To appreciate the light, one has to sample the dark, and unfortunately for me this means watching films as terrible as Amusement. It’s boring rubbish and pointlessly horrid. Unsurprisingly it did not get a cinema release in the United Kingdom.
The story is split into a series of segments which follow the traumas of a group of old school friends as a scary figure from their past haunts them (with stock-spooky music). The friends are in their twenties and look gorgeous of course, and as the film progresses we get to see them in a variety of appalling circumstances.
Despite being brutally violent, Amusement feels dull and tame. It lacks the sadistic novelty value of the Saw and Hostel series’, and the gaps between the scares are long and tedious. The most menacing scene involves an eerie walking toy clown. Yes, the film really is that unoriginal.
The movie ends with a bland voiceover that contains more clichés of phrase than the average Dan Brown paperback. Everything that comes before hand is similarly lacking in finesse, sophistication or any real evidence of talent.
A note on the disc: Entertainment In Video’s release presents the film in a competent 1080p widescreen presentation that manipulates the aspect ratio slightly into 1.78:1. with good colours and reasonable clarity. Dark colours and scenes are particularly well managed. The audio is fine but unremarkable.
Amusement (2008), directed by John Simpson, is distributed on blu-ray disc and DVD in the UK by Entertainment In Video, Certificate 18.
