I can’t think of a clever title, this movie was just terrible
Main Cast: Steve Rudzinski, Aleen Isley
Director: Steve Rudzinski
This will be short and sweet. I decided to peruse Tubi the other day and see just how many Amityville movies are on there. 48. So close to 50, I’m disappointed, Tubi. And as of this writing, a handful of those 48 have been removed. Shame on you.
It was Christmas Day and all the presents were open, the food was devoured, the guests had gone home. It was just me and my wife on the couch. It was about 5:30, but it felt like 10:30 and we were beat. But we still have all this evening left to go. What should we do?
I had proposed earlier in the day watching AMITYVILLE CHRISTMAS VACATION, because it was Christmas Day, but my wife scoffed and said no thanks.
But by 5:30, exhausted and stuffed, she gave in. After all, it was only 47 minutes.
That was probably 47 of the dumbest minutes I’ve ever spent in my life.
Writer/director Steve Rudzinski actually has an entire series of movies starring his lead character Wally Griswold. Other films include A MEOWY CHRISTMAS, A MEOWY HALLOWEEN, A MEOWY ST. PATRICK’S DAY, and A MEOWY CHRISTMAS VACATION. Many of these movies seem to center on Wally’s talking cat who does not talk in AMITYVILLE CHRISTMAS VACATION, but considering the other nonsense I had to endure, why the hell not throw a talking cat into the mix? Maybe he thought it would be too silly.
If only.
In this mess, Wally Griswold wins a contest he didn’t know he’d entered to spend the two days leading up to Christmas in a B&B in Amityville. The trick is, the owner of the B&B lures people into her home where the ghost that haunts the place, Jessica D’Angelo (see what he did there with the names? Griswold and D’Angelo?), kills them and feeds on their soul. But in the case of Wally, he’s just so damn charming, Jessica ends up falling in love with him instead. And Wally was smitten with Jessica from the moment he saw her, which most living people aren’t able to do (which leads to what I’m sure was supposed to be a hilarious montage of the two on a date around Amityville where Wally has his arms around nothing because no one else can see the ghost).
The owner sees what’s going on, won’t have it (she’s come to enjoy the killing), and hires a ghost hunter to kidnap Jessica. To what end, I don’t remember and I don’t care, but Wally goes in search of her, rescues her and … brings her back to life? That part didn’t seem all that clear, either; I just know at some point near the end, Aleen Isley stopped wearing the stupid makeup she’d had drawn all over her face the entire time. I know the intended effect was to have the lines show up as shadows and contours under the colored lights, but it just looked like someone gave a five-year-old a magic marker and said, “Have at it.”
Rudzinski is playing this for laughs, and it’s a good thing he is because if I thought for a second he was taking any of this seriously, I might lose my faith in horror and in Tubi. But it’s obvious he’s not taking this movie any more seriously than anyone else. At the same time, though … look, I know the Amityville “franchise” has devolved into a garbage heap where people slap the word “Amityville” on their movie and think it matters (AMITYVILLE COP, AMITYVILLE HEX, AMITYVILLE CULT, AMITYVILLE HOOD, and AMITYVILLE SCARECROW are just a few of Tubi’s offerings and you’re not gonna convince me those movies depend on the location of Amityville, New York as an actual plot device), but is this really what we’re doing here? Amityville Horror used to mean something once upon a time.
Maybe he means this to be a satire or a parody, but to a true horror fan and to someone who spent his 20th birthday renting THE AMITYVILLE HORROR and AMITYVILLE II: The Possession, it’s sort of an insult that THIS is what this once-interesting franchise has become. Now, granted, the Amityville movies fell with the release of AMITYVILLE 3-D but at least that one was set in the house. Even AMITYVILLE: It’s About Time, AMITYVILLE: The Evil Escapes, and AMITYVILLE: Dollhouse had ties to the original. AMITYVILLE CHRISTMAS VACATION takes place across the street from the infamous DeFeo/Lutz house. That’s not good enough.
But I did sort of know what I was getting into when I watched the trailer. I told our daughter it looked like someone shot this on an iPhone 4! So I really have no one but myself to blame. Maybe I’ll have better luck with AMITYVILLE TURKEY DAY or AMITYVILLE IN SPACE (two real offerings currently streaming on Tubi).
C. Dennis Moore is the author of over 60 published short stories and novellas in the speculative fiction genre. Most recent appearances are in the Dark Highlands 2, What Fears Become, Dead Bait 3 and Dark Highways anthologies. His novels are Revelations, and the Angel Hill stories, The Man in the Window, The Third Floor, and The Flip.
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