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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.”

To say that I was going into Amityville VR with trepidation after the failure of its predecessor, Amityville AI, is something of an understatement. After all, the first film struggled to even understand its own title, so what fresh hell would a foray into VR entail?

Well, colour me surprised because while VR isn’t suddenly topping my “under seen and under appreciated” list of horror titles, it is a far more interesting and watchable film than AI.

Both films hail from director Matt Jaissle and follow software developer Stuart Birdsall (William Childress), but the sequel dramatically cuts down on the latter’s presence. In the world of the films, some time has passed since the events of AI; in the interim...

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.”

Considering the pressing relevance of discussions around the use of AI in everything from writing emails to (often incorrect) Google searches to, yes, making films, an Amityville film on the subject actually makes sense. After all, these films are all about cashing-in on a high concept name, a buzzy/topical element, or both. Artificial Intelligence definitely fits the bill.

Of course, there’s theory… and then there’s execution.

The latter is where Amityville AI gets into trouble because the film is a mess from a technical perspective. This is another bare bones indie feature where a few folks do all of the heavy lifting, but director Matt Jaissle (who pulls triple duty as editor and cinematographer) can’t manage to deliver a compelling finished product.

With the demise of the drive-in theater rose the behemoth home video industry – and a torch was passed from one era of low-budget directors and producers to a new batch of underfunded fringe filmmakers. These fresh faces had new technology, and a new distribution game… but a similar reckless abandon and rebellious tenacity as their b-movie forefathers.

Fright fans were introduced to a new breed of horror movies - made for tens of thousands of dollars… or thousands of dollars… or a few hundred bucks and a borrowed video camera. Unpaid amateurs / quasi-professionals made up the bulk of most casts and crews - and often, the directors and producers were quite inexperienced themselves.

Join me for a visit to the heyday of the direct-to-video, micro-budget horror movie. We’ll explore this strange new cinema of the 80s and see how it evolved through the ‘90s. (Be sure to adjust tracking for best picture quality.

So there are two movements peacefully coexisting within the horror community regarding the quality of video you’re watching at home on your oversized television screen. The first movement involves a thing called a “blu ray” (not a death ray so don’t feel threatened by it). It provides beautiful high defintion picture, crystal audio, plenty of space for rad extra features, usually, more special features than your brain has room for. On the other side of the spectrum, there’s shot-on-video movies. By shot-on-video or Sov for short we mean movies that are shot on or made to look like they’ve been shot on camcorders on VHS tape or other similar medium. I believe the word you’re looking for is dichotomy or maybe something more philosophical like yin and yang. Today we’re here to talk about the Sov varietal with which you may be slightly unfamiliar...

by Colleen Wanglund

Written by Todd Tjersland and directed by Matt Jaissle, the Sov flick The Necro Files (1997) stars Steve Sheppard as Detective Manners and Gary Browning as his partner Detective Sloane who are on the hunt for Logan (Isaac Cooper) a serial rapist and murderer who has killed and mutilated 200 women including Detective Sloane’s sister. The detectives find Logan at the scene of his latest kill and he manages to stun Manners with a shot to the head before he is handcuffed by Sloane. Manners, however shoots and kills Logan.

Nine months later a group of Satanists performing a ritual in a cemetery inadvertently bring Logan back from the dead. After killing and mutilating all but two of the Satanists who get away, zombie Logan goes around attacking women with his foot-and-a-half long perpetually erect penis, stabbing and feeding on their entrails while screwing them.

Meantime, Detectives Manners...

A look at what's new on DVD today:

"Cronos" (1993)

Directed by Guillermo Del Toro

Released by Criterion Collection

After years of being out of print, Guillermo del Toro's feature debut is getting the Criterion treatment and del Toro has gone all out to make it one of the best discs ever with new interviews, his 1987 short "Geometria," two audio commentaries, a video tour of his home office, and more.

"300 Killers" (2010)

Directed by Matt Jaissle

Released by Midnight Releasing

A police chief (Johnny Andrews) who sees his city falling under the thumb of a ruthless drug dealer and sends out his best detective (Anthony Tomei) to put a stop to it in Matt Jaissle's action film.

"Across the Line: The Exodus of Charlie Wright" (2010)

Directed by R. Ellis Frazier

Released by Maya Home Entertainment

Aidan Quinn stars as a billionaire who flees to Tijuana after he's on the run...