Editorials
‘Amityville Scarecrow’ Takes a Trip into the Amityville Cornfield [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.”
Welcome back to a new year of The Amityville IP. With Amityville Scarecrow, this editorial series leaves behind the scant four “franchise” titles released in 2021 for the gargantuan ten titles released in 2022.
While Scarecrow is a similarly low budget production with some dodgy script decisions (courtesy of screenwriter Shannon Holiday), the emphasis on fractured family dynamics feels more in keeping with the early Amityville entries.
For no apparent reason, the film arbitrarily changes the mythology of the series. In Scarecrow, the Amityville murders were committed by “the Richards brothers,” not by Ronald DeFeo. After the family home was razed, a summer camp was built on the property, but the land became cursed.
When the film opens, adult sisters Tina and Mary (Amanda-Jade Tyler and Kate Sandison) meet to discuss the dormant Amityville Cornfield they inherited from their mother. The relationship between the women is noticeably cool: Tina slept with Derek (Andrew Rolfe) when he was still with Mary and the women haven’t spoken to each other in years. For added dramatic effect, each woman also has a(n adult) daughter with Derek: Tina has Harriet (Sofia Lacey) while Mary has Lucy (Chelsea Greenwood).
The attempted reconciliation between the sisters occupies most of the film’s narrative, which is simultaneously Amityville Scarecrow’s greatest strength and its biggest weakness. While the dedication to characters is a welcome change for a film series that frequently fails in this capacity, Amityville Scarecrow misunderstands how compelling it is to watch the women patch things up or how invested the audience will be in the outcome.
Not helping matters is the bloated inclusion of a Nightmare on Elm Street-esque backstory. Tina and Mary’s mother murdered the camp pedophile after he killed Tina and Mary’s older sister, which explains the origin of the curse on the land, as well as the reanimation of the titular killer scarecrow (played by Richard Lovell).
What follows is a series of low stakes murders, investigatory reveals, and a lot of corn imagery. This is a pretty standard low-budget slasher that places too much emphasis on bland character dynamics. Overall Amityville Scarecrow isn’t bad; it’s just not very memorable.
With that said, though, it’s still more competent and watchable than many of the other DTV entries!
The Amityville IP Awards go to…
- Recurring Player! If Tyler’s name seems familiar, it’s because she was the villain in the (unrelated) film, Amityville Witches.
- Pacing! One persistent issue is how needlessly drawn out and repetitive the film is. Tina and Mary revisit the same conversation over and over and over again, which really bogs down the film’s pacing. Shaving ten minutes off the ~90-minute runtime would have helped to keep things moving and ensured that actors weren’t repeating the same lines of dialogue all of the time.
- Action! One wishes that director Peter Jack Mundy was better at staging the action sequences. There’s a reasonable amount of violence, particularly in the last act, but it’s often pedestrian or perfunctory. More thrilling action sequences would have helped to boost the film.
- Acting! Most of the performances are passable, particularly Lacey and Greenwood, though Sandison struggles to deliver whenever Mary is asked to emote. Thankfully the worst performance in the film, delivered by Marek Lichtenberg as James, is also the film’s opening kill.
- Dialogue! It’s hard to make corn – or the lack thereof – scary (see also: the Children of the Corn franchise), but it’s especially difficult to make tin-earned dialogue like “It’d be nice if, after all these years, the corn actually grew” work.
- Accents! Lichtenberg’s accent makes no sense for the film, but special shout-out goes to Lacey who at one point manages to make Amityville a four syllable word (ah-mi-ty-ville).
- Sequel! Yes, there is a sequel to this film, though oddly enough it doesn’t appear in the official Wikipedia list of the “franchise” films. Anyways, we’ll get to it soon enough.
Next Time: It’s time to call wrap on Thomas J. Churchill (Amityville Harvest, Amityville Moon) as he returns for his third film in the “series,” zombie title: Amityville Uprising (2022).
Editorials
Silly, Self-Aware ‘Amityville Christmas Vacation’ Is a Welcome Change of Pace [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.”
After a number of bloated runtimes and technically inept entries, it’s something of a relief to watch Amityville Christmas Vacation (2022). The 55-minute film doesn’t even try to hit feature length, which is a wise decision for a film with a slight, but enjoyable premise.
The amusingly self-aware comedy is written and directed by Steve Rudzinski, who also stars as protagonist Wally Griswold. The premise is simple: a newspaper article celebrating the hero cop catches the attention of B’n’B owner Samantha (Marci Leigh), who lures Wally to Amityville under the false claim that he’s won a free Christmas stay.
