TUBI CONTINUED… AMITYVILLE TOYBOX (2016) ** ½

Near the beginning of this movie-watching experiment, I reviewed Amityville in the Hood without realizing it was a sequel to Amityville Toybox and Amityville Clownhouse.  With that knowledge firmly in my back pocket, I will now set out to review the first two installments of the trilogy.  

Amityville Toybox is basically a loose remake of The Devil’s Gift (scenes of which later appeared in Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders).  A father brings his family together to celebrate his fiftieth birthday.  At the party, one of his kids gives him an antique wind-up monkey as a present.  Pretty soon, dad goes from being funny and cheerful to cranky and crazed.  Little does anyone know the monkey came from the haunted house in Amityville.  Before long, dear old dad begins seeing the ghost of his father who urges him to kill his entire family.

This is one of those fake Amityville movies that is set in the mold of the original franchise sequels where an item from the original Amityville house carries the Amityville curse onto another family.  As far as these things go, it’s better than you might think.  It starts out with a reserved depiction of the real-life DeFeo murders before it segways into a nice little ‘70s inspired opening credits sequence.  (There are also scenes of flies buzzing and characters chopping wood, like in the original, and there is an incest subplot that’s kind of like Part 2.)  

With the extreme Dutch angles, colorful lighting, incest themes, and scenes of squabbling family members being killed off under the same roof, Amityville Toybox kind of reminded me of a modern-day Andy Milligan movie.  Don’t worry, it’s better than that sentence suggests.  Mostly.  Just don’t be fooled by the title.  This isn’t a Demonic Toys kind of thing.  There’s only one killer toy, and it really doesn’t do a whole lot once the father gets possessed.  

I think this would’ve been a perfectly fine movie had it ended at the hour mark.  Unfortunately, it drags needlessly on for another fifteen minutes.  The epilogue involving some comic relief paranormal investigators was completely unnecessary and feels like it was only tacked on to get the film to feature length.  I could’ve easily done without the gratuitous set-up for the sequel too.  Despite those reservations, this is one of the better fake Amityville flicks out there.  

AKA:  The Amityville Legacy.  AKA:  Amityville:  Legacy.

TUBI CONTINUED… AMITYVILLE UPRISING (2022) **

An explosion at a chemical factory in Amityville causes a cloud of pollution to hang over the town.  A stormfront moves in, and soon Amityville is drenched in acid rain.  Citizens unlucky enough to be out and about in the storm get turned into melty zombies when the poisonous precipitation comes into contact with their skin.  Amityville police officers, who are already dealing with the arrival of a psycho prisoner to their stationhouse, try to stand their ground when the zombie menace tries to invade their precinct.  

Amityville Uprising is basically Assault on Precinct 13 crosspollinated with a zombie movie.  Unfortunately, it never quite lives up to that pitch.  I liked the fact that they made acid rain the cause of the zombie outbreak, but that’s about the only novel touch in the film.  Ultimately, it just takes far too long to get going and there are way too many moving parts and unnecessary supporting characters that gum up the works.  It’s also padded with a lot of news report footage featuring an anchor who keeps yammering on and on about the acid rain.  This stuff is especially gratuitous and could’ve easily been excised to make way for more zombie action.

If you can wade through the talky first and second acts, you’ll be treated to some decent face ripping and body melting effects.  Too bad the finale is rushed, especially when compared to the lethargic set-up.  While I appreciate the attempt to flesh out some of the characters, writer/director Thomas J. (The Amityville Moon) Churchill completely fumbles the ball when it comes to the sluggish pace.  He also fails to stick the landing with the downbeat ending.  Still, all things considered, for a low budget zombie flick (as well as a fake Amityville movie), Amityville Uprising isn’t terrible or anything.  

Churchill was also responsible for another fake Amityville movie, The Amityville Harvest, which I’m sure I’ll review sooner than later.

AKA:  The Amityville Rising.

TUBI CONTINUED… AMITYVILLE: THE FINAL CHAPTER (2015) ** ½

A twelve-year-old boy named Michael sees a monster kill his babysitter.  Naturally, no one believes him.  The kid is blamed for the murder, convicted, and sent to the nuthouse for fifteen years.  When the now-grown Michael (Logan Lopez) is released, he tries to readjust to life on the outside.  He has come to believe that a ghost named “Sickle”, the spirit thought to be the inspiration for the Grim Reaper, was the one responsible for the murder.  A team of ghost hunters befriend the unlucky dude and trick him into returning to the scene of the crime so they can summon the evil spirit of Sickle.  

