EDITOR’S NOTE: The I Hope You Suffer podcast said that “Since everybody is doing these movie challenges now, we made the only one worth doing.” Bring the pain.
Nick Box claims that this is a re-imagining of his earlier film Elevator to Insanity, which itself was a spoof of elevated horror, and that this makes fun of both that genre and Amityville movies.
A photographer (Gus Capucci) gets on an elevator that he rides for the entire movie.
That’s it.
Sure, sometimes a woman (Bryonny) gets on and gets off, but they never interact. There’s also a ballet dancer who he sees when the doors open and also a lady that screams at him for six minutes. That’s right. Six entire minutes of one scream.
Sometimes, he escapes for a moment, then hears a whole bunch of phrases like “Believe in yourself” before he’s back on the elevator, the woman gets on and off, and we watch him stand there for around forty minutes.
Finally, he gets to the floor he should be on and takes photos of corpses, just in time for a jump scare. Someone else gets in the elevator as the movie comes to a close.
This has a $3000 budget and I have no idea where it went. It’s like with each movie, Nick Box is trying to make the worst Amityville sequel, which is impossible because you can’t go lower than zero, right?
I’m waiting for a good Amityville and this supposedly makes fun of movies that just put that name before another movie and yet, it does the same thing. When I’m dying, I’ll remember this movie and hate that I wasted moments of my life watching it.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The I Hope You Suffer podcast said that “Since everybody is doing these movie challenges now, we made the only one worth doing.” Bring the pain.
You know you’re in for it when the description on IMDB says, “Some kinda horror-anthology nonsense hijacking the Amityville brand.”
This claims to be found footage found in an Amityville home. What you watch for an hour is just quick cuts into short stories, you know, an anthology as we used to call them. A lot of people swear and yell, as often happens in microbudget horror.
The ride share starts the film, as a man picks up a woman, takes her home, then chokes her out with a plastic bag. Then the clowns, TV news people and urban legends show up. Again, this often happens in microbudget horror.
It all ends with yet another clown, this time Buttons the Clown, who has gathered other facepainted killers to stalk a slumber party. Also: Henry from the Paranoia Tapes series of films shows up and those movies are pitched for ten minutes at the end of the movie. Yes, ten minutes of trailers.
Directed by Jack Hunter II, who wrote it with Dann Eudy, this has two of the meanest IMDB reviews I’ve seen destroying it, with quotes like “I fought in the Gulf War, and this movie makes me wish I was back in the Desert dodging IED’s” and “s someone who has a sick compulsion to watch every film with the Amityville title, Rideshare vies for one of the bottom of the list, it’s only saving grace is at least it’s short, unlike Amityville Hex which still holds distinction as the worst.”
The sound quality is beyond horrible in parts, you can barely see what’s going on and really the only part that worked for me was the abduction scene, as that at least felt weird. Would you like to watch people unleash profanity on one another while the camera is locked off and occasionally there’s some bad video effects? Good news. This one will scratch your stupid itch.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The I Hope You Suffer podcast said that “Since everybody is doing these movie challenges now, we made the only one worth doing.” Bring the pain.
Directed and written by Nick Box and Stuart Fitzsimmons, this was originally released in 2018 as Strange Vibes. It’s the tale of Alana (Jade Mason), a young woman who is a horrible employee and who can’t find a new job, leading to her being about to be evicted. To learn how to get a better job, she watches videos by Job Search Guy (Shawn C. Phillips) and 80s Popstar (Chan Walrus), thereby allowing two people to iPhone in their contribution to the movie.
This keeps going back to the job interview with Clare (Georgina Burford) and Ms. Vil Bitch (Sihona Robbins), each time with slight differences, as Ms. Vil is increasingly meaner and meaner to Alana and Clare. The footage also goes from black and white to color for no reason.
There are also numerous New Wave music videos that have nothing to do with the plot either. And if they do, I have no idea how. All I know is that Ms. Vil gives Alana a vibrator to kill her roommate and then asks her to shoot herself to prove her loyalty, which she does, and gets the job. She somehow survives this, too. It’s a spoiler but the ending is twenty minutes before the movie ends, so it doesn’t matter.
This also has nothing to do with Amityville, but when has that ever stopped these movies?
The Piper is about Mel (Charlotte Hope), a composer who steals a concerto from the home of her dead mentor Katharine (Louise Gold) — which is told is her only option by conductor Gustafson (Julian Sands) — all in the hopes that it will allow her to make it in the competitive world of writing classical music and take care of her deaf daughter Zoe (Aoibhe O’Flanagan).
