Matty gives a lil’ sugar to an unfairly maligned horror anthology from the golden age of the DVD premiere.

A hearty $10million production intended for a January 2008 big screen rollout, horror anthology AMUSEMENT found itself unceremoniously dumped straight to DVD one year later, in January ‘09, after distributor Picturehouse – a joint venture between New Line Cinema and HBO – shuttered following a reshuffle at parent company Time Warner. Amusement was the final film to bear the original iteration of Picturehouse’s name, before the outfit reopened, sans Warner involvement, in 2013.

As it happens, the film’s history runs even deeper than that. Sporting a 2006 copyright notice, Amusement’s script – by Jake Wade Wall – was purchased by New Line in 2005. Wanting a fresh franchise in the Elm Street mode, The House That Freddy Built believed Amusement’s villain, a cackling wacko called The Laugh, could join their burgeoning Saw (2004) hero, Jigsaw, in becoming an icon for the splattery torture porn era. The shingle courted Candyman (1992) maestro Bernard Rose to direct but Rose, uninterested pursuing another frightener in the wake of his scuzzy DV art-shocker Snuff Movie (2005), declined. The project’s reins were passed to Irish helmer John Simpson. As of this writing, Amusement remains Simpson’s second and last feature – and, of course, is utterly sequel-less.

Panned on release, Amusement has more charm and value than its contemporaneous reviews suggest. Ghoulish and gimmicky (a ‘late-’00s spin on Popcorn (1990)’ would be a decent description), Wall’s script – which predates his work on similarly-footed remakes When a Stranger Calls (2006), The Hitcher (2007) and Jacob’s Ladder (2019) – takes root in the familiar. At its core are classic ideas. All three segments are essentially based on tropes and urban legends (a killer truckdriver, a life-size clown doll terrorising a babysitter, some hoo-ha involving a dead body under a mattress), and there’s a teeny-bopper waggishness which atones for their well-worn nature. In essence, Amusement plays like a cinematic Creepy Pasta. 

Relying on spectacle rather than what makes sense, Amusement’s narrative collapses in on itself on occasion and even veers close to incomprehensible. The dramatic thrust is hindered by a glaring flaw: it’s obvious The Laugh (a wonderfully wicked performance by Keir O’Donnell) is kicking about, causing merry hell, whenever a sharp-featured man rocks up with their face hidden or obscured. In any case, the chortling psycho exudes a strange charisma, and his costume-hopping antics give him an endearing theatricality reminiscent of Vincent Price in Theatre of Blood (1973) or the eponymous nutjob in quirky proto-slasher The Redeemer: Son of Satan! (1978).              

Attractively shot and lushly designed, Amusement is a visually stunning experience. Like Simpson’s first offering Freeze Frame (2004) – equally flawed, equally interesting, equally underappreciated — the film has style and personality to burn. It’s a shame Simpson has vanished into the ether. His career was, presumably, kneecapped by Amusement’s disastrous reception. Though his storytelling struggles due to the cack-handed plotting, Amusement is clearly assembled by someone with a flair for the macabre. Eerie cornfields, spooky baroque mansions, axe murders, grotesque bodily harm, subterranean lairs – Simpson raids the genre toybox and unleashes an energetic, image-driven stockpile.

Amusement might be ludicrous, but so are a lot of Fulci and Argento movies. 

USA/Hungary ● 2008 ● Horror ● 85mins

Katheryn Winnick, Laura Breckenridge, Jessica Lucas, Keir O’Donnell ● Dir. John Simpson ● Wri. Jake Wade Wall