To avoid any possible confusion, it needs to be made clear that this is a comedic pastiche of two genres that seem to have a near infinite canon: Hallmark style Christmas romance movies and budget horror’s trading off the Amityville name. I’ll leave you to decide which one is a bigger scourge on the psyche of mankind (mostly because I can’t make my mind up on the answer) and give the general warning that all such films need. Simply put; unless you are versed in the content being parodied you may not get all the jokes that are trying to be told, and just think it’s the cheap, formulaic junk that’s being sent up.
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Amityville Christmas Vacation (2022)
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It’s the mid-sixties, so whilst New Hollywood is being forged, Rock-&-Roll is tuning on to acid, and Vietnam is still considered winnable, there were kids’ movies to be made! In this case, with one of the stars and a number of the behind-the-scenes team from the outrageously popular Andy Griffiths show. It made crazy bank then, and secured a four-movie deal for those involved, but do the ghostly hijinks and gurning promised in the trailer hold up to today’s cynical psychotronic audience? Well…
Ever since James Cameron asked the eternal question, “can I get away with ripping off an episode of The Outer Limits?”, time travel movies have followed a fairly set rote; man comes back from apocalypse, finds Partner/Scientist/Chosen One/Tits McGuffin, fights things through a combination of True Guts and Slow-Motion, and saves the day/saves the future/sets up a time-paradox you can drive a lorry through. So, after picking up and reading the back of the 2002 Takashi Yamazaki directed Returner, I was expecting more of the same but with a bit of gun-fu.
Trash or Treasure 