Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2019
Images from the Internet
Amityville: No Escape
Directed by Henrique Couto
New Dynamic / Camp
Motion Pictures
80 minutes, 2016
Waynesville,
OH, where this was shot, is a far cry from the Long Island-based Amityville, NY
(approximately 666 miles away, actually), where the original Amityville
novel and film took place. I’ve been through Amityville any number of times,
usually along the Sunrise Highway or Merrick Avenue (Route 27A), and it’s
remarkably suburban. Its parks are completely manicured and filled with
baseball diamonds. Quite boring, actually.
The Amityville
of this story, however, is on the edge of a deep, dark woods, opening up the
possibility of a found footage wonderland filled with mystery, spirits and
evil. This concept is way more fun than its reality, even though as with most found
footage this is supposedly “based on the real tapes,” so let’s stick with this
one, whatcha say?
 |
| Josh Miller and Joni Durian |
Actually, the mild
contrast of the reality of the Atlantic oceanside community with close neighbors
and the fictional woods-based town is quite amusing, as there are wild animals
and people with shotguns walking around in the No Escape version.
But there are
also added juxtapositions within the story itself that enhance the mood and
breaks up the walking-in-the-woods-by-camera-light syndrome. The timeframe is split
into two groups. The first is of a woman, Lina (Julia Gomez) who moves into the
house, and is preparing to send a VHS diary to her husband who is overseas
in the military. She starts off perky, and as events occur that are straight
out of Poltergeist (1982) and the Paranormal franchise, she gets
affected by the strange goings on. If you can get past her annoying constant verbal
“ummm” type ticks, her scenes are pretty effective.
 |
| Michael William Ralston and Alia Gabrielle Eckhardt |
The other
segment take place in the “now” (2016) as a group of friends decide to do a
project to record themselves to see what “scares” them. And where better than
Amityville; though a meta comment by a one character is essentially the
confusion of why go there when there are haunted houses where they are. The
core of the group is George (Josh Miller), who has “daddy issues,” his lovely
and adoring girlfriend Sarah (Joni Durian), his snarky sister Elizabeth
(Allison Egan), their vegan New Age pal Lisa (Alia Gabrielle Eckhardt, who also
did the make-up FX), and the bearded pervy camera guy, Simon (Michael William
Ralston).
Another flip
is that the Lina sections are nearly all inside the house (with an occasional
bit in the backyard), and the group is almost always in the woods except for a The
Blair Witch Project (1999) moment indoors the supposed house. This is all
very clever writing to not only break up the way the found footage is
presented, but to be both claustrophobic and yet… not.
 |
| Allison Egan (right) |
Is the film
scary? Well, I think creepy is a better way of putting it. A spooky child that
tends to appear and disappear is a nice way of playing with that, though I
would have liked some kind of back story about her (i.e., I don’t remember her
from the original Amityville story, though I do remember the pig face in
the window).
There is no
gore, but a nice amount of blood, and a surprising quantity of female nudity.
I’m not complaining, mind you. One of the good things is that most of the
effects are practical and make-up based.
The acting is well
done, and a lot comes across as natural, even if a character is annoying, which
is a bonus. For example, Miller’s “George” is often a demanding dick, which is
polar opposite of the pathetic schlub he played so well in Couto’s 2016 comedy Nothing
Good Ever Happens. Same with Durian, who is super-hyper in Couto’s 2019 Ouija Room, but here is more subtle and subdued (mostly). Even Gomez, with her “umm”
tic, shows a range well, going from giddiness to abject fear.
Much of the
cast is part of a collective in the Dayton area that shows up often in both Couto
films and that of Dustin Mills, though some of the obvious usual actors seem to
be missing here (who were probably busy with Mills). But that’s okay, since
everyone did well.
 |
| Julia Gomez |
While I won’t
give away the ending (never do), there is an interesting twist that’s a bit of
a head scratcher and a conversation starter for the viewer(s) that I respect.
Getting back
to the use of the found footage trope, what I liked about this film more than most
others in the sub-genre is that while people may be walking in the woods with
camera lights (how do they keep their batteries charged?), there is little running
through the dark, which I find really annoying. Walking isn’t as bad on the
eyes and stomach.
The copy of
this film I reviewed was an online screener, but it is now available in
Blu-ray.
Despite being
very prolific and genre-jumping, Couto has once again shown that he knows his
way around a film, and I look forward to seeing more of his output. And check
out his numerous podcasts, which can be found linked on his Facebook page.
