Starring: Keir O’Donnell, Katheryn Winnick, Laura Breckenridge, Jessica Lucas

Directed By: John Simpson

Written By: Jake Wade Wall

Grade: D-

Amusement is a clown horror film that trys to center on childhood revenge. There are 4 different stories, 3 of which end up intersecting together with the same fate. The story is very weak and ends up damaging itself further by the constant plot holes that become more and more obvious throughout the film. Nothing in it is very creative, we have seen this story many times before, but it was told a lot better than it is here.

Tabitha (Winnick), Shelby (Breckenridge), and Lisa (Lucas) were best friends growing up. Another boy they knew, who comes to be known as The Laugh (O’Donnell), didn’t quite fit in with them since he liked to torture animals for fun. Years later, Tabitha has gone on her own path. It has been years since she has seen Lisa or Shelby, although the two of them are still best friends and roommates. When Shelby doesn’t come home one night, Lisa worries that something must be wrong. She knows the last place she was at was a very gloomy looking hotel. The owner refuses to let her in, but her boyfriend manages to get in as a health inspector. Hours later, she still hasn’t heard from him so she sneaks in to the building herself. There she finds Shelby who has been tormented by this guy. The two of them along with Tabitha end up stuck in separate rooms where they are tied up and about to be slaughtered by this man who is laughing incessantly while he is doing this to them. Tabitha is determined to fight back and save her friends, but they might be trapped in a maze that they can’t get out of alive.

The acting was decent enough, nothing great, but as it was the only positive aspect of the film it’s worth mentioning. Katheryn Winnick, Laura Breckenridge, and Jessica Lucas all played the victim well enough and showed us realistic enough characters before this point. Katheryn Winnick stands out the most as she takes on the role of the heroine. Keir O’Donnell was somewhat creepy, but really wasn’t a very effective villain. He seemed to have a very underdeveloped mind set, which should have been complex, darkening, and interesting as someone who thrived on killing even from a very early age. Still, there wasn’t much there.

Amusement is overflowing with problems, actually that is mostly what the film is made up of. First of all the girls who this man is getting “revenge” on really never did anything in the first place so it isn’t a revenge film as much as it wants to be one. The opening of the film doesn’t make any sense at all. Two cars follow a truck driver to avoid traffic. There is a girl in the back of his truck with a sign that says “help”. The girl jumps out of the truck and gets run over by the cars following. Desperate to catch the guy, they try catching the license plate only to find out the trucker isn’t the real killer. So what was this girl doing in the truck, why was she asking for help if he wasn’t the one who kidnapped her? Why did she jump out and risk her life if she was away from her kidnapper? Overall, this segment doesn’t seem to be very important to the story at all and feels like filler.

Tabitha’s introductory segment just tries to create some spooks, but overall is pretty pointless. The only segment going in to the situation that these girls find themselves in that has any purpose is the one with Shelby and Lisa. It establishes that they are best friends and that something is wrong, bringing Lisa in to the equation herself. For this to be the best thing that was done in the film at this point is pretty disappointing. It is a very basic and logical thing, but sadly in comparison to the rest it almost seems smart. The bulk of the movie tries to create the illusion of twists and turns, it ends up just feeling disjointed and random. Many of the segments don’t really fit in that well with the one it follows. It seems like they wanted the film to seem smarter than it was and created all of these segments that end up just being distractions. It almost feels like the film doesn’t really start until it hit’s the climax. That is the one reality, which actually matters. Just before this we are given the little information of the back story that gives us that little bit of context to offer reasoning for the torture and chase we are brought in to. I could have started watching from this moment and it would have made a lot more sense than watching it from the beginning. It would have worked a lot better as a short. It still wouldn’t have much of an impact, but maybe it would have been a bit easier to swallow.

Of course the holes in the story don’t end there, Lisa waits hours, it looks like all day after her boyfriend enters this eerie hotel and never comes out. It is obvious that something happened to him and probably her friend as well. If she was going to walk in to this death trap why wouldn’t she call someone first? Maybe because the film would end there, wow I really wish she would have called and ended this train wreck. Every move in the film is completely idiotic as if they are just asking to be killed from sheer stupidity. By the time they actually might be murdered, you just don’t care. The pacing is so problematic and out of place that you can’t really accept anything that is going on. The editing is really uneven and jagged making the film feel very disconnected.

We get the back story towards the end and there is nothing before it of significance. The back story itself seems forced and weak. The film is really just some girls being chased and killed. That’s about it, which is just one small component in a million other horror films that do so much more. There is hardly any gore and no scares so this isn’t even good for mindless entertainment. A lot of the dialogue in the film is pretty laughable, especially towards the end. These few moments where you are laughing at the film are among the best. This is not because it does anything right, but because this is all the enjoyment that this film can give you. It really is no surprise that the movie has such a terrible story, writing, and dialogue when you consider this is written by Jake Wade Wall, the same writer that gave us the cheesy and horrible, The Hitcher remake, along with the simply mundane, When A Stranger Calls remake. As someone who has been doing very uninventive remakes it is only logical that the first original film he made would be so clichéd, unoriginal, unintelligent, and simply boring movie. Amusement is not the least bit amusing. It is a confused, awkward, and pointless movie that really doesn’t have much going for it.

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