Looking to get your Amityville fix until the long-delayed release of Franck Khalfoun’s Amityville: The Awakening? Well, the direct-to-video The Amityville Theater will not relieve those withdrawals. The 13th title boasting the Amityville namesake, John R. Walker’s film is set in the infamous town and that’s where the similarities end. Well, that and the sound of flies buzzing a whole lot. It has nothing to do with any of the other films with Amityville in the title and has much to do with other shoddy DTV flicks revolving around a bunch of teens spending the night in a haunted building.
This time around it’s a theater in Amityville, recently bequeathed to Fawn Harriman (Monele LeStrat) following her parents’ tragic death. The estate lawyer urges her to sell the broken down old building, but Fawn figures she ought to check it out and see if she wants to keep it. What better way to make a potentially lucrative decision than to spend the night in the theater with four of her friends who all seem to hate each other.
One of them wants to get in Fawn’s pants, so I can see why that slob is there. But I have no idea why the others agree to this sleepover. They really hate one another it seems. So while this volatile group of teens bunk down, Fawn’s high school teacher (a British transplant) starts investigating Amityville’s past.
Besides it buffing out the film to feature length, I really don’t understand why this teacher subplot was necessary. For some reason there’s even flashbacks to the day before he left England for the States where he’s shown arguing with a local douche in a pub. If that wasn’t mind-numbingly dull enough, there’s also a scene where he goes into a local bookstore, asks if they have any books on local history, and is then directed to the library. That’s a scene I watched with my eyeballs.
Not only are these teacher scenes a drag, they also shatter any inkling of tension the film managed to build up with the kids exploring the theater. As they continue to argue, the kids encounter a litany of tired jump scares and special effects that range from silly to just plain bad. There is one genuinely wicked shot looking up at a balcony I found really effective. I wish there was more stuff like that, but no dice. The film is absolutely miserable from the script to the acting. The lighting is either washed out or too dark and overall just avoid this mess.
And just when it seems like Fawn and her “friends” have reached a dead end, oh look, someone’s brought a Ouija board. I’ll let you fill in the blanks.
The Amityville Theater is now available on DVD if you hate yourself.