My quick rating - 0.7/10. Thought I’d start my week-long Amityville experience (and when I say "experience," I really mean "torture") with Amityville Backrooms. After watching (and reviewing) Backrooms recently, I thought to myself, “Why not see what happens if I just throw the name Amityville onto another internet horror trend?”
I have my answer now. It was a mistake. At least letting Evan Jacobs make it.
The movie opens with some amateur footage of a guy discussing the idea of combining Amityville with the Backrooms on his podcast. That's followed by a news report featuring one of the most painfully obvious green screen effects you'll ever see as a reporter explains that an abandoned house in Amityville can't be sold. If this movie had a budget, I suspect somebody accidentally left it in another dimension before filming started.
We then meet Keith (Chris Lohman), who's trapped inside the house. He's the world's most irritating real estate guy, constantly calling about selling the house. His performance somehow manages to be even more grating than the endless stock howling noises that randomly appear on the soundtrack. Why is there howling? I have no idea. Wolves? Ghost wolves? Discount sound effects from a 1998 horror CD? Your guess is as good as mine.
Most of the next hour consists of Keith wandering around what looks like an entirely normal suburban home while talking to himself. He spends so much time standing in the kitchen I started wondering if the real horror was waiting for the kettle to boil.
The editing deserves a special mention. Keith walks somewhere. Cut. And suddenly he's back where he started. That's the entire movie. Repeat for 72 minutes.
At the 26-minute mark I checked the runtime. That is never a good sign.
By the 36-minute mark, it honestly felt like I'd been trapped in the Backrooms myself for a week.
Every so often the film throws in a superimposed ghostly face or a random creepy image, apparently to remind us it's supposed to be horror. The funniest part is Keith usually doesn't even notice any of it. The Backrooms creatures make blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearances while our hero continues having lengthy conversations with himself like he's forgotten the audience exists.
Eventually his coworker Alex (Mike Hartsfield) shows up...
...and exactly the same thing happens to him.
The end. That's it.
There are no twists. No escalating tension. No payoff. I couldn't spoil anything even if I wanted to because absolutely nothing happens. The concept had potential, but instead of creating the unsettling, reality-bending nightmare that made the Backrooms popular, the filmmakers somehow turned it into 72 minutes of watching a guy unsuccessfully navigate a very average-looking house.
Honestly, "Amityville: Two Middle-Aged Virgins Make a Movie" would've been a more accurate title.
This is easily one of the worst Amityville films I've sat through, and considering this franchise has produced more disasters than functioning haunted houses, that's saying something. It sits comfortably alongside Amityville: Mt. Misery Road in the race to the bottom. That link is the whole movie if you want to punish yourself.
If getting trapped in the Backrooms is supposed to drive you insane, watching Amityville Backrooms is probably the cheaper alternative.
https://jackmeat.com/amityville-backrooms-2024/
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