⭐️⭐️1/2
Thrilled to land a job, Lisa Templeton is at first happy to be hired on as a janitor at a mental institution in Amityville, Long Island. Nailing the job even after sneezing directly on the institution head during her interview. Unfortunately for the sneezy young woman, that town ain’t been right since Ronnie DeFeo murdered his family due to demonic voices whispering in his ear and as nice as recently opened High Hopes Hospital may seem, that satanic stain ain’t coming out with some elbow grease and good intentions. The amount of folks with European accents in Long Island that aren’t Italian is quite impressive. The chemical and janitorial tutorial is interesting if you’ve ever wondered about the custodial field. I’ve known a few janitors in my life and all of them were pretty good drinking buddies. Lisa is shocked to find out they have a secret lower level where the criminally insane are kept and the Irish/Russian/Serbian janitor gives her a breakdown on some of the dangerous folks locked behind the doors. Cannibal, witches and murderers… the usual. Most importantly is a John Doe who was found six months ago wandering the grounds and was thrown in seclusion after he attacked a doctor. During some late night cleaning, Lisa comes across a little girl who wants to play with her and the head janitor lets her know that there’s no children in the building. They tell the orderly and his surly ass thinks she’s mistaken. He’s also pretty annoyed. There’s another orderly who is a scummy asshole and looks like Dave Grohl if Dave Grohl was addicted to meth and rape. A non-verbal and supposedly dead patient warns her that she’s going to die and she’s unable to get any proof that weird shit is going down. Disturbing nightmares and the talkative creeps in Ward X begin to weigh on our hero. Is Lisa cracking? Is evil at work? Is the building really built on the land where the infamous Amityville house once stood? Will there be philosophizing between janitors? Is everyone’s accent going to eventually slip? Will a bunch of important exposition and plot points be delivered via internet search? The answer is mostly “yes”. You don’t have to be American to jump on the Amityville bandwagon and here we have the Brits giving it a go. I personally think the abuse of the town name is wonderful, even if the majority of films utilizing an inability to copyright a location are pure garbage. But hey, it’s moved on from demon-pigs and haunted objects to vampires, werewolves, scarecrows and vibrators… that makes it all even out in my stupid head. Hell, according to the German alternate title this one not only attempted to play the Amityville card but tried to come off as a sequel to the 1981 snoozer The Nesting. Good for you, microbudget horror film. There’s very little money available for bells and whistles (melodrama and graphic violence feel a bit unnecessary when they pop up) but Sophia Del Pizzo is incredibly likable in the lead role and everybody else is giving their all and at least coming off as distinct characters. Assuredly not for everyone (or much of anyone) but as far as quiet no-budget horror goes, I was a fan.
No comments:
Post a Comment