Amityville Cop – Film Review

A city haunted by a bloody past has led to the emergence of some serious police brutality. As bodies pile up, two detectives seek to stop a demonic force that is terrorizing the neighborhood.

It’s kind of hard not to talk about Amityville Cop without first acknowledging its absolutely hilarious title. Obviously a spin on the Amityville Horror series, I get the impression that director Gregory Hatanaka thought the title was clever and self-aware, but it’s anything but. It would’ve been really cool if we got a movie that was sort of like Scream but poking fun at the Amityville Horror series instead of horror movies in general.

But instead, Amityville Cop is a dreadfully boring, unscary, and interesting mess that absolutely drags despite the fact that it’s only sixty-eight minutes in length including credits. An excellent film should have you practically salivating for more. You don’t want it to end simply because you are so invested in the world and with the characters that you feel an attachment to them. Midsommar is a horror film that’s well over two hours and yet, whenever I watch it and the credits roll on screen, I want to watch it again.

As soon as this film was over I uttered a sigh of relief. As I mentioned earlier, this is a totally unscary movie and that would’ve been fine if the film was aiming to be a genuinely fully self-aware comedy akin to something like Shaun of the Dead or something, but it’s just not. The film doesn’t seem to know whether or not it should embrace horror or comedy and thus, the tone can feel extremely jarring and unclear.

Plus, the scenes where the film does aim for comedy fail on all fronts. The writing from Geno McGahee is incredibly poor and mostly feels like a first draft. I understand that this was most certainly made on a low budget and so I can’t complain too much about how sloppy this movie looks and feels, but it’s also hard to get invested in a horror movie that feels like it was just sort of thrown together.

Aside from some genuinely impressive character development early on, the characters are ones that we don’t really care for simply because the central conflict of the film is unintentionally hilarious and is legitimately cringe-worthy which is a shame because the first act set-up wasn’t too bad, to be honest. But as soon as the twenty-minute mark rolls around, it becomes crystal clear that the film isn’t going anywhere good.

The acting here is also quite decent for the most part, but it sadly doesn’t make the film any better obviously. You could have the best actor in the world in a film, but if the script is bad, then chances are the movie is going to be bad as well. Jason Toler and Nicole D’Angelo deserve a significantly better film to showcase their acting talents because it’s clear to me that they have what it takes to be in something great.

Amityville Cop is an often unintentionally hilarious and tonally confusing mess that isn’t sure what kind of movie it wants to be.