Screen Life Film ‘The Amityville Exorcist’ Needs More Pazuzu [The Amityville IP]

For more than two years, Joe Lipsett has dissected Amityville Horror films to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”

There’s been a significant amount of backtracking in order to cross T’s and dot I’s for this editorial series. Sometimes an Amityville film drops without notification. Or it is announced and then takes years to debut. Some, such as Amityville Shark House, have never gotten a release.

Finally, there are films like The Amityville Exorcist (2022), which are just difficult to track down without venturing into sketchy corners of the Internet.

The second Amityville film from writer/director/actor Tony Newton harkens back to his first: Amityville Hex (2021). Both films are screen life films that mostly involve actors delivering their dialogue in direct address to the camera via Zoom or Skype, with very little interaction between the cast. It’s a distinctly low budget approach, but it’s not particularly cinematic.

In Hex, this technique was narratively unsatisfying because it felt like individual performers were given a rough outline for the movie, asked to film themselves independently, and then the footage was spliced together. The result was repetitive, lacked cohesion, and was often boring.

The Amityville Exorcist (not to be confused with Amityville Exorcism) manages to solve one of Hex’s three issues in that it is more cohesive. The project is tighter because it only features a few folks in front of the camera (rather than roughly a dozen in Hex) and everyone mostly appears to be on the same wavelength.

The plot in a nutshell: individuals are experiencing sleep paralysis nightmares because they’re in danger of being possessed by demons, including Pazuzu (!). Father O’Breanne (Dean Houlihan) offers his help to perform exorcisms over Zoom calls while imbibing heavily; none of his attempts work, and all of the individuals either die, get possessed, or both by the end of the film.

It’s very straightforward, with little deviation from its basic formula, which is why issues of repetition and boredom plague Newton’s second entry in the “franchise.” Not helping matters is the fact that the camera is static for the first 39 minutes or so, as well as the performances that range from a) amateurish (Newton’s Jake; Ken May’s Kevin), b) over the top (Shawn C. Phillips’ Steve Styles) or c) quietly morose (Sam Mason Bell’s Josh, who fares best).

At least with Amiityville Exorcist Newton has dialed back on the runtime, resulting in a film that clocks in at a mercifully brief 67 minutes (61 without closing credits), unlike Hex’s insufferably long 1 hour 48 minutes.

If directors feel that they must return to this IP well, the least they can do is keep their cash grabs a reasonable length of time.

The Amityville IP Awards go to…

• Father Help Us: Houlihan, whose Irish accent helps to distinguish him from the rest of the cast, doesn’t get much to do in the film other than offer variations of the same four or five lines of dialogue. He’s not a great actor, but the priest’s tendency to drink throughout the exorcisms is a mildly amusing character quirk.
• Improv Dialogue: Much like Amityville Void, there’s a clear sense that everyone got an overview of the plot, then the actors (who are all directors in their own right) made up their dialogue as they went. Alas the results aren’t any better in this film, as characters offer basic variations of the same lines (or repeat them endlessly over the course of their segments). Again: if this were a short, it would be less of an issue, but after approximately twenty minutes, the schtick gets old.
• 39 minutes: Nearly two thirds of the way through the film, Newton suddenly shifts the format rom screen life to found footage as select characters film their haunted environments. This isn’t result in anything too novel or exciting, but it’s wild how even a small change in environment can suddenly recapture your attention (in this case, we catch glimpses of Josh’s barely visible staircase and Jake’s late night bed contortions).
• Horror Moments: There’s not a lot of action or FX in the film aside from the last few minutes. We get some demonic voices on the soundtrack, some chanting (possibly in Latin?) and Kevin coughs up dark blood or black bile (the quality of the film makes it hard to distinguish). It’s…fine? After so much inaction, one wishes it was a little more Grand Guignol (even Hex went bigger), but what can you do?
• Literary Prowess: The film is bookended by a pair of quotes from classic horror novelists. Poe opens the film with: “The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague.” Lovecraft gets the closer: “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” These are suitable for the film, in large part because both quotes are generic enough to be applicable to nearly any horror text. But it also feels oddly arbitrary, as if Newton is simply looking to class up his low brow production.
• Fave Cameo! I’d be remiss not to shout out the cameo appearance of reporter Peter Summers (John R. Walker) at the beginning and ending of the film. At this point, he’s one of the most consistent elements of the “series”; he’s appeared in Amityville VR, AI, In the Hood, Hex, Clownhouse, Playhouse and Amityville Backrooms (which we’ll cover shortly).

Next time: Let’s finally discuss that secret Amityville film, The Dawn (2019)!

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