The Amityville Podcast

Sorry for the delay. Apparently we set something on the server to "bad'. We aren't sure when it happened, before or after we watched the movie, because woof. Frankenstein implies parts. Is our job (nonpaid) to just watch anything anyone slaps a name onto? Would we buy Amityville Bibles and sneakers? Why do we give our enemy agency? These answers aren't in this episode. They are in our souls. 

It's in Amityville. People are on an elevator. There are thankfully no fart jokes. Beyond that, what is there to talk about? We take an hour to try and figure that out.

Not to be confused with Subspecies, which we said a while ago we would dive into once we were caught up. We should never have made that promise. Sisyphus may have come to appreciate his neverending toils like an office drone on year 20 of an entry level position, but the rock of Amityville gets heavier and heavier.

Ride Share is almost a clever title, because the movie carpools a bunch of stuff from the maker's other works, just crams them all into a buggy then we watch as they all say which way to go and we never get anywhere and the windows won't roll down and the AC is broke. If you thought driving scenes were going to be the worst of this, you've underestimated this franchise.

An anthology, with sort of a wraparound. There's an outhouse. Green screen. Probably made during some stage of lockdown. Who knows? Who cares? Poop jokes. All in the name of Amityville.

This one popped up on some but not all lists of Amityville films, because finding all of the Amityville films is the only way to unlock the clues that lead to the Great Amityville Treasure, buried long ago by Lutzbeard of Brolin, the greatest pirate Long Island has ever known. But why? We had to find out (contractually)!

When looking under every rock for these movies, we somehow forgot to look to the 70's European market, where things like copyrights and titles were to be shared like they were sharing their wine, their drugs, their bodies. It was a Bertolucci-esque bacchanalia of "sequels" and imposters dancing across screens for cheap coin. Per Professor Nigel Crump, "They made a lot of knockoff crap."

We close out the Scream franchise. It goes as expected. A correction for the end of the episode, we will be going back to Amityville before out next franchise, which is announced at the end of the show. How many more Amityvilles are there now? Find out next episode, and then again once we actually get to the end again.

The first of the post-Craven installments, and the relaunch of the franchise in the era of terms like "elevated horror" and "requel". A new cast takes the lead, while the old cast still tries to be front and center at least a little. People are stabbed. Phone calls are made.

Wes Craven's final film, plus a return to the franchise in general after over a decade past that third one. I wonder if we'll have anything to talk about? Oh, the original file came in at almost three hours, so it seems so. We trimmed stuff like pauses for passing sirens, coughing fits, and some long silent stares that don't make for good radio and got it down to still our longest episode. Enjoy!

Tom and Pat get back into alignment on this entry, that either closed out the trilogy or ground the series to a halt for years. But we still find things to disagree about, like the professional podcasters we are.

Someone has taken their love of sequels too far. Or not far enough. Either way, we debate this follow up to the genre pivot point from the previous year. And speaking of rehashes, we had to re-record the main discussion, but mostly captured the magic of the first try hopefully. Does the movie? Results may vary.

Kicking off another sidequest while the Amityville series recharges (and boy howdy did it!), we take on a series loved by one of us, not so much by the other. While we both agree this first one is a masterpiece, we still manage to fight about something. Still haven't hit that dealbreaker yet, though. 

Sometimes a long running but all over the place franchise will have a small budget entry sneak out and be one of the best the series has ever had, concentrating on character and theme and not just cheap gags or fan service. But for every Godzilla Minus One, there are dozens of death toilets. We close out this batch of Amityville movies with one that sets the bar at a new low. Sigh.

An in-franchise semi-remake about house flippers. We keep track of these things, I suppose. This one has a bigger budget than the usual stuff, but does that mean a bump in quality? Yes, but a hill in Delaware is nothing in Appalachia. 

Two overlong franchises full of knock offs and spin offs finally hook up. Is it super hot and steamy, like a good coffee, or is it exhausting and tepid, like a bad coffee? Does it spend much time on either franchise? Both? The answers will very likely not surprise you!

And we're back to our core franchise. What was waiting for us? A family quarantine project. Yes, it's a narrative, but it's also another home video that got distribution by name dropping Amityville. Seriously, if anyone out there is an aspiring film maker, you can get distribution. 

Finally we wrap things up with the Hulu reboot, which calls back to the franchise in several ways while completely reimagining in others. Will there be more? We have no way to know, because one year in most franchises is a bare minimum gap, but we've come to expect several a year from our flagship franchise, which we return to next time. But for now, let's just enjoy a little more time in Hell before our suffering really returns.

