Amusement (DVD)

The killer's trademark remark in Amusement is: "It's funny, right?" However, Amusement is a welcome relief from the over-saturated spooky/comedy genre (whether the laughs are intended or not) — it's a return to old-school, straight-ahead horror. Presented almost anthology-like (bringing to mind, yet not really like, the old Hammer movies, or the Creepshow series), Amusement follows the revenge spree of a spurned childhood playmate in his adulthood as he hunts down his enemies, one by one.

Each murder scenario is self-contained, till a little over halfway through, when the predator and his prey converge. Leading up to that (the conclusion wherein the movie becomes more formulaic and less satisfying), are some breathtaking moments of fright and suspense.

The first story takes place on the road and involves a very scary trucker (makes sense; screenwriter Jake Wade Wall previously hit the remake road with The Hitcher a couple of years back). The second story revisits the scribe's cinematic past with babysitters (he also wrote the When A Stranger Calls remake) and creepy intruders. Then there's the reveal about how the victims are connected (cool diorama boxes!), and on we go to a rickety old abandoned insane asylum. During this scenario, the movie starts to lose its hold on tension.

The good things which set Amusement apart from most direct-to-DVD horror flicks is the cinematography, the sets, and the acting.  I've never seen any of DP Mark Garret's work before, but he makes really prettily composed pictures here, and while his colors pop, they're not overly stylized (as, say, a 'red' Argento movie, or a 'green' Saw flick). The production design, by Craig Stearns, is genuinely eerie — anyone who's afraid of clowns will be sleeping with the lights on for a long, long time after seeing story #2. The acting is also above par. Even though the cast is young and CW Network pretty, most of them have solid experience from guest stints on various top primetime TV shows.

What's only average about Amusement is the music (does Oscar nominee Marco Beltrami ever take a break?! Actually, sounds like he did here… totally phoned-in score), and the overall story. At least the revenge tale is fairly imaginatively — if totally implausibly… where'd the whacko get all the dough for these elaborate locations? — played out. The suspense, I assume due to the precision of director John Simpson (whose work I had never seen before… though I do love the title of his debut short: "Silicone Valerie"), is reasonably taut throughout.

The death scenes, as far as pure horror goes, are pretty negligible. While some mighty gruesome things happen and the milieu is certainly apt, it's more about what leads up to the murders than the actual killings themselves.

The DVD offers full-screen (why?) and widescreen versions, and that's it — no additional release material for our amusement.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson