No budget maverick Mark Polonia delivers what I believe is the first Amityville western. In a franchise filled with exponentially more lows than highs, delivering a first for the series is worth something at the very least. (Then again, since Amityville is in New York I guess that technically makes it an “eastern”.)
It’s 1846 and a couple of bounty hunters (Ken Van Sant and Titus Himmelberger) are after a bank robber named Mathias Black (Noyes J. Lawton). The trail leads to a small town called (what else?) Amityville, where the townsfolk seem all too eager to have their new arrivals leave as soon as possible. Turns out they are all under the spell of an evil entity who lords over the town. It’s then up to our rugged pair of lawmen to confront the entity and set the town free.
The surprising thing about Once Upon a Time in Amityville is that Polonia handles the western stuff rather well. I’ve seen so many low budget westerns that look laughably inauthentic when it comes to their western settings. This one isn’t so bad considering the budget he was working with.
The Amityville scenes well… let’s just say it all plays out like your typical Polonia joint. That’s not a knock really, especially if you’re a fan of his work and/or already know what you’re getting into. I did like how he tried to tie some of the elements back (forward?) to the original movie (like the windows, the glowing eyes, and the flies).
There are some laughably bad moments along the way. The reveal of the evil entity will have you in stitches as it looks more or less like a dime store Halloween decoration. The way it is dispatched is equally amusing. That’s not quite enough to garner a full-on recommendation (the laughs are pretty scarce up until then), but it’s enough to signal that this is a decent enough fake Amityville (not to mention Polonia) flick.
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