Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a new Amityville Horror film to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”
There’s something simultaneously exciting and horrifying about discovering the worst entry of the Amityville “franchise” more than 35 films in. And yet, Amityville Hex truly is *that* bad.
The first of writer /director Tony Newton’s two entries, 2021’s Amityville Hex is a disaster in nearly every way. From amateur acting to a repetitive script to an egregiously long (and unearned) runtime, the film embodies all of the negative qualities that have earned “Amityville” films derision and mockery.
Modeled on the screenlife model popularized by Host and, to a lesser extent Unfriended and Searching, Newton’s film focuses on vloggers who participate in “the Amityville Hex”, which involves reading a chant on camera, then documenting the aftermath.
It’s a fairly simple premise, but the film loses its way almost immediately. After opening with a bracketing device involving reporter Peter Sommers (John R. Walker) introducing the dangerous viral trend, the film narrows its focus to a Skype chat celebrating the birthday of vlogger Shawn (Shawn C. Phillips). Personalities in attendance include British dick James (Newton), long haired gamer Kent (Ken May), and two women with no discernible personality: Rheanon (Rheanon Nicole) is…outgoing, and Sarah (Sarah Schultz) is…a redhead.
It’s clear from the start that something is off when the five characters fail to interact in a convincing way. Not only do they barely seem to know each other, but the rhythms of regular conversation is upended by long pauses that suggest each actor recorded their performance individually before it was stitched together.*
*Judging by the timing, the film was likely filmed during the pandemic so actors would have been in isolation, but multiple other films were filmed under the same conditions and don’t suffer from this phenomenon.
Problematically, this Skype call is the only group scene of the film, so these characters never reunite to discuss the effects of the hex. The rest of the film features each individual directly addressing the camera/their audience with a mix of tropey influencer jargon and/or extensively detailing inane symptoms as the hex ruins their lives.
As if this wasn’t pedantic enough, the film packs in a whole host of other content creators who also try to cash in on the “viral” Amityville Hex trend. This includes Chester the Conspiracy Killer (Drew Marvick), Moviebuff1 (Kyle Rappaport) and late in the film, even Troma creator Lloyd Kaufman himself.
Some of these are real YouTubers, gamers, or “Internet personalities” but none of them are characters. Amityville Hex has no interest in developing its cast or even telling a compelling narrative; the film is basically just a collection of randomly organized scenes of non-professionals rambling at the camera for long stretches. It’s as if each actor was given a prompt by Newton and encouraged to improv their scenes (badly) by themselves without considering how it would all play when the film was edited together.
In other Amityville films, we’ve seen filmmakers let scenes ramble and run long in an effort to stretch their film to feature length. That’s not the case here, however: this is a 100-minute movie! If anything, Newton (who also edits and handles special effects) needed to be much more aggressive with his cuts.
One particularly grating element is that nearly every character is seen reciting the hex. In addition to the initial Skype call, each subsequent character reads it, which means viewers can expect to hear (part of) the following passage at least ten times over the course of the film: “I ask the dead, I call upon thee, let the Amityville Hex consume me. I offer you my soul, please take Amityville Hex, consume me now. Make no mistake, I call out the number 666 three times. 666 666 666. May this hex take me over.”
Once was sufficient; more than five times feels like we’re being hit over the head with a mallet.
The fact that the hex is inconsistent (in both words and results) underlines how poorly conceived and executed the film is. In the first twenty minutes alone, the final line of the hex is delivered at least three different ways: characters say “may this hex take me over,” as well as “make this hex take me over,” and, bizarrely, “my this hex take me over” (clearly this was a flubbed line, but no one bothered with a second take).
In the days that follow, characters document their symptoms in excruciating (read: boring and repetitive) detail. The side effects include nightmares, headaches, hearing voices, and eventually murder and suicide, but aside from eventually death, there’s no consistency in how anyone is affected.
Even when characters begin dying at film’s end, at least half of the time it’s unclear why or how it is happening. One character holds an imaginary rope above their head and dies; one screams for multiple scenes at the corner of a room before simply dropping to the floor. There’s no internal logic or rationale for why people react the way they do and no desire on the film’s behalf to explain or explore it in any greater detail. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a shoulder shrug.
The film also repeatedly insists that characters are only reading the hex in an attempt to increase their viewing numbers. Multiple performers preface the act by calling it a hoax or a joke, or referencing another character who did for it for fame (even as they themselves perform the same routine).
Initially this seems like Newton’s commentary on the desperation of influencers to latch onto a viral trend, but the critique never amounts to anything. It’s unclear if Newton is being ironic or self-aware; after all, his own project is a literal cash-grab trying to capitalize on the same Amityville brand notoriety as thirty other creatives.
If Amityville Hex has something to say about vloggers or viral trends, though, it’s buried under rote and repetitive scenarios filled with insufferably boring non-characters.
If this were a horror short, it *might* have been watchable. At one hour and forty minutes, it’s torture. There’s simply nothing worth recommending here.
The Amityville IP Awards go to…
- Parody Gone Wrong? Ironically the production values and entertainment factor most closely resemble the Amityville “parody” on YouTube, which is saying something.
- Stronger Recommendation: Last editorial I suggested this entry might be like The Ring. In truth, a better comparison is Jane Schoenbrun’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, which is also a low-budget, low-fi take on dangerous internet trends. The difference is that Schoebrun’s film has compelling characters with narrative arcs, good editing, and a reasonable-for-the-story 86-minute runtime.
- Lawnmower Man: If there’s one element worth praising, it is Kaufman’s death when he re-enacts The Happening by driving over himself with a lawnmower. There’s a horrendous dummy effect that made me guffaw, so that’s something.
- Best Dialogue: At one point Shawn, who is perpetually shown wearing a hat, clarifies to his audience that he’s not “fucking doing well” by removing his cap and digging “balding hat hair” out of his mouth. It’s a delightfully bizarre and unintentionally campy line. Unfortunately this is followed up by approximately two minutes of the character repeatedly swearing that he’s done with all of this and us, which immediately removes any and all goodwill.
Next time: we’re closing the book on frequent Amityville creator Dustin Ferguson (Amityville Clownhouse and Amityville Toybox). With only nine entries left in the “series,” it’s time for Amityville in the Hood (2022).