Review of Amusement (2008) by Barry P — 20 Feb 2010

First off, let me start by saying anything with a damn clown will scare me. I hate and fear clowns and anytime a horror film has one(esp. a room filled wall to wall with clowns) will scare the shit out of me. In saying this, the one story with the clown was probably the scariest out of the 3 stories that intersect together like "Pulp Fiction" or "Go.".

This movie has a cast of basically unknowns except for the 3 exceptions that you will catch if you watch alot of movies, Tad Hilgenbrink(American Pie Presents:Band Camp), Reid Scott(TBS's My Boys), and Keir O'Donnell(Wedding Crashers and Paul Blart:Mall Cop).

The main plot is basically a crazy guy nicknamed "The Laughter"(Keir O'Donnell) is going after three girls for revenge, though what the three girls did to him is never explained in the movie. What was cool about the movie was that they cut it up into three stories and brought it full circle in the end, and besides one story being kinda scare(for my reasons) those are the only good parts about this movie.

The first story stars Laura Breckenridge(Shelby) and her boyfriend Tad H.(Rob) on the interstate driving home from probably a bad vacation. You find there is tension between the two of them as Shelby yells at Rob for going to fast. Soon they join a convoit that consists of a creepy trucker and a family man driving a minivan. I don't want to spoil the twist ending but overall it wasn't that scary of a story.

Story 2 stars Katheryn Winnick(Tabby) arriving at her Aunt's house to babysit her two cousins. When she enters the house, she notices that the babysitter has left. Then a mysterious man knocks on the door looking for the babysitter saying he's her boyfriend. You know he's up to no good when its raining and you can't see his face. After putting the kids to bed, Tabby walks to her room filled wall to wall with creepy ass clowns(which is why this story was the scariest for me) and a huge clown sitting in the middle of the room. Trouble starts when Tabby's aunt phones her checking on the kids and reveals a certain aspect of the guest room.

From there it shoots to present time revealing that the previous events happened earlier in the evening and Tabby is sitting in an room with an FBI agent talking about the nights events but is extremely upset. A social worker comes in asking her if she knows a Lisa.

Shoot to story number 3 which stars Lisa(Jessica Lucas) and her boyfriend Dan (Reid Scott) in the worst story out of the three. They are on the hunt for Lisa's missing roommate who went home with a guy who is staying at a creepy motel down the road from the bar that they were at. Dan tries to be a hero and gets whats coming to him. Lisa goes in after him(even after spending the entire day in front of the creepy motel, a normal person would have called the cops) and proceeds to get kidnapped.

Back to present day where the first of about 2 bad twists comes to play. The end chase is just horrible and all that time building up is wasted and the end is just bad. If you are a true horror film buff, then it is worth checking out, if not skip it!