The “Franchise” Goes Western with ‘Once Upon a Time in Amityville’ [The Amityville IP]

For more than two years, Joe Lipsett has dissected Amityville Horror films to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”

It’s something of a fool’s errand to try and contain just what an Amityville film is. While part of the goal of this project has been to chart how different entries evolve, expand or detract from the public’s perception of the brand, the reality is that Amityville is no one thing. Particularly not as we close in on entry 60 (!) of these damned films!

Still, it is interesting to explore what happens when certain filmmakers return to play in the sandbox with multiple entries. That’s the case with director Mark Polonia, who returns for a fourth “franchise” entry with Once Upon A Time in Amityville, a period film released in 2024 that he co-wrote with Aaron Drake.

What’s unique about Once… is that it both embodies the same qualities as Polonia’s other films while simultaneously charting a new genre course. That genre is, of course, the Western, which is almost entirely new territory for the “series,” even if most of the cast are Polonia regulars.

In the film, bounty hunters Miles Oakley (Titus Himmelberger, Amityville in Space, Amityville Island and Amityville Exorcism) and Carson Weaver (Ken Van Sant, Exorcism and Amityville Death House) are in pursuit of bank robber Mathias Black (Noyes J. Lawton). The criminal provides the film’s cold open as he’s chased through the woods by fiery red eyes in the sky before his horse is brutally dispatched. When his path leads the bounty hunters to Amityville (population 37), Miles and Carson discover the newly settled lumber town is nearly empty.

The sole remaining residents are all openly hostile, including Jed (Tim Hatch, Amityville Turkey Day, Amityville Thanksgiving, Space and Island), hotel owner Angela (Natalie Himmelberger, Space), and crooked business Mr. Malcolm (Polonia himself). Only Regis (Jeff Kirkendall, Space), hard at work on a visually familiar set of window frames, seems somewhat amenable to the newcomers.

This being an Amityville film, it’s not long before Miles and Carson note the odd behaviour as well as the strange lights in the sky. Too late they realize that the townspeople aren’t hiding Mathias; he’s already dead and they’re next. In this way the film combines several famous titles that inspired it, including Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time in the West and the cult aspects of Quentin Tarantino’s revisionist Manson text.

Alas this elements make the film sound more interesting than it actually is. The biggest criticism of Polonia’s Once… is that the text is kind of boring. A predictable, straightforward narrative doesn’t have to be a dealbreaker, but the reality is that there simply isn’t enough here to sustain the film’s ~70 minute runtime. Throw in stilted and amateurish acting along with shallow characterizations and there’s not much here to hang your (10 gallon) hat on.

The film’s biggest selling feature is that it’s a Western Amityville film, which is immediately novel. Polonia does what he can with costume and a decent, albeit small, set of frontier buildings to disguise the budget limitations. Still, the scope feels limited, particularly when characters ride across the same stretch on horseback or exhaust the range of the set in a matter of minutes.

The effects are also a mixed bag. The CGI visual effects used to simulate a malevolent force in the sky are identical to Amityville in Space (they may literally be repurposed from that earlier film), which is to say: they look cheap. But there’s a high camp value when the winged creature is revealed in the climax to be a cryptid bat puppet, which is summarily dispatched by a steam powered locomotive (operated by a single man!) with a giant makeshift cross attached to the front (!!).

When Once… leans into exceedingly dumb territory, then it’s entertaining. It’s unfortunate that these highlights happen so late in the film because it’s too little, too late by this time.

And so, Polonia’s return to the “franchise” is more miss than hit, but he deserves props for trying something slightly different. Amityville films tend to be low budget/big swings and while this likely won’t be remembered for being anything other than “the Western one,” that still stands out among the nearly sixty other titles in the run of this “franchise.”

The Amityville IP Awards go to…

• Satan? Mr. Malcolm offers Carson a bizarrely cult-y explanation for what’s going on. Apparently select members of the community pledged allegiance to Satan (the red horned spectre in the sky) in exchange for power, which required them to sacrifice the other residents (all ~30 of them). It’s never clear what the power looks like, apart from the occasional ability to briefly phase in and out and sport an unflattering white demon face (shades of Polonia’s previous entry, Amityville Exorcism) But also: Satan?! The series has never attributed its hauntings or demons to SATAN!
• Best Dialogue: Carson, surveying the rotting body of what is obviously a horse: “Good god – that looks like a horse.”
• Continuity Gap: When they discover Mathias’ body with its face ripped off (which actually looks pretty solid), Miles and Carson bemoan “Well, there goes the reward money.” But then, only a few scenes later, Carson cheers Miles up with the comment: “the reward said dead or alive.” Well, which is it?!
• Practical FX: As noted above, whenever the FX is computer generated, it looks extremely cheap (and not in a fun, endearing kind of way). The practical FX, meanwhile, is touch and go. With that said, even when it doesn’t work – such as several of the film’s unconvincing decapitations – the dummy work is so silly that everything is forgiven. Note to indie filmmakers: lean into the comedy when you don’t have the budget for Nicotero or Savini because it goes a long way to endearing your film to viewers.
• A Head Scratcher: With that said, I truly don’t know what to make of the moment when Carson comes across the decapitated head of Miles in their room. It’s basically just the actor’s head peeking out from a pile of sheet! It’s so laughably bad that it *has* to be intentional…right?
• Amityville Experience: In case you forgot, Polonia is behind the following titles: Amityville Island (the prison women on an island with laser sharks), Amityville Death House (the entry with the spider lady finale), Amityville in Space (exactly what it sounds like) and Amityville Exorcism (also exactly what it sounds like).

Next time: A BlueSky connection alerted me to the fact that there’s a random new found footage film called Amityville Void (2024) on YouTube. So let’s check that out next!

The post The “Franchise” Goes Western with ‘Once Upon a Time in Amityville’ [The Amityville IP] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.