Feb 24 2009
AMUSEMENT
Haha.
PLOT
Shelby is on a road trip with her boyfriend, who likes to talk with the truckers and join convoys to make the trip go faster. They meet up with two other drivers when something goes wrong. The movie then shifts to Tabitha, who’s back from college to baby-sit her cousins. The baby-sitter left the kids unexpectedly and she finds a huge clown doll waiting in her room. Of course you know her segment’s going to end badly. Tabitha remembers back to a little boy who was fairly warped in the head before the story jumps to Lisa. Then it revolves back around to how the three girls are connected.
TRIVIA
Screenwriter Jake Wade Wall also wrote the horror movies (remakes) When a Strange Calls and The Hitcher.
THOUGHTS
It took me a long time to get through this movie. I actually started watching it three different times before I could finish it and I thought it was just me. Then I heard a little more about it and I’m convinced it wasn’t just me. Apparently this movie was supposed to come out in theaters, but early reviews and test groups hated it so much that they pushed it back for a straight to DVD release.
That said, this isn’t actually a bad movie. It had a few good moments, like the end. The problem is that it felt slow at times, to the point where I was bouncing around just wanting something to happen. A friend who watched it said that he thought it was fast paced, so I’m not sure why I had such a different reaction. There was just something about it that I didn’t really like.
Thank you for your website! It’s a good collection of unbiased, down-to-earth, horror reviews. I’m a huge horror addict myself and I’ve actually started watching certain movies based on your comments.
I first chose this one based on what you wrote (and the cover art). I found that it was both fast and slow paced so I can see where two people can have opposite feelings about it. This is because of it being broken into three mini-stories that wrap into a beginning and ending sequence: some of the stories were lame (needing fast forwarding) while others were cool (like the intense—albeit clichéd—clown/’When A Stranger Calls’ scene).
I felt exactly like you did… there was something I didn’t like: I think it was that the movie was asking way too much from your ’suspension of disbelief’. Everything from the trucker at the beginning, to the bodies sewn into the beds, to the huge labyrinth below that small shack, to the Psychiatrist who actually fell for it–the whole thing was just way too implausible. (where did the killer get all the money for all those locations? And too much of his planning relied on coincidence) However it was definitely watchable—I thought it was worth it for the clown scene alone.
Thanks Phil! It’s good to know someone kept reading even when I was gone lol. I promise lots more reviews coming, I just setup 10 to post next week! Looking back on Amusement now, I’ve basically forgotten a lot. I think you’re dead on about the suspension of disbelief. That’s a big part of horror movies, but this one expected a little too much from the watchers. On the other hand I saw the killer in another movie and it took me awhile to realize it was even the same guy