Amusement

This instantly forgettable piece of generic, modern horror sees a giggling psycho (known as The Laugh) wreaking revenge on three beautiful young women who, years before, failed to find his school project—a diorama featuring a mutilated rat—as amusing as he had hoped.

The film opens in an innovative enough manner, with each girl's abduction being shown as a 'story within a story', but soon descends into mediocrity as the focus of the plot becomes the standard woman in peril garbage that we have seen countless times before. To make matters worse, director John Simpson's visuals suffer from the grimy 'torture porn' look and feel that is all the rage these days, and Jake Wade Wall's script is packed with so many plot holes, clichés, and dumb characters that taking the film seriously is very hard indeed.

Admittedly, Simpson does manage to create quite a bit of tense atmosphere during one effective section of the film involving a room full of creepy toy clowns, but the premise is hardly original, and one does have to question how a killer in a creepy clown costume can enter a house completely unnoticed.

Thank heavens for the presence of hottie Katheryn Winnick (the lovely renaissance slut from Satan's Little Helper) as lead victim Tabitha, for without her as diverting eye-candy, Amusement would have been a whole lot more difficult to endure.

I wasn't amused with "Amusement".The laughable synopsis on the cover goes like that: Tabitha,Shelby and Lisa.They're longtime friends on separate life paths.But they share a horrific destination when a seemingly innocent incident from their school days comes back to terrify them.Someone wants payback:warped vengeance...mind-games vengeance...taunting,shredding,slashing vengeance.Inside a stone-walled chamber of prison cells and mechanisms of doom,the three women and other victims face a fierce fight to survive."Amusement" is terrible.With dumb plot and zero scares it offers nothing even remotely interesting even for seasoned horror fan.The killer is an underdeveloped cliché with truly annoying laugh.There is only one effectively creepy scene in which the emerging female lead is confronted with a room stuffed with dolls and clowns.The violence is tame so gorehounds and slasher fans will be disappointed.4 out of 10.

I get that this was released more than 10 years ago and maybe the actresses were not "big" back then, but in 2019 Katheryn Winnick is a pretty well known name and Jessica Lucas altough less known has grown a fanbase for her portrayal of Tabatha in Gotham.

I was interested to see a slasher flick with these ladies. So thats why i chose this movie in my 2019 Halloween program. Turn out the movie is really not good, i am being generous with a 4 to be honest. First its one of those movies with "substories", as you follow one character for a while then another, it can work at times but in this movie i think it didn't and it could had been better presented. The gore/violence is also pretty low. Some things are just not explained and make little sense.

If you want a better indy slasher flick with creepy environements in an unsettling fashion, give a look at Terrifier.

Back when I was a young lad and got my first computer, all I did was visiting horror-movie-themed forums and websites.

I remember "Amusement" being advertised in one of the forums; they didn't post the trailer, just the poster and a couple of production stills, but the little I could see looked enticing enough.

Anyway, the movie was never brought to my country's cinemas and I eventually forgot about it, until...

Cinemax decided to air it.

They had several airings scheduled for the week, but I missed the first 3, because I was too damn tired and had school the next day.

Turns out the fourth and last airing was very late into the night, and I had to go to school, but I outright REFUSED to miss it again.

And so, I saw it...

Staying up late and falling asleep in Chemistry, was it worth it?

No.

I'm no cinephile and certainly wasn't one at 14, but I was so dissapointed, I honestly hated it and could not find a single thing to enjoy.

Why I am here, you may ask.

Well, now that I'm older and have a job, I've been collecting movies like there is no tomorrow.

I figured that I could make some shelf space for low-rated, almost-universally panned movies, because why not? I need to shut off the brain and let it rest every once in a while.

That's how "Amusement" found a space in my library.

And you may wonder, does this guy like it now that he's older?

I...think I do, not gonna lie!

My point still mostly stands, the movie is filled with plot holes (now that's ironic, Alanis), the plot makes little to absolutely no sense and the acting is subpar.

But, this thing is entertaining and doesn't overstay its welcome, so few positive points here.

I also enjoyed the production design and settings; again, the place where the climax takes place and that one student house make absolutely no sense, but they're visually appealing.

However, it was completely lacking in the scare/tension department, but that one scene with the phone call (you know the one), is genuinely chilling, so at least there's one thing to look forward to.

I didn't know up until now, but apparently Warner Bros rushed the production, then shelved the movie, and then tossed it to home video almost 2 years later of its completion, with little to no fanfare...and it shows.

Those of you who might be thinking of seeing it, use this as a warning if you don't enjoy stupid movies. But if you do, be my guest.

I must admit that I've already seen it twice this year, and it will definitely be in the line-up for this year's Halloween movie marathon.

You could say it grew on me...like a rash, but it grew nonetheless.

While driving in a side road following a truck with her boyfriend Rob (Tad Hilgenbrink), there is a strange accident and Shelby (Laura Breckenridge) is abducted by a deranged driver. Tabitha (Katheryn Winnick) is kidnapped from her uncle's house by a man dressed of clown. Lisa (Jessica Lucas) is caught in an old pension by a twisted man. The three women are former school friends from Briar Hills and sooner they find themselves in an underground prison; further, they discover that the abductor is a former school mate that had psychological problems and is seeking revenge against them.

The plot of "Amusement" is so unreasonable (actually absurd) that irritates. The first segment (Shelby) is dumb with unexplained attitudes that do not make sense. For example, who is the girl in the truck; why she writes a note asking for help and jumps from the truck immediately after? Who would chase a truck with a dangerous kidnapper in the middle of nowhere leaving the girlfriend and a wounded girl behind on the secondary road? Why the truck driver runs over Rob? Why did he stop in a creepy house if he was close to the gas station? Tabitha's segment is the best and slightly inspired in the 1979 "When a Stranger Calls", but uses the bad clichés with the woman running from a backyard to a closed space and finding the body of the babysitter. Lisa's segment is also terrible, and who would sneak in a frightening place after the disappearance of her best friend Cat and her boyfriend Dan inside the house? The annoying and insane criminal is not developed and the viewer never knows how he got the isolated underground facility and why the psychiatrist of Briar Hills would visit a patient in a visibly abandoned spot. Last but not the least, the re-creation of the art boxes by the maniac is simply ridiculous. The good points of this flick are the cinematography and the acting, but that is not enough to save the story. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Diversão Macabra" ("Macabre Diversion")