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Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a new Amityville Horror film to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”

After toiling in the trenches with Nick Box’s three releases from the week of April 13, it’s something of a relief to jump ahead to May 8, 2023 with a discussion of Louis DeStefano’s Amityville Emanuelle.

Presumably influenced by the French book and film series of the same name (minus the extra “m”), Geno McGahee’s screenplay returns to a tried and true Amityville premise: a cursed object, a spectral haunting, and some sexy shenanigans.

Amityville: Emanuelle immediately situates itself within the “franchise”s canon with recreated footage of Ronald DeFeo’s murder spree in April of 1974. This is familiar territory: we’ve seen variations of the shootings in Amityville II, The Amityville Legacy, Amityville: The Awakening and more.

It makes...

Stars: Eric Roberts, Carl Crew, Scott Schwartz, Allie Perez, Brinke Stevens, Mel Novak | Written and Directed by Dustin Ferguson

One of the stranger subgenres of horror films to emerge recently is that involving sharks from outer space. Space Sharks is the latest addition, following Iron Sky and its sequel, Sky Sharks and Shark Side of the Moon, among others. Of none of them are nearly as good as the original The Outer Limits episode The Invisible Enemy, but that’s a whole different bucket of chum.

What concerns us now is the commercial spacecraft, The Clairvoyant, returning to Earth with a cargo of alien sea creatures and plant life. That includes what looks like a couple of small sharks with legs and feet. They have visions of generous research grants dancing in the heads of their scientific team. That consists of Dr. Johnson, Dr. Thompson and Dr. Hansen played by...

"A new strain of evil." Get it, get it? Wild Eye Releasing has debuted an official trailer for Amityville in the Hood, another ridiculous B-movie creation from filmmaker Dustin Ferguson. He's kind of like Asylum, but not even that good. Another Amityville offering now that the rights are in public domain and anyone can use them to make any bad horror movie. But it might be the best?. An Eastside gang uses the Amityville property to grow marijuana when they are attacked by a rival gang and their drugs stolen. Soon, it's unleashed on the Westside streets of Compton, where anyone who smokes it suffers one Killer buzz. Oh lord. The film's cast includes Dustin Ferguson, Jennifer Nangle, John R. Walker, Thom Michael Mulligan, Allie Perez, Pat Kusnadi, Erik Anthony Russo, and Esau McKnight. A haunted marijuana strain? Okay fine, points for creativity. Here's the official trailer (+ poster) for Dustin...