Amusement – DVD Review

Film, Reviews

amusement

Shelby, Tabitha, and Lisa were all friends in school and grew up together but managed to grow apart as they got older. They are all living their separate lives but still managed to be connected by ways unknown to all of them. Shelby is traveling with her boyfriend and eventually ends up being kidnapped by way of getting involved in a freaked out road convoy. Tabitha has a babysitting job in a house that has one of the creepiest rooms ever and is abducted by the scariest clown this side of Derry. Lisa and her Health Department boyfriend attempt to find her missing roommate but Lisa ends up being the one that goes missing. When all is said and done; the girls end up in captivity for reasons unknown and by someone they don’t even really know. But why after all this time would these girls who once knew each other but drifted apart be kidnapped? What could they possibly have in common after all this time? Well someone knows and it’s quite amusing.

The feelings I have after watching Amusement are that of enjoyment, anger, sadness, and confusion. First there is the enjoyment aspect which shows that after all the anticipation I had for the film, it paid off because Amusement is a pretty enjoyable flick that has a lot of real promise. The anger is because it could have been so much better had it changed a few things here and there. Sadness kind of goes along with that because the heights that this film could have flown to if only a few things had been done differently is just overly disappointing. Finally the confusion is there because I just can’t help but wonder what went wrong? Obviously the filmmakers had a great idea in mind and know their horror trivia well since they did about seventy percent of the film in a great way so what happened to the other thirty percent that had Amusement leaving a bad taste in my mouth?

Say that I’m not a filmmaker and if I want to do a better job, then I should shut up and do it because it would happen if I could. Go ahead, it’s what I hear quite often but you have got to give me the benefit of the doubt considering I’m an avid film watcher and have probably seen about ninety-five percent of all horror films ever made. Amusement‘s best thing going for it is the villain. He is evil, sadistic, mysterious, demented, and he barely ever says a word. Let’s not forget that he doesn’t have some kind of strange gimmick like a mask or razor fingers or the fact that he can walk and keep up with anyone sprinting away from him. The dude is just a normal (?) guy with a tormented past that doesn’t quite let grudges die. It is the perfect motive for starting a killing spree and that’s especially true for the hell kids put other kids through when they are little. Not to mention the killer laugh he has.

Sadly, little else works in Amusement and that is just upsetting even though it’s probably one of those DVDs I’ll watch numerous times. The film is way too short for it to be split up into three separate parts even though it’s more like four with the finale making up the last chapter. There isn’t nearly enough history given in order to make me give a damn about the anyone dying and I found myself routing for the killer more and more as time went on. Kind of sucks hoping that everyone bites it because then you don’t really have a hero to root for. That doesn’t matter to me because my train of thought always hopes the killer wins, but for the normal person, it doesn’t leave you much to care about. There is a lot more wrong with Amusement and you’d think the long delays in its release date would have given them a chance to tweak some things, but that would be a negative. Still, it’s worth checking out because of how good it could have been and hoping others learn from mistakes shown before them.

Amusement is available on this DVD release in both Widescreen and Full Screen formats so you can choose whatever you please. Neither is that spectacular but they are both fine with colors being bright at times and the darker scenes never being too pitch black so you can always see what’s going on.

The film is heard in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and it comes through fine. The surrounding speakers aren’t used to their full capabilities and that’s a shame but things can be heard clearly at all times so that’s good.

None.


I’m torn here because the anticipation I had for this film was through the roof. It’s not like it was really advertised much or given a lot of press, but the premise seemed really interesting to me and then the release date kept getting pushed back making me even more curious and antsy. After watching Amusement, I can’t help but feel a little underwhelmed and that’s bothersome. There are some really disturbing scares here and a few moments that will make you cringe but nothing much in the way of being frightening or overly bothered. Well, unless you are not good with clowns because if you are then you’re going to be really messed up after this. Speaking of underwhelmed, how about those special features? Oh yeah, there aren’t any. I mean nothing and that’s just annoying. You couldn’t give us even an interview or something?? How’s about a commentary track from the director and such to promote your film a bit more since there had to be at least a reason or twenty why it kept getting pushed off. Ugh, that bothers me to no end because these are types of films that need extras so that more will be drawn to buying it.

It’s funny right?

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New Line Home Video presents Amusement. Directed by: John Simpson. Starring: Keir O’Donnell, Kathryn Winnick, Laura Breckenridge, Jessica Lucas, Tad Hilgenbrinck, Reid Scott. Written by: Jake Wade Wall. Running time: 85 minutes. Rating: R. Released on DVD: January 20, 2009. Available at Amazon.com