That song is supposedly cursed, but Mel needs money. When played, the song brings The Piper (Boyan Anev) to life. Yes, a glowing eyed beast who wouldn’t even allow the music to be burned in the first place. By the end of the film, The Piper crawls out of the body of the flute player who starts the song off when it is played live and Mel and her daughter have to grab instruments of their own and battle the final boss, causing a rat to literally crawl out its mouth.
Director and writer Erlingur Thoroddsen based this on the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who played his flute to lure the rats away from the city. When he wasn’t paid, he did the same to the children and depending on the story, he drowned them or took them to a cave. The film looks good, has CGI that isn’t all horrible and has some gory moments.
The plot reminded me of Paganini Horror but one assumes that more people will have seen this than that. Sands is good in this and the film is dedicated to him, as he died not long after making it.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The I Hope You Suffer podcast said that “Since everybody is doing these movie challenges now, we made the only one worth doing.” Bring the pain.
Nick Box has also made Amityville Frankenstein, Amityville Elevator and Amityville Job Interview. I have seen all of these movies and feel like I escaped with my sanity, so when I found out there was another film in his Amityville cycle of movies. This was originally on his YouTube site and now, all that remains is a trailer.
The claim is that this is about an European art house film I Drink Tea and Watch You Die Slowly that is broadcast on Amityville TV and people die as a result. But this has no watches on Letterboxd and no one has reviewed it on IMDB. So I’ll bite the bullet and say, Nick Box, if you want to send this to me, I’ll wade out into it and report back. Let’s do this.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The I Hope You Suffer podcast said that “Since everybody is doing these movie challenges now, we made the only one worth doing.” Bring the pain.
This is based on the game Fiendish Thieves, which is described as Home Alone meets Frankenstein. They say it’s “filled with lots of laughs and slapstick humor. You choose the actions of the bungling burglars who search an abandoned warehouse for a rare vintage pocket watch, and the obsessed film fan munching on snacks watching the events unfold.”
From what I can see from this video that was posted on Steam, the game is pretty much the same as the movie.
It’s directed and written by Nick Box, who also has Amityville Tea Bag, Amityville Elevator and Amityville Job Interview coming out next year. I don’t know how much longer I can keep up this pact with a demon to watch every Amityville movie, because this one is as painful as they get. It may also be the tenth Amityville movie where Shawn C. Phillips sits on a couch in front of his DVD collection and just yells about nothing while watching a Frankenstein movie that mainly consists of the monster getting shocked for what seems like five minutes non-stop to the point that I thought that my internet was screwed up.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The I Hope You Suffer podcast said that “Since everybody is doing these movie challenges now, we made the only one worth doing.” Bring the pain.
Amityville Ripper starts with a news segment of people hating Amityville movies, the original house being burned down, an auction of items that were in the house, multiple UFO abductions, the Spider podcast, a commercial for Alien Mingle and another for Steve Martin’s (not that one) Video Store. At some point, I was wondering if this was using Pond 5 footage like every other Amityville movie and just trying to pad a runtime with all of this footage, but then as the movie went on, surprise, this actually gets why I watch these movies.
Not just because a demon cursed me to watch all of them and would ruin our web traffic if I stopped.
This takes place in 2000 — the Y2K bug is a thing — and Marianne (Kelsey Ann Baker) and her brother — or step-brother — Nichols (Hunter Redfern) wake up to their parents going away on vacation for New Year’s Eve. Marianne — known as M — had something big planned with her best friend Annie (Angel Nichole Bradford). And no, not lesbian stuff, as her brother and his wheelchair bound friend Chapman (Ryan Martel). Instead, she has had the knife of Jack the Ripper sent to her from that auction. And her friend Tony, who is now in Hollywood, said it’s real because “he lived that Ripper lifestyle.”
What is a Ripper lifestyle?
Also, Marianne has dreams of slow jams playing over stock footage of a jet ski, which makes her even more endearing to me and not just because she’s a goth girl with shaved sides of her hair and looks a lot like Rainbow Harvest. She also mentions that she really wanted the clock from the house, but an architect — Jacob Sterling, right? — got it first.
