Okay, so I know this is supposed to be “Amityville April” and all, so why am I watching a movie called “Mt. Misery Rd.”? Well, it’s listed on Tubi (and on IMDb) as “Amityville: Mt. Misery Rd.”, but the actual onscreen title is just “Mt. Misery Rd.” Actually, there is no onscreen title. The camera just lingers on a road sign that says “Mt. Misery Rd.” for what feels like an eternity.
Boy, “Misery” is the word for it, let me tell you.
Let’s start off with the fact that it doesn’t even take place in Amityville. While it does take place in Long Island, where Amityville is located, the action occurs on the titular road. According to the “movie”, it’s “one of the most haunted roads in the world”.
If you’re wondering why I put “movie” in quotation marks, it’s because to call this thing a movie is to use the very loosest definition of the word. What it resembles most is someone’s vacation videos being passed off as a fake Amityville flick. In fact, I think that’s exactly what happened.
You see, the “movie” was directed by a husband-and-wife duo named Chuck and Karolina Morrongiello. They also star as a married couple called Charlie and Buzi (pronounced “Bougie”). All they do is film each other flying from Florida to Long Island so they can check out the supposedly haunted road. People tell them to stay away from the road, and naturally, they don’t listen, and sub-sub-sub-Blair Witch shenanigans ensue.
Many (wrong) people have called Ed Wood the worst director of all time. That is because they have never witnessed a Chuck and Karolina Morrongiello picture. Wood is positively Hitchcockian compared to this duo. Let me just clue you in on how bad they are. Okay, so we’ve seen countless boom mike shadows in movies before, right? Well, Mt. Misery Rd. just might contain the first selfie stick shadow in screen history.
Half of the time Charlie holds the camera and films Buzi. Then, they switch. I know they were working with a crew of one, but man, is this ever bad.
Along the way, the duo manages to break every single rule in the director’s handbook. Multiple jump cuts occur within a single dialogue scene. Many scenes end with random zooms to nothing in particular. The “Ken Burns” effect is left on for some of the dialogue scenes. Actors constantly flub lines. The list is endless.
Speaking of “acting” (again, notice the quotation marks), Karolina is some kind of thespian. Her accent is so thick you can’t tell what the hell she says half the time. She LOOKS great, but an actress she is not.
With the awkward love scenes and awful accents, Mt. Misery Rd. sometimes feels like the Found Footage version of The Room. Then again, that would give it too much credit, as 99% of this is unwatchable dreck.
However--that other 1% is one of the most phenomenally spectacular displays of WTF insanity in screen history. In fact, it’s almost worth watching Mt. Misery Rd. just for this one sequence. Or, if you’re… you know, smart, you can just fast-forward to the scene, watch it, and forget the rest.
Said scene takes place in a dive bar. Charlie and Buzi belly up to the bar and then, from out of nowhere, she begins to shake her booty uncontrollably for like five minutes to a country song called “Shake Your Booty”, which only has like, three lyrics, which are “Shake”, “Your”, and “Booty”. Folks, I have seen some shit and I have seen some shit. That shit has nothing on this shit. I almost want to give the “movie” Four Stars just for this sequence alone. Then again, I may be having psychological repercussions from watching nothing but fake Amityville movies for an entire month, so I may be in desperate need of medical intervention. Send help. Or shake your booty. Whichever comes first.
AKA: Amityville: Mt. Misery Rd.
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