Amityville:  The Final Chapter is similar in a lot of ways to Halloween Ends, except it’s the kid who is blamed for the babysitter’s death and not the other way around.  It’s also kind of like Mr. Harrigan’s Phone as there is a subplot where our hero is paid by a rich old man for conversation.  I only mention these other movies because despite the stigma of being a fake Amityville flick, The Final Chapter is just about as good, if not better than those big-name films.  

Although it has a cheap look about it, (most of) the performances are pretty solid.  Lopez in particular, is quite good in the lead.  I especially liked the sequence when he is released from prison accompanied by an over the top ‘70s-style folk ballad.  Thanks to his performance, I hung in there with the movie longer than I anticipated.  The frequent stalling tactics, and the fact that nothing supernatural really happens until late in the game was a little frustrating.  It also didn’t help that the “Sickle” character just looked like a dude in a mask from Spirit Halloween.  While it didn’t quite stick the landing, Lopez kept me watching.  

Oh, and if you already couldn’t guess, this has nothing to do with the Amityville movies.  (You can tell because the font for the opening title doesn’t match the font used elsewhere in the credits.)  Maybe that was for the best.  Sometimes, with these things, the further away you get from the Amityville lore, the better off you are as it frees you up to do your own thing.

AKA:  Sickle.

TUBI CONTINUED… AMITYVILLE THEATER (2015) *

Unlike some of the Amityville movies I’ve watched this month, this one actually takes place in Amityville and even opens up with a quote from Ron DeFeo.  That doesn’t mean it’s any good though.  In fact, this is one of the worst fake Amityville flicks I’ve sat through all month.

A young girl named Fawn (Monele LeStrat) inherits a rundown old theater in Amityville.  Against her lawyer’s wishes, she and her friends have a slumber party in the abandoned theater.  Naturally, the theater is haunted, and the evil playhouse won’t let the frightened teens leave.  The force that resides inside the theater then possesses the friends and kills them off one by one.  

While Amityville Theater doesn’t have the worst set-up in the world, whatever potential the premise did have is undone at nearly every turn thanks to the stilted dialogue, wooden performances, and sluggish pacing.  This might’ve been bearable if the dialogue hadn’t been so tiresome or if the cast had been gifted with grace and wit or if the movie itself had a pulse.  However, these would-be thespians (all of whom have thick Canadian accents) deliver just about every line as if it was the first table reading on day one of the production.  The only cast member with an ounce of personality is Hollie Anne Kornik, who plays Wendy, the goth chick who’s squatting inside the theater.  I’m not saying she’s great or anything, but she certainly deserves better than this tripe.

At ninety-nine minutes, it’s also way too long.  Seventy-nine minutes is about the expiration date on the running time for a fake Amityville movie.  This one is a good twenty minutes longer than it has any right being.  The useless scenes of the teacher researching the history of the theater don’t help matters any either.  The worst of these sequences occurs at the end when he interviews the mayor, who provides an eleventh-hour exposition dump and says, “Six must die!”

In short, Amityville Theater needs to be condemned.   

AKA:  Amityville Playhouse.

DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES (2023) ** ½

A cunning thief named Edgin (Chris Pine) and his warrioress pal Holga (Michelle Rodriguez) escape from prison and gather a team of sorcerers, shapeshifters, and rogues to steal a fortune from their former associate, Forge (Hugh Grant), who has set himself up as a lord of a thriving kingdom.  To make matters worse, Forge has been manipulating Edgin’s estranged daughter, Kira (Chloe Coleman) into hating her father.  Together with his ragtag group of misfits, Edgin sets out to take down Forge, win back Kira, and defeat an evil witch who has aligned herself with Forge.  

Dungeons and Dragons:  Honor Among Thieves comes to us from directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the men who gave us Vacation and Game Night.  Because of that, it’s much more of a swashbuckling comedy than an out and out sword and sandal flick.  Pine is funny, light on his feet, and makes for a likeable hero.  In fact, the whole movie is a little too light on its feet for its own good.  It could’ve used a little bit of grit or a lot of piss and vinegar to make it stick.  As it is, it’s an enjoyable, if forgettable romp.  

It's also a little light in the Dungeons and Dragons department.  I counted two dungeons and three dragons.  That’s just enough to justify the title, but not enough to make it worthwhile.  Then again, I’ve never been a fan of Dungeons and Dragons, so what do I know?  At least it’s better than that Jeremy Irons one.  

