TUBI CONTINUED… MURDERBOT (2023) ***

The original title of this fun Jim Wynorski sci-fi/horror mash-up was Killbots.  I think it was originally intended to be a sequel/reboot of Wynorski’s Chopping Mall (which was also alternately titled Killbots), but the title was changed shortly before release.  I have to assume original Chopping Mall producer, Roger Corman denied Wynorski and producer Charles Band the rights to the title.  It’s not a big deal either way as there is very little connective tissue linking the two films (aside from a throwaway line of dialogue).  In fact, it shares more DNA with Tourist Trap (another Band production) than Corman’s Chopping Mall as it focuses on a group of teens trapped in a ghost town.

Wynorski’s long-time muse, Rocky DeMarco stars as the titular creation, a sexy cyborg who becomes self-aware and escapes the desert laboratory where she was created.  She plans to hook up with a computer server and take over the world using AI.  On her journey, she stumbles upon a one-horse town and kills the few remaining citizens.  Meanwhile, a van full of teens stops in town for gas and comes face to face with the robot menace.  

Murderbot reminded me a lot of the Terminator rip-offs of the mid-to-late ‘90s.  The shots of DeMarco’s Heads Up Display and her glowing red eyes would look right at home in a DTV Don “The Dragon” Wilson sci-fi/action flick.  Wynorski also lends the film a Spaghetti Western vibe as DeMarco often struts down the empty streets of the desolate ghost town like a lone gunfighter in a Sergio Corbucci movie.  Then of course, there are the uniquely Wynorski touches that are impossible to resist (such as the fact that all the scientists in the top-secret underground desert facility are sexy buxom women), and the inclusion of his regular supporting players (such as Becky LeBeau, Lisa London, and Lauren Parkinson) will make Wynorski fans rejoice.

Murderbot is only forty-four minutes long, which is good news when you’re trying to watch 365 movies on Tubi in 365 days like I am.  However, Wynorski die-hards will probably wish he was given a little more time to flesh things out.  (I would have particularly liked more scenes with the sexy scientists.)  The flipside of that is the film wastes no time getting down to business, and when it heats up, the action doesn’t stop.  

The kill scenes are solid too.  There’s a decapitation via car hood, exploding heads, and brain splattering, just to name a few.  Some of the characters are annoying (like the nerd who’s always playing the trumpet), but I did love the hilarious scene where the Gen Z teens can’t call for help because they have no idea how to use a payphone.  Little moments like this help make Murderbot a blast from start to finish. 

AKA:  Killbots.

TUBI CONTINUED… THE AMITYVILLE CURSE (1990) **

Okay, folks.  Here we are.  The last movie in our Amityville April series.  This is the fifth in the franchise, and the only one of the “official” entries I haven’t seen.  Because of that, I saved it for last.  I thought I may enjoy it more after watching so many of the no-budget unrelated Amityville rip-offs.  As it turned out, that wasn’t the case.  It’s not terrible or anything, but it’s awfully dull and slow moving.  If I’m being completely honest, it’s probably the weakest of the official Amityville films.

A group of friends pool their money together and buy a house in Amityville (not THE house, just A house) with the intent of fixing it up and flipping it for a profit.  As you can probably guess, this house is haunted too.  It seems a priest was murdered in a confessional booth twelve years earlier.  The booth was then stored in the house’s basement and voila!  The place is haunted AF.

Throughout the film we get a dog attack, a spider attack, and lame psychic visions.  Most of the boring home repair scenes play like This Old House though.  Oh, and one annoying guy films everything with his home movie camera, which set an unfortunate precedent for the series.  

Journeyman character actor Kim (The Last Boy Scout) Coates takes the acting honors as the nervous, bespectacled, chain-smoking guy who eventually snaps and starts killing his friends.  Casting him as a psycho in an Amityville sequel was a good idea, but unfortunately, he’s kept on a tight leash for most of the running time.  When he finally does get to strut his stuff, the movie does show signs of life.  The ending, where he winds up with a burnt Freddy Krueger face and chases a lady around the house who defends herself with a nail gun, is decent.  It’s just one of those too little, too late scenarios as the bulk of the film is just too plodding for its own good.  Cassandra Gava (the hot witch from Conan the Barbarian) is pretty good as Coates’ sexy wife.  However, the rest of the cast are comprised of irritating psychics, gossiping old biddies, and insufferable assholes.  

