Editorials
‘The Amityville Theater’ Gets Lost In Its Own Playhouse [The Amityville IP]
Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a new Amityville Horror film to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”
We’re hitting new lows with the “franchise” with The Amityville Theater (or The Amityville Playhouse depending on where you watch). Despite an inherently interesting location and a few well-shot sequences that suggest a much more interesting film, director John R. Walker and writer Steve Hardy never get a handle on the material. This is never more evident than in the brief climax, which poorly and hastily delivers a ton of exposition in a rushed and unsatisfying way. Add in some of the worst acting the series has seen yet, and this one is a bit of a stinker.
The first few scenes of the film are non-linear, as Fawn Harriman (Monèle LeStrat) confirms her plans to spend the weekend at the abandoned Roxy Theater that she inherited from her dead parents. Fawn’s overly invested high school Geography teacher Victor Stewart (Walker) thinks a weekend away could be good for her, while her attorney Dorothy Felix (Tiana Diehl) is shifty, but ultimately relents and gives her the keys.
The teens accompanying Fawn include her garbage boyfriend, Kyle Blaker (Linden Baker), who is clearly hoping for sex. Naturally he’s frustrated when he learns that she’s invited her best friend Indy (Eva Kwok, the film’s acting weak link), as well as Kyle’s brother, Jevan (Logan Russell), and Matt (Kennie Benoit).
Besides being poor actors, all of the scenes with the teens are grating because seemingly no one likes anyone else, including Fawn and her boyfriend. The dialogue is tin-earned, particularly Kyle’s inflammatory gay slurs about Jevan and Matt that necessitate exhaustive politically correct rejoinders from Fawn. Throw in his and Indy’s unusually aggressive reactions to Wendy (Hollie Anne Kornik), the unhoused goth girl Jevan discovers living in the theater, and these characters are all pretty insufferable.
At least Walker manages to convey some moodiness in key sequences. He gets good mileage out of a moment when Wendy and Matt spot Fawn’s bloody body lying in the aisle, then see her laughing at them maniacally up in the balcony seconds later when they investigate.
This and the surreal hallucination Fawn experiences of a threatening performance later in the film actually use the theater environment, pairing it with smoky backlighting or slow motion to create genuine atmosphere. One wishes that there were more of these moments because Walker shows promise in his framing and lighting. Unfortunately there’s no saving the tight, well-lit shots in dressing rooms and hallways as the group endlessly bickers about locked doors and who’s wandered off.
All of these scenes are better than the secondary plot unfolding at the same time, however. Stewart’s hunt for information about the theater is clearly intended to complement the teens’ locked-in narrative, but whenever the action cuts back to the British teacher, all of The Amityville Theater’s momentum immediately grinds to a halt.
That’s mainly because Stewart’s story feels unimportant. The teacher spends the majority of the film reminiscing about his final day in the UK before coming to America (the film is a Canadian/UK co-production, which seemingly necessitated employing a handful of British actors).
Besides these tired scenes, Stewart also has a series of unusual interactions with Amityville locals, such as a motel owner, library employee, and even the Mayor himself (Gary Martin). Only the latter character plays a significant part in the film, but it’s part of the hastily constructed exposition-laden climax involving malevolent spirits possessing members of the Indigenous Shinnecock tribe, an annual human sacrifice, and (unseen) catacombs. The film’s resolution confirms that everyone in town is complicit in the ceremony, but it’s all so rushed and poorly defined that the film’s “twist” ending plays more like an afterthought – and not a good one.
The result is a film filled with poorly acted, insufferable characters spouting repetitive dialogue, leading to a hasty climax that caps an interminable 1 hour and 43 minute runtime (Theater marks the longest Amityville sequel in quite some time). It’s a lot, but very little of it is good enough to recommend.
The Amityville IP Awards go to…
- Indigenous Representation: Considering I took The Amityville Asylum to task for its crappy indigenous content, Theater earns a thumbs up for avoiding suggestions that the Shinnecock practiced human sacrifices or are responsible for the curse. In fact, in Stewart’s flashbacks at the pub, there’s a whole conversation about the role British genocidal colonizers played in killing off America’s first nation population with smallpox blankets, etc. It is a little unwieldy and feels out of place in the film, but the film’s educational soapbox moment is worth crediting.
- Drinking Game: Take a sip each time Matt tells someone (usually Wendy) “I don’t know.” For some unknown reason, this makes up roughly 90% of Matt’s dialogue.
- Best Dialogue: Linden Baker gives the second worst performance of the film, but there’s something unabashedly hilarious when Kyle warns Fawn that Jevan had better not disappear again “Cause if he does, I swear to god, I’m going to pin him down and take a dump on his face.”
- Horror History: In their mean-spirited mockery of Wendy, Kyle and Indy display a surprising amount of horror history awareness with references to both Morticia Adams and Lily Munster. It’s particularly odd for Indy considering that earlier in the film she confuses Velma and Daphne while making a Scooby-Doo reference.
- Favourite Costume: When Kyle wakes up on the second day, he’s wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with his own (full) name on it. Why?!
- American Pride: Considering the film’s resolutely non-US shooting locations and cast, the proliferation of mini American flags scattered throughout the production is very amusing.
Next Time: We’re jumping ahead one year to 2016 to look at Amityville: Vanishing Point, which I hope is an Amityville tie-in to the 1971 film (Spoiler alert: it’s not).
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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