Nerdly » ‘Once Upon a Time in Amityville’ Review

29th Nov2024

‘Once Upon a Time in Amityville’ Review

by Jim Morazzini

Stars: Noyes J. Lawton, Ken Van Sant, Titus Himmelberger, Jeff Kirkendall, Natalie Himmelberge, Mark Polonia | Written by Mark Polonia, Aaron Drake | Directed by Mark Polonia

Director Mark Polonia and co-writer Aaron Drake, the guys who gave us Amityville in Space, are back and taking everyone’s favourite franchise to a new frontier in the western horror hybrid Once Upon a Time in Amityville. It’s 1846 and Mathias Black (Noyes J. Lawton; Camp Blood: Clown Shark, Cocaine Werewolf) is putting some distance between himself and the bank he robbed. And he was doing a good job of it until something kills his horse and chases him to the nearest town, a place called Amityville.

That creature isn’t the only thing on Mathias’ trail, however. There’s a pair of bounty hunters, Carson Weaver (Ken Van Sant; Amityville Exorcism, Cocaine Shark) and Miles Oakley (Titus Himmelberger; Jurassic Exorcist, Teddiscare) on his trail. And that brings them to Amityville, where despite the sign saying there’s a population of thirty-seven, they can barely find a handful of inhabitants.

The first one they meet, Regis Kanterbery (Jeff Kirkendall; The Girl Who Wore Yellow Lace, Amityville Island) is busy making the frame for a familiar-looking window. This at least provides some kind of link between Once Upon a Time in Amityville and the original film, and that is more than I can say for a lot of Amityville films. The other three townsfolk, Jed Rexford (Tim Hatch; Doomsday Stories, Camp Blood 9: Bride of Blood), Angela Barnes (Natalie Himmelberger; Jurassic Shark 2: Aquapocalypse, Pandasaurus) and Mr. Malcolm (Mark Polonia) are the kind of evasive and unfriendly folk who are a sure sign something sinister is going on.

For a Mark Polonia film, Once Upon a Time in Amityville actually has some fairly decent production values. It was shot in and around the PA Lumberman’s Museum, which looks a bit more weathered and realistic than the usual old west tourist town. Unfortunately, there are the usual problems with various anachronistic objects popping up. Some, like old-fashioned-looking lamps that obviously have light bulbs, are at least understandable. Others, like an actual light bulb in one scene, an object with a bar code on it that turns up in several shots and a modern house in the background of another, not so much.

There are also a few gore effects, like a rotting corpse and a decapitation. They are pretty basic, but for a microbudget film they’re not bad and a nice change from nothing but off-screen kills. The giant bat that shows up at the end is a different matter, it’s an obvious puppet badly combined with a CGI explosion and much more in line with what we expect from a Mark Polonia film.

The plot, while held back by the extremely small cast and budget, is more coherent than many of his films as well. It’s a fairly basic tale of demon worship and murder that’s played straight. For some of the filmmaker’s fans, the fact it isn’t something like Sharkula will probably be a disappointment, but I prefer his more or less serious films to his attempts at making a prefabricated cult film.

While the low body count and frequent long talky scenes will probably turn off more mainstream viewers, those used to microbudget filmmaking should enjoy Once Upon A Time In Amityville. It’s above average as such things go, and is better than a lot of other films with Amityville in the title, including some with considerably bigger budgets. And besides, we don’t get nearly enough films that mix gunslingers and ghouls, so you might as well give this one a chance if it sounds like something you might enjoy.