Well, now that I’ve finally waded through all the official Amityville movies and a LOT of the unofficial ones, here is how I stack them up:  

THE OFFICIAL AND UNOFFICIAL AMITYVILLE HORROR SERIES RANKING:  

1. Amityville:  The Awakening ***

2. The Amityville Horror (2005) ***

3. Amityville Witches ***

4. The Amityville Terror ***

5. Amityville 3-D ** ½ 

6. The Amityville Horror (1979) ** ½ 

7. Amityville Dollhouse ** ½ 

8. Amityville:  The Final Chapter ** ½ 

9. Amityville in Space ** ½ 

10. Amityville Toybox ** ½ 

11. Amityville Christmas Vacation ** ½ 

12. The Amityville Moon ** ½ 

13. Amityville 2:  The Possession **

14. Amityville Horror:  The Evil Escapes **

15. Amityville 1992:  It’s About Time **

16. Amityville Death House **

17. Amityville Exorcism **

18. The Amityville Asylum **

19. Amityville Cop **

20. The Amityville Harvest **

21. Amityville:  A New Generation **

22. Amityville Uprising **

23. The Amityville Curse **

24. The Amityville Haunting **

25. Ghosts of Amityville **

26. An Amityville Poltergeist **

27. Amityville Clownhouse * ½ 

28. Amityville in the Hood * ½ 

29. Amityville:  No Escape * ½ 

30. Amityville Scarecrow 2 *

31. Amityville Karen *

32. Amityville Theater *

33. Amityville Island ½ *

34. Amityville Hex ½ *

35. Mt. Misery Rd. ½ *

TUBI CONTINUED… GHOSTS OF AMITYVILLE (2022) **

Olivia (Junie Liv Thomasson) is a little girl who is still grieving the sudden loss of her mother.  Hoping for a fresh start, her father (Jonas Thomasson) moves them into a creepy new house in Amityville.  When he is unexpectedly called into work, he is forced to leave Olivia home alone. Before long, she begins seeing a creepy clown who pops up when he’s least expected and terrorizes her wherever she goes.  

Things kick off with a not-bad opening title sequence full of vintage creepy clown footage.  The first act, in which our pint-sized heroine is stalked by the supernatural clown killer, is rather decent too.  There is some genuine tension in these early scenes, and I give director JT Kris credit for adequately conveying the anxiety a child feels when left home alone.  Thomasson also does a fine job as the child in peril and carries the film about as far as anyone could’ve, given the circumstances.  

Unfortunately, once it is revealed that the first act has all been a (SPOILER) dream, it takes a lot of wind out of the movie’s sails.  To make matters worse, the script keeps playing the same “It’s All a Dream” card over and over again.  Every time it’s revealed that what we’ve just seen has been a dream… AGAIN, it just gets more and more tiresome.  Before long, the film becomes an endurance test of the audience’s patience.  (This also happens to be one of those fake Amityville flicks where everyone talks with the thickest brogues you ever heard.)  

Even at a relatively scant seventy-four minutes, it still feels bloated and overlong.  When the movie should be over, it isn’t.  When it finally does decide to end, it’s at the most arbitrary spot imaginable.  It’s a shame too because the first act could’ve been a solid self-contained short film.  Had the rest of the picture been as strong, Ghosts of Amityville had a ghost of a chance being worthwhile.  As it is, this ghost is rather busted.

TUBI CONTINUED… THE AMITYVILLE TERROR (2016) ***

The Amityville Terror is one of the best Amityville rip-offs of all time.  (I still think Amityville Witches is my favorite fake Amityville flick though.)  I’m not quite sure if it was “good, actually” or if it only looked like a minor masterpiece because I had just got done sitting through Amityville Hex and Mt. Misery Rd. back-to-back.  Whatever the case may be, it’s a surprisingly solid little chiller.  Heck, it’s even better than most of the “official” films in the Amityville franchise.

This is about as good of a fake Amityville movie as you could hope for.  It even feels like an official sequel since it takes place in the same house as Part 4.  It also helps that the characters are likeable and resemble actual human beings rather than standard cardboard cutout horror movie cliches.  

Todd (Kaiwi Lyman), his wife Jessica (Kim Nielsen), and their daughter Hailey (Nicole Tompkins) move in with his ex-junkie sister Shae (Amanda Barton) shortly after she buys a new house.  Once everyone is settled in, Shae starts having massive freak-outs, which makes Hailey suspect Auntie is back on the horse again.  Really, the house has possessed her, which explains her increasingly erratic behavior.  To make matters worse, the townsfolk are conspiring against the family because they know the only way to keep the evil at bay is to periodically “feed” the house new victims.  

The film continues the official Amityville series tradition of having an incest subplot (which goes all the way back to Part 2) as well as using ideas from some of the unofficial entries (like the town conspiracy subplot that is similar to Amityville Theater).  What elevates The Amityville Terror above the usual dreck is the concentration of strong female characters.  Barton has a great bathroom freakout scene and looks great while walking around in skimpy outfits and/or nude.  Tompkins is excellent too as the dirt bike-riding, crossbow-carrying rebellious teenager.  Tonya Kay is also a lot of fun as the sexy property manager who likes to come to the house unannounced while wearing a leather dominatrix get-up to collect the rent check.  In addition to have a memorable sex scene with a clueless busboy, she also gets the best line of the movie when she says, “It’s like Vegas, baby!  Never bet against the house!”  