There are some good moments here though.  I liked the scene where the shapeshifter (Sophia Lillis from It) escaped the villain’s clutches.  It’s all done in one take with her changing from animal to animal many times.  The maze sequences is kind of fun too.  The best scene though comes when the heroes must awaken skeletons from a graveyard.  This stretch has a nifty Sam Raimi type of vibe to it.  I wish this kind of spirit had been present through the rest of the picture, but as it is, it's not bad.  It’s no In the Name of the King:  A Dungeon Siege Tale, but it’ll do in a pinch.

TUBI CONTINUED… AMITYVILLE SCARECROW 2 (2022) *

In a perfect world, I would’ve watched Amityville Scarecrow before I saw Amityville Scarecrow 2.  However, the only version of Amityville Scarecrow on Tubi is in Spanish, so I decided to skip it.  I guess I could’ve found it streaming elsewhere, but the way I feel is if it ain’t on Tubi, it doesn’t matter.  Besides, when did not seeing the original movie ever stop me from checking out the sequel?

The opening sequence has a couple with nearly indecipherable accents renovating a barn.  Why do they have such thick brogues?  Because the movie takes place in Amityville, ENGLAND!  (Since it’s so hard to understand them, I now think might’ve been okay watching the Spanish version of Part 1.)  

A year earlier, a bunch of people were found murdered at this rundown campground.  Now, the owners are trying to spruce the place up and reopen for business, hoping that everyone conveniently forgets about the murders (or the fact that the place used to be home to a haunted house).  Naturally, a creepy scarecrow is running around the place turning campers into mincemeat.

Amityville Scarecrow 2 is set more in a slasher movie mold than the haunted house shenanigans found in your typical Amityville rip-off.  In particular, it owes a debt to Friday the 13th Part 2 as there is even a campfire story that acts as the scarecrow’s origin.  We also get a Psycho-inspired shower scene in there, just because.  

This might’ve worked, I guess, if the kill scenes were any good or if the scarecrow had any personality.  As it is, he kind of looks like a grown-up version of Sam from Trick ‘R’ Treat wearing a straw hat and overalls.  He isn’t intimidating in the least, and the gore is weak too.  It also doesn’t help that the finale is nearly nonexistent, and the killer’s demise occurs offscreen.  

The lone bright spot is Chrissie Wunna as the bosomy babe who gets a sex scene and a shower scene before being killed off.  I wish she hung around a bit longer.  Not just because she provides some above average T & A, but because she’s the only one in the cast with any kind of personality.  

For the most part, Amityville Scarecrow 2 is slow moving, talky (there’s a lot of exposition scenes and discussions about “family legacy”), and uneventful.  Plus, the accents are so thick that it’s hard to make out what the actors are saying half the time.  I was almost tempted to turn on the subtitles at one point.  Then, I realized I didn’t really care that much about what was going on, and I didn’t really want to get up and grab the remote in order to find out.  

TUBI CONTINUED… AN AMITYVILLE POLTERGEIST (2020) **

A stoner gets a job housesitting for a family in Amityville.  It doesn’t take long for him to start hearing strange noises in the night, which puts him on edge.  Soon after, he’s having bad dreams, and eventually, he realizes the place is haunted.  

This is one of those flicks that are competently put together but are rather forgettable and disposable.  Heck, I’m not sure anyone would’ve ever watched it if it didn’t have the “Amityville” name attached to it.  Like Amityville:  No Escape, An Amityville Poltergeist goes back and forth in time as it focuses on two different sets of characters dealing with a haunting in two different time periods.  The scenes set in present day with the stoner house sitter investigating the weird goings on in the home work slightly better than the flashback scenes with the original homeowner coming face to face with the evil for the first time.  

I think this might’ve eked by with a ** ½ rating, but the dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream sequence was a bit hard to take.  The love triangle shit with the stoner, his best friend, and his best friend’s girl didn’t do it any favors either.  It also didn’t help that the main specter was one of those Ring-inspired ghost girls with messy hair who crawls out of the TV and shuffles slowly around the house.  The scenes where she moves around in a herky-jerky manner and screams echo The Grudge too.  In fact, it might’ve been more accurate if the filmmakers had called it An Amityville Grudge instead of An Amityville Poltergeist.  

I did like the scene where the hero watches Horrors of Spider Island on TV though.  Later, another character is seen watching The Screaming Skull.  Usually, whenever characters are watching a public domain horror movie in a flick like this, it’s Night of the Living Dead, so seeing scenes from these other films was a nice change of pace.