Naturally it turns out that the house is haunted by a vengeful ghost named Jessica D’Angelo (Aleen Isley), but instead of murdering him like the other guests, Jessica winds up falling in love with him.
Several other recent Amityville films, including Amityville Cop and Amityville in Space, have leaned into comedy, albeit to varying degrees of success. Amityville Christmas Vacation is arguably the most successful because, despite its hit/miss joke ratio, at least the film acknowledges its inherent silliness and never takes itself seriously.
In this capacity, the film is more comedy than horror (the closest comparison is probably Amityville Vibrator, which blended hard-core erotica with references to other titles in the “series”). The jokes here are enjoyably varied: Wally glibly acknowledges his racism and excessive use of force in a way that reflects the real world culture shift around criticisms of police work; the last names of the lovers, as well the title of the film, are obvious homages to the National Lampoon’s holiday film; and the narrative embodies the usual festive tropes of Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas movies.
This self-awareness buys the film a certain amount of goodwill, which is vital considering Rudzinski’s clear budgetary limitations. Jessica’s ghost make-up is pretty basic, the action is practically non-existent, and the whole film essentially takes place in a single location. These elements are forgivable, though audiences whose funny bone isn’t tickled will find the basic narrative, low stakes, and amateur acting too glaring to overlook. It must be acknowledged that in spite of its brief runtime, there’s still an undeniable feeling of padding in certain dialogue exchanges and sequences.
Despite this, there’s plenty to like about Amityville Christmas Vacation.
Rudzinski is the clear stand-out here. Wally is a goof: he’s incredibly slow on the uptake and obsessed with his cat Whiskers. The early portions of the film lean on Wally’s inherent likeability and Rudzinski shares an easy charm with co-star Isley, although her performance is a bit more one-note (Jessica is mostly confused by the idiot who has wandered into her midst).
Falling somewhere in the middle are Ben Dietels as Rick (Ben Dietels), Wally’s pathetic co-worker who has invented a family to spend the holidays with, and Zelda (Autumn Ivy), the supernatural case worker that Jessica Zooms with for advice on how to negotiate her newfound situation.
The other actors are less successful, particularly Garrett Hunter as ghost hunter Creighton Spool (Scott Lewis), as well as Samantha, the home owner. Leigh, in particular, barely makes an impression and there’s absolutely no bite in her jealous threats in the last act.
Like most comedies, audience mileage will vary depending on their tolerance for low-brow jokes. If the idea of Wally chastising and giving himself a pep talk out loud in front of Jessica isn’t funny, Amityville Christmas Vacation likely isn’t for you. As it stands, the film’s success rate is approximately 50/50: for every amusing joke, there’s another one that misses the mark.
Despite this – or perhaps because of the film’s proximity to the recent glut of terrible entries – Amityville Christmas Vacation is a welcome breath of fresh air. It’s not a great film, but it is often amusing and silly. There’s something to be said for keeping things simple and executing them reasonably well.
That’s a lesson that other indie Amityville filmmakers could stand to learn.
The Amityville IP Awards go to…
- Recurring Gag: The film mines plenty of jokes from characters saying the quiet part (out) loud, including Samantha’s delivery of “They’re always the people I hate” when Wally asks how he won a contest he didn’t enter.
- Holiday Horror: There’s a brief reference that Jessica died in an “icicle accident,” which plays like a perfect blend between a horror film and a Hallmark film.
- Best Line: After Jessica jokes about Wally’s love of all things cats to Zelda, calling him the “cat’s meow,” the case worker’s deadpan delivery of “Yeah, that sounds like an inside joke” is delightful.
- Christmas Wish: In case you were wondering, yes, Santa Claus (Joshua Antoon) does show up for the film’s final joke, though it’s arguably not great.
- Chainsaw Award: This film won Fangoria’s ‘Best Amityville’ Chainsaw award in 2023, which makes sense given how unique it is compared to many other titles released in 2022. This also means that the film is probably the best entry we’ll discuss for some time, so…yay?
- ICYMI: This editorial series was recently included in a profile in the The New York Times, another sign that the Amityville “franchise” will never truly die.
Next time: we’re hitting the holidays in the wrong order with a look at November 2022’s Amityville Thanksgiving, which hails from the same creative team as Amityville Karen <gulp>
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