TUBI CONTINUED… MT. MISERY RD. (2018) ½ *

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.

TUBI CONTINUED… AMITYVILLE HEX (2021) ½ *

Amityville Hex is kind of like the fake Amityville version of We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.  Various YouTubers, podcasters, vloggers, and internet personalities receive a challenge to recite “The Amityville Hex”, a spell that supposedly dooms whoever speaks it out loud.  Naturally, these yutzes stare directly into the camera and read it.  Soon after, they begin having nightmares, start slowly losing their marbles, and then die and/or kill someone else.  

Honestly, they should’ve just called it The Amityville Tide Pod Challenge.  

If there’s anything I hate more than Found Footage horror movies, it’s Live-Streaming horror movies.  I know filmmakers had to be enterprising and creative during the pandemic when it came to making films with small-to-no cast and crews.  However, the recent uptick with these things is kind of alarming.  Can’t we just go back to making… you know… REAL horror flicks and not this kind of bullshit?

The biggest problem with Amityville Hex is that it’s one-hundred-and-eight minutes long.  Not even an official Amityville Horror sequel deserves to have a running time that long.  It’s one thing for Burt Young or Tony Roberts to be running around the Amityville house for close to two hours.  It’s another thing when that length of time is spent on a bunch of doofuses looking dumbly into their laptops and/or appearing on Zoom calls.  Not only that, but much of the first half is devoted to repetitive scenes of people staring into the camera and reciting the hex.  Once they finally do start dying off, it’s all incredibly weak and pathetic, and none of the demises are worth a damn.  Except maybe when poor old George Stover (who deserves better) gets killed by his own lawnmower.

Aside from Stover, the only other real names in the cast are Lloyd Kaufman and Ouija Nazi’s Veronica Ricci.  However, all they get to do is recite the hex as part of a montage near the end.  How you can waste an actress as vivacious as Ricci in such a stupefying fashion is anyone’s guess.    

The only good part is when a couple watch Spider Baby on TV and you can hear Lon Chaney, Jr. singing the theme song in the background.  That’s about the best thing I can say about it.  

EVIL DEAD RISE (2023) *

I guess it makes me an old fuddy duddy to say this, but here it goes.  Children, especially small children, have no place in an Evil Dead movie.  It’s one thing to abuse, beat, torment, vomit on, stab, and dismember Bruce Campbell.  It’s another thing when it happens to little kids.  

What makes it even worse is that it’s their own mother who torments them.  When her son plays a record containing transcripts from The Book of the Dead, it unleashes an evil spirit in their ramshackle apartment building.  The spirit soon possesses his mother, turning her into a cackling, depraved, demented Deadite.  Before long, she attacks her children and tries to make the evil spirits possess them too.  It’s then up to her no-good sister to protect the children and send the evil packing.

The pre-release buzz made a big deal that the filmmakers were taking Evil Dead out of the cabin and into an apartment building.  (The “Rise” of the title refers to not only the Evil Dead rising, but the location, a high-rise apartment.)  I guess it might’ve worked if the movie went into full-on Demons 2 mode, but most of the action takes place in a single apartment, with some occasional side trips to a hallway, a stairwell, the elevator, and the parking garage.  Heck, writer/director Lee Cronin makes such little use of the new surroundings that it makes you wonder why it just couldn’t have taken place at the cabin again.  I mean the wraparound scenes, which happen at a cabin in the woods, are the only sequences worth a damn in the entire thing, and only serve to remind you why it works best in that setting in the first place.  

Hell, it pains me to say this, but the gore isn’t even all that good.  We get a scalping and a scissors up the nose, but that is about it.  The much-ballyhooed cheese grater scene is a big bust.  Most of the pain is inflicted on the kids, which is just unpleasant.  If you want to see young teens eating glass and being butchered, then have at it.

It doesn’t help that none of the characters are compelling in the least.  Plus, all the callbacks to the previous movies fall flat on their face and are downright cringe-inducing.  Every.  Single.  One.  There are even moments that crib from The Shining, The Thing, and… uh… Fargo.  

The only touch I did like was that in addition to blood and bile, the possessed Deadites have now added jizz to the liquids they are prone to projectile-vomit.  One broad spewed so much seed you’ll swear she just got finished with a fifty-man bukkake session.  That’s not a ringing endorsement to be sure, but in a movie as massively disappointing as this, you’ve got to take what you can get.