‘Amityville in Space’ Review
Stars: Jeff Kirkendall, Titus Himmelberger, Michael Korotitsch, Tim Hatch | Written by Mark Polonia, Aaron Drake | Directed by Mark Polonia
Somehow I managed to miss Amityville in Space when it was released earlier this year. Doubly odd as it’s not only an Amityville film, it was directed by Mark Polonia who co-wrote it with Aaron Drake (Jurassic Shark 2: Aquapocalypse, House Squatch). This is Polonia’s fourth trip to Amityville after Amityville Exorcism, Amityville Death House and most recently Amityville Island. Practice makes perfect, right?
Father Benna (Jeff Kirkendall; Noah’s Shark, Children of Camp Blood) walks through a flurry of CGI snow toward 112 Ocean Avenue. He tells the reporters he’s here for the ultimate showdown between good and evil. He also suggests they leave immediately. This proves to be good advice as his attempt at exorcising the demon goes wrong and the house is propelled into space.
Flash forward to the year 3015 and the deep space cruiser Wyoming is on a mission to seek out and destroy rogue black holes and they’ve found the largest one on record. They’ve also found a familiar-looking house trapped inside. Can Captain Halstead (Titus Himmelberger; Reel Monsters, Feeders 3: The Final Meal), Vox (Michael Korotitsch; The Temptress, Sister Krampus), Maitland (Tim Hatch; Amityville Thanksgiving, Natasha Nighty’s Boudoir of Blood) and the rest of the crew survive this new threat?
Obviously, Amityville in Space isn’t a film you can take the least bit seriously and thankfully Polonia and Drake don’t even try. Instead, they combine bits and pieces of horror films like The Amityville Horror, The Exorcist, and The Hand with sci-fi elements from Dark Star and Event Horizon, or perhaps its more religious inspiration, Dark Side of the Moon. The result makes absolutely no sense, but it certainly isn’t boring.
Time travel, possession, a giant glowing pentagram in space, and a demon who’s sometimes a disembodied voice, sometimes a CGI ball with glowing red eyes and other times an actor in a hoodie and cheap mask all and finally a bizarre-looking puppet, comes into play here. And unlike more than a few of Polonia’s films such as Dune World, there’s enough action to keep the long stretches of dialogue in check.
If you’ve seen any of Polonia’s films then you have a good idea of what to expect from the technical side of Amityville in Space. The Wyoming’s interior is obviously some poorly disguised rooms a bit of a cellar. The metallic film used to cover the building’s windows and look futuristic has a tendency to flutter in the breeze when people walk past it. Similarly, most of the equipment we see looks anything but futuristic and I have to give credit to Kirkendall for keeping a straight face when being threatened with a Nerf gun.
The CGI in Amityville in Space, apart from the demonic glowing orb, is also incredibly cheesy looking but at least stays a step ahead of Amityville Island’s cartoon shark. And I have to give Polonia credit for using CGI at all rather than whatever the hell was passed off as effects in Amityville Thanksgiving. Overall the effects by Anthony Polonia (Lycanimator, ZillaFoot) carry on the family tradition and deliver what we expect from a Polonia film.
Anyone who has seen more than a few of Mark Polonia’s films knows just how hit or miss they can be. The same is certainly true for Amityville films as well. Thankfully Amityville in Space hits the mark. It looks like they had a few dollars more than usual in the budget and were actually into the production, rather than just cranking something out just for the sake of having something to release.
*** 3/5
Amityville in Space is available on Digital Platforms as well as on Blu-ray and DVD from Wild Eye Releasing.
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