighted as he focuses far too closely on the victims to have any impact with the opening montage.

And the franchise keeps sinking lower and lower with each movie released

I guess everyone was as surprised as Lisa Templeton was when she got the job, following an interview where she not only embarrassed herself but put the career of acting on terminal life support. What follows on her first night on the job reaches new bizarre levels of scripting mayhem. Her supervisor Delaney, played by Lee Bane the only person who can act in the movie, starts talking her through the cleaning firepower at her disposal. We learn there's a super-heated steam gun, there's chemicals that can dissolve all manner of things it comes in contact with, hell I was about ready to go down to BBC Hardware and score some of this shit. Anyways in terms of the movie I was seeing a big flashing light saying "plot foreshadow" except nothing ever comes of it! There's padding a movie out and then there's belting it toward an inch of its life. On the bright side of the mop at least it gave the viewer some respite from the deranged plot going down.

Now you may be thinking at least we'll get some good scares here, but you would be wrong, so very wrong. The moments of supernatural mayhem don't exactly leap out and bite you on the arse, they are more apt to sort of inch timidly out and then run away before you can be bothered to feel anything like a slight chill. Lisa sees a little girl in the asylum, but shock horror "you couldn't have seen a little girl because there is no one here of that age"! Later she is warned she is going to die in the Asylum by this old lady who has never spoken since arriving at the Hospital, but wouldn't you know it "you couldn't have seen the old woman because she died this morning"! Don't know about you but I'm calling the Ghostbusters ASAP. Just in case we missed the supernatural occurrences an accompanying do-do-dun played on the piano emphasises them for us. Is this some sort of Student variety show that got released into the wild?

There is some bloody mayhem at the end of the movie but to be honest I had been worn down by the half arsed acting, less than professional production values, and ho-hum script that had lumbered onto my screen and spent an hour doing nothing much prior to the finale to take much notice.

A couple of highlights or would that be lowlights for me. Lisa Templeton must be the only person living in Amityville who has never heard about the house at 112 Ocean Avenue! Why exactly did they feel the need to include the little girl ghost with the gunshot wound? This idea was ripped screaming from The Amityville Horror remake, yes I got it was one of the Defoe girls, but hell lifting plot devices from other movies in the same franchise is pretty cynical.

So I admit I got suckered into this dog's breakfast by the word "Amityville" in the title, I deserved to be taken out and whipped to be honest. Clearly no recommendation, this movie is about on the level of real bad Student film making, avoid at all cost. I am however left with one mystery, how did they get past the zoning laws to build a honking big Hospital in the middle of suburbia?