While everyone — including way too nice cheerleader Liz (Anna Clary) — is partying and playing Sugar Ray, Marianne and Annie go up to her room and have a seance with a Ouija board, some tarot cards, Jack the Ripper’s knife and plenty of candles. Also: If M is so goth, why is she wearing an N’Sync shirt when the rest of her room is full of Universal Monsters pillows, a black metal poster and a Killer Klowns poster? At least her closest is all full of black shirts.
Director and writer Bobby Canipe Jr. has obliterated the fourth wall in this movie, as the characters even find the script, not that it keeps all of them alive. Just look at the dialogue:
Annie: Everything that happened in the Amityville house was true. And can you just imagine if this knife of Jack the Ripper’s became imbued with the power of the Amityville house? It’d be like we had some sort of Amityville ripper on our hands.
Marianne: True, but I think that’s kind of the point. I’m pretty sure that the name of this movie is Amityville Ripper.
Then The Ripper (Josh Allman) comes to life, wearing a Dracula costume, and also aliens.
There’s a line that sums up this entire movie, as well as all Amityville sequels.
“Brother, it’s an Amityville sequel. Shit’s different here.”
Not all the humor hits perfectly, but who cares? This is way better than nearly any other Amityville sequel, which isn’t saying much, but it does try. Which is, again, way more than almost every other sequel not made in Canada or by an Italian director.
Fabio D’Orta’s The Complex Forms has such an interesting concept: A group of men, desperate for money, have come to an ancient villa where they are told all of their problems will be solved if they sell their bodies to a mysterious entity. What follows looks and feels unlike any movie I can think of.
With one creative force — and just a three person crew — doing everything from directing and writing to the cinematography, score and special effects, this is obviously a passion project.
Is it worth 10,000 lira for Christian (David White) to be possessed by something for 12 days? Not when the monsters come from the forests, huge dark ancient things covered in jewels and slouching in an inhuman march forward. These are some of the most unique effects I’ve seen in some time and I was taken aback by just how strange and horrifying they are. It sounds like hyperbole but it’s true: these are the most unique behemoths since H.R. Giger’s xenomorph.
This is something else and demands to be experienced. If you plays near you or when it starts online, make a point to see it.
Directed and written by Ludvig Gür, Gudstjänst — which is being released in the U.S. as In the Name of God — is about Theodor (Linus Walhgren), a priest who is often the only person at his masses. The worshippers are dying off and his wife Felicia (Lisa Henni) wonders if they should move on. He’s happy that his mentor Jonas (Thomas Hanzon) has come to town. The problem is that it seems like he may be deranged. After all, he just killed a dove right in front of him and sprayed him with hot blood.
Yet when Felicia collapses and is soon hospitalized, dying from a mysterious ailment, Jonas offers to save her if Theodor follows him just as he did by going into the priesthood. Now, he must accept the true priesthood of God and kill sinners to save his wife’s life.
Jonas has already captured a rapist and all the younger man has to do is snuff out his sinful life. He does. His wife is healed. He becomes known as a faith healer and people come back to the church. His wife is with child. God has a plan.
Yet to make the prayers of his new followers come true, he must keep killing. Because the God who has listened to Theodor is the Old Testament one, the vengeful demander of sacrifice, the God that asked Abraham to murder his own son just to see how far he would go.
This is the very definition of a moral quandary. Isn’t murder a sin? Yet aren’t the people who Theodor is hunting and destroying evil incarnate? Isn’t all this murder making the world a better place? And if he can make miracles happen at the same time, isn’t that God’s will? Can you become addicted to creating magic happen in the lives of those who follow your teachings?
EDITOR’S NOTE: The I Hope You Suffer podcast said that “Since everybody is doing these movie challenges now, we made the only one worth doing.” Bring the pain.
I worry about AI a lot, because you know, I work as a writer in my non-constantly watching movies and writing about them time. I’ve been in this field for twenty-five years or more — this gets relevant for this movie as well, I promise — and I feel like I’ve been fighting Skynet since 1984 and now I’m being asked to embrace it.
This is all being confided in you, dear reader, because I feel like Amityville Emanuelle has been concocted by that very same AI that I’ve been asked to use for my work and not director Louis DeStefano (who also plays Detective James and is directing his first movie) and Geno McGahee (producer of Call Me Emanuelle, The Awakening of Emanuelle and the writer and producer of Amityville Cop and the writer, director and producer of Amityville: The Final Chapter, which was originally known as Sickle).
How else can we explain a movie that has Amityville, a spirit board and namechecks the character invented by Emmanuelle Arsan that has become a brand in itself, remixed remade and ripped off into so many different characters, whether black, white or in space?
