Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a brand new Amityville Horror movie to discover how the “franchise” has developed in more and more ludicrous instructions. That is “The Amityville IP.”
Eric Roberts seems early on in Shawn C. Phillips’ Amityville Bigfoot. He turns up on the derelict cabin that’s purportedly a laboratory for Amityville Chemical and proceeds to decorate everybody down for permitting Bigfoot to flee.
It’s not a fantastic function and Roberts may be very clearly taking part in Eric Roberts, however the excessive charisma (and chicklet enamel) of the slumming C-lister is sufficient to briefly raise the most recent Amityville movie out of its doldrums and turn out to be one thing briefly fascinating. Not essentially one thing watchable, however at the least a movie that isn’t horrendously boring.
The identical can’t be stated for the non-Eric Roberts scenes. Phillips, a prolific Amityville contributor, takes a threadbare premise and, together with co-writer Julie Anne Prescott, strings collectively a number of scenes with people in entrance of a digicam to create an almost 90 minute “film.”
Effectively…that could be beneficiant. A extra acceptable description can be “A number of (usually unrelated) vignettes of a rotating forged of novice actors, most of whom scream their traces, in an insufferably lengthy 90 minute catastrophe with barely sufficient content material to fill sixty minutes.” It’s not as unhealthy as, say, the Nick Field trilogy of repurposed Amityville movies that felt like poorly executed experimental workout routines (Frankenstein, Interview and Elevator), however contemplating what number of instances Philipps has revisited this effectively, it’s exhausting to shake the concept that the person – who acts, co-writes, and directs this monstrosity – is working on fumes.
That’s not just because the movie is content material to poke enjoyable on the Amityville “franchise” and even Phillips himself (one of many closing traces is a personality acknowledging that “Shawn C Phillips would make a film like that…He has zero disgrace”). Actually, if the movie had leaned extra into self-aware humor like Amityville Christmas Trip and Amityville Vibrator or newer entries like The Final Amityville Movie and Amityville Ripper, a few of this may need been much less unbearable.
It’s the glimmers of risk – an efficient joke or a stable sensible impact – that makes Amityville Bigfoot so aggravating to look at. At choose factors, I discovered myself bemoaning, “if solely the remainder of the movie had been like this”; alas these moments are temporary and fleeting after which the movie returns to its juvenile frat-boy jokes, one dimensional characters (who come and go at a second’s discover) and the flimsiest of naked bone plots.
The plot, because it had been, considerations Amityville Chemical, which is conducting some form of take a look at on a captured Bigfoot. Researcher Ian (Phillips) is in equal elements lust and competitors with co-worker Annie (Amityville Karen’s Lauren Francesca). She is bored with Ian, nevertheless, as a result of she is secretly a part of an animal activist group searching for to liberate Bigfoot, and likewise as a result of she is in love with the creature.
After co-worker Gregory (Kyle Clarington) permits Bigfoot to flee, boss Simon (David Perry) calls in firm boss Dominic earlier than disappearing from the narrative. This occurs often: characters seem after which instantly disappear or are killed, with little or no bearing on the plot or different characters.
It’s virtually as if Phillips had a rotating roster of pals with restricted availability, so he simply shot random footage at totally different instances with totally different teams. The result’s an overstuffed and underdeveloped assortment of actors with out relationship to at least one one other, together with a gaggle of unhoused individuals stealing meals from a Bigfoot movie, a trio of males (and certainly one of their wives) looking for a nudist colony, a YouTuber named Raptor Wealthy and Waylon (Jake Pearlman), who was lately in a psychological establishment.
This random assortment of characters can be extra tolerable in the event that they had been, you recognize, precise characters. Or if the dialogue weren’t merely a garbled assortment of non-sensical statements that performs like unhealthy improv. Or if there was something resembling standard plot mechanics, like rising motion or perhaps a climax.
So whereas there are temporary glimmers of comedy that works, and among the deaths are surprisingly efficient, these tolerable moments are few and much between. The tip result’s an extended, boring slog of a movie; Phillips isn’t simply phoning this in, Amityville Bigfoot performs like a filmmaker that doesn’t even care anymore. And it exhibits.
The Amityville IP Awards go to…
- Eric Roberts: Dominic turns up once more within the movie’s closing moments because the “secret” villain, revealing that he was not solely sporting the Bigfoot costume, however received to check the swimsuit’s “fecal dissolving sauce,” “acid breast juice” and Dominic “even received to penetrate a person’s sphincter gap.” That’s simply not one thing you hear day-after-day.
- Good Gore: One factor the movie does really effectively is gore on a price range, together with a formidable decapitation that appears *superb*. There isn’t a ton of onscreen violence, however once we do see the gory outcomes of Bigfoot’s assaults, it seems to be nice.
- Rape Jokes: In true “poor style” comedy custom, there are a number of rape jokes, together with Dominic’s aforementioned sexual assault of a (absolutely clothed?) man, Bigfoot shoving a digicam up the director’s ass, in addition to Ian’s “comedic” misunderstanding when Annie insists that she was raped by Bigfoot.
- Potty Humor: Phillips is massive on potty humor typically: Annie believed she and Bigfoot had been in love as a result of she gave it an enema and “extracted his particular juices.” In one of many few jokes of this type that work, a single father attempting to impress his daughters on a tenting journey catches Bigfoot’s projectile stream of urine in his open-mouth, mistakenly believing it’s “golden rain.” The joke goes on for too lengthy, however it’s amusing.
- Doggy Loss of life: In one of many movie’s most ridiculous moments, Bigfoot steals a child carriage containing the canine of a nudist, pushes it down a steep hill after which lobs a rock on the pup, inflicting it to dramatically explode. It’s surreal, weird and fully out of the blue, which makes it extra memorable than 99% of the remainder of the movie.
- Meta Second: At one level the 2 sizzling actors from the Bigfoot movie take a second to gather their ideas after an assault. The feminine lead, Francesca (Ashleeann Cittell), observes, “You recognize if this was a film we’d kiss proper now?” prompting Eli (Bryant Smith) to reply: “God, I hate that half. Let’s hold shifting!” Kinda humorous. However then they find yourself collectively by movie’s finish, so what was the purpose?
- Outrageous Annie: Francesca, whose dedicated efficiency was a spotlight of Amityville Karen, initially appears fully out of her depth and ill-suited for the function of Annie. Because the researcher turns into extra hysterically in love with Bigfoot, nevertheless, the actress mines numerous laughter from totally wild traces like this (after Bigfoot has “died”): “His balls! His poor balls! His particular juices! I believed I used to be gonna dwell ceaselessly!”
Subsequent time: we’re not finished with Julie Anne Prescott simply but as a result of she’s additionally the co-writer of Amityville Turkey Day (2024), the sequel to Amityville Thanksgiving.
