Karen (Lauren Francesca) is a health inspector who gets a thrill shutting down businesses that are not up to code. Her latest target is a local winery that is trying to branch out and hold beer tastings. During her latest inspection, she steals a bottle of their newest wine (that came from a winery in Amityville), and drinks it. Before you can say, “I want to speak to your manager!”, she becomes possessed and starts slaying people while saying obnoxious catchphrases like, “You’re canceled!”
Amityville Karen is basically a one-woman show for Lauren Francesca. Many scenes feature her bitching aloud to no one in particular about almost every kind of Karen complaint known to man. She really goes for it, and if the material had actually been funny, her performance might’ve been memorable. However, without any good punchlines or one-liners, it’s all bluster and no laughs.
Most everyone else in the cast is painfully amateurish, stumbling over their lines, and visibly sweating in front of the camera. The biggest “star” in the cast is a slumming James Duval as an employee at the winery. Boy, Donnie Darko was a long time ago. Lilith Stabs is also in there briefly as a groupie, but she’s more or less wasted.
For some ungodly reason, this clocks in at a whopping 103 minutes. There’s just barely enough of an idea here to make a movie, and one that probably could’ve and should’ve only been about 75 minutes. I mean say what you will about all those recent Full Moon movies. Even if they do suck, they’re only an hour long (or less). And trust me, you feel every painful minute of this. Note to prospective low budget filmmakers: If you’re going to cash in on the “Amityville” franchise, please keep the running time to a bare minimum. I mean did we need the ten full minutes of news anchors and social media videos of people talking about Karen at the end?
Making fun of “Karens” is about the lowest hanging fruit imaginable. Because of that, a horror comedy about a possessed Karen should’ve been a can’t-lose proposition. Too bad the filmmakers couldn’t even wring one decent laugh out of the premise. It’s enough to make you want to speak to the movie’s manager.
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