How long did it take before someone realized that Emanuelle and Amityville are both available to put together and lure me into watching 65 minutes of the results?
That’s why I blame AI.
If you have watched any of the post-relevant Amityville movies by now — you can stop after the Canadian ones, if you’re like most people, or after the In the Hood ones if you’re like me — you should never look at the poster and decide to watch these movies. I promise you that hardly anything on this art happens in the movie or even gets close to it and looking at it will only spoil you for visuals that its creators and budget are unable to deliver.
As you know — you must know — on November 13, 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. shot and killed six members of his family at 112 Ocean Avenue in the suburban neighborhood in Amityville, located somewhere on the south shore of Long Island, New York.
This movie accepts that and even starts with a quick cut version of it to set up what we see next.
Twenty-some years later, Laura Lutz (Dawn Church) is working in marketing, of which she says, “I market things. I get people to buy things. It’s like advertising” as I screamed at the screen while I actually did marketing inches away from this prompt-created attempt to finally destroy my Amityville obsessed black soul. She’s also trying to date and hasn’t gotten any for a year because of, yes, marketing and good Lord, this movie is trying my soul because it’s hitting so close to home my dog is trembling as the house shakes this way and that.
She ends up going on a double date with her friend Allie (Linda S. Wong) and hooking up with a nebbish teacher named Evan (Chris Spinelli) who seems to be acting for the back rows of a theater that no longer exists. Oh — I nearly forgot. Some lady brought over a box of objects from her father — George Lutz, who was played by James Brolin and Ryan Reynolds once long before Amityville movies were made on a daily basis and I had to search Tubi every morning at 3:15 AM to see which ones had possessed my smart TV, forcing me to watch them eyes sleepily open, simply through just a touch of Lucifer’s burning hand.
One of the objects in the box of occult stuff her dad kept all these years looks like a cocktail shaker but the filmmakers assure us that it’s an urn. Well, that urn has the ashes of Ronald DeFeo Jr. in it, the father of this movie’s other lead, Gordon (Shane Ryan-Reid), who has been seeing visions of his murderous father more and more since he died in jail. And when his girlfriend Gena (Allie Perez) gets a Ouija board as a housewarming gift from Scott (Johnny Avila)and May (Joycelyne Lew)…I mean, who does this kind of thing? What kind of gift is that? Don’t you know what happens?
Well, they’re lucky because Gena’s cousin Janet (Saint Heart) is a medium. They need her pretty bad right now — she’s sure she’s going to die so she makes Gena promise to take care of her cat Roman — because Laura gets possessed by the spirit and it makes her hook up with two dudes at a bar and shows up inside her bed while she’s jilling off. Worse of all, Evan has gone murderous, killing everyone that comes close to her.
I fear that in all these words, I’ve somehow made Amityville Emanuelle more exciting than it is. It’s an Amityville movie with no real Amityville, not even a shot of the house, just connected to real people whose real lives were destroyed by the case. And I can handle exploitation — I wallow in it, let’s be honest — but when you go nowhere deeper than saying, “These are the kids of Amityville” and then just have them sit in a living room, this underwhelms even when I barely expected it to whelm. But adding to that ennui is the fact that they’ve somehow made an Emanuelle movie with no nudity and some of the most boring lovemaking scenes you’ll see outside of an afternoon soap opera. In fact, in one, the guy pulls a blanket over Laura’s shoulders while she’s on top of him. This is an Emanuelle movie, with one m, and that means that Joe D’Amato is practically spinning so fast in his grave now that he’s about to burst forth from the Earth at the utter gaul of making even a softcore sex movie the unsexiest sex you’ve seen since you found your parent’s hardback of Dr. Alex Comfort’s The Joy of Sex. Children of the seventies, remember when the only nudity you could find was the Sears catalog bra pages? That was volcanic compared to this flaccid nonsense.
Nearly everyone that acted in this either produced or also worked behind the camera, no one is blameless. You do it to yourself, you do and that’s what really hurts, as they say. Or sing.
You know, if Joe D’Amato was alive, he’d be making movies with titles a lot like this, but they’d also have half the cast torn to shreds and sitting bloody and congealing in an acid bathtub while a schoolmarmish maid gave her adopted child of a master a furtive handjob, because that’s how you really make a scummy movie. Please learn from the masters.
B&S About Movies 