It definitely feels like this franchise has had more endings that others. And here's another, the last of the Gary Tunnicliffe era, before the big budget relaunch by Hulu, which does completely close out this season for now. With one of the smallest budgets in the franchise, it relies on lore, ideas, thematic explorations, and yet another corrupt cop mystery.

This week we watch the first of the series to not feature Doug Bradley. An entry produced primarily to retain the rights, and filmed on what would be a shoestring budget if you weren't for some reason watching every Amityville movie. But hey, as they say, just finishing a movie is an accomplishment, especially when there's the chance from the get go it might never get released. Not known at the time of recording, let us also say goodbye to Anthony Hickox, director of Hellraiser III, as well as Waxwork I & 2, Sundown, and plenty of other fun flicks.

This week we wave farewell to one of the longest running villain performers in horror history, Doug Bradley as Pinhead, the HellPriest, the Cold One, the Pontifex, the Lead Cenobite, Captain Elliott Spencer. Eight movies in a row, always giving his best no matter how the rest of the project is going. Also a nice guy, if you see him at a convention. This one feature a rave house party, internet puzzles, a human sized Henry Cavill, and other very early 2000s stuff.

Seven entries into a franchise, you expect most of the characters will have died. So what's scarier than that? DEADER! Because once you're dead, and still exist, that's at least comforting, because you aren't cast into nothingness. But what happens if THAT ends? At least that's one way to scare an audience. The makers of this movie had other ideas. We discuss.

This week we take in a Hellraiser that wasn't written originally for the franchise. Do they make the puzzle pieces fit? Do they try and solve the puzzle box by just peeling the stickers off? 

To misquote the Clash, "Straight to video, boy..." While a lot of franchises come apart as they lose theatrical release, this entry has aged well. Initially its distance from all previous films and the minimal involvement of Pinhead left fans cold, but in recent years it's been getting more respect for telling a different story in this universe. We still pull it apart like Frank, though.

The end of the theatrical releases, and the last time Clive and his team were as hands on. They take us to the beginnings of the puzzle box all the way into space and the conclusion of its saga. Far enough in the future we'll have plenty of room for seven more sequels to go.

A lot of changes and different ideas are thrown at the series in this third entry, which more directly commits to Pinhead as the villain and gives him more of an origin. The franchise also moves from New World to the newly formed Dimension Films. Does it take our breath away, or do we just have seasonal allergies? Find out now!

We are still on pretty safe ground here, with a sequel many enjoy more than the first film. It certainly expands the scope of the universe. We've also seen this one plenty, so had plenty to discuss. You can see that by the runtime. Another great thing about switching to bi-weekly is we can get you these supersized episodes and it's not demanding more of your time!

There will always be more Amityville movies, but we had hit the end of releases so far once again and have taken on another franchise that started going in all sorts of directions, not all in line with the original vision of the series. But first let's take on that initial vision as we watch the Clive Barker classic Hellraiser! Eleven of these to watch, which should mean plenty of Amityville once our soul has been torn apart.

What can we say about a movie that features no audible dialogue? Hopefully a lot, because we're watching this one in REAL TIME! No edits, no breaks, so you can throw it on and watch along with us! Arguments are had, truces made, things shouted. Our season finale before taking on another franchise!

Another in-series sequel, with all the continuity you've come to expect. We're back in the UK, which might just be here in the US, because it's AN Amityville and mentions THE Amityville, but if questions like these are an issue this is definitely not the franchise for you. Still not sure who it actually IS for, but we made a commitment.

We're divided like a carved turkey! We get steamed as Brussells sprouts! We something sauerkraut, but mostly we disagree on another holiday themed entry in the series. When will someone do Arbor Day?

A shorter movie than usual, and a shorter episode to go with it. Beforehand we discuss Christmas in horror films, as well as some other violent holiday films that aren't technically horror but have a much higher body count.

It's amazing it's taken this franchise so long to get to where most franchises will wind up sooner or later: SPACE! And it's not a found item episode, it's the actual house! Ripped from the headlines! 

What happens when someone needs to see the manager of a franchise, but it turns out THERE ISN'T ONE?!? Nothing sounds more fun than an Amityville version of the worst part of working retail! We are broken.

Tom and Pat try and recreate one of two lost episodes from their notes rather than rewatching them. This one was filmed during quarantine as far as we can tell, part montage, part exquisite corpse, mostly just a loose thread that fills two hours. Probably not a great "jumping on point" episode, more "previously on: our broken souls".

Not to be confused with... It's the Netflix one. It's also the last one for now, and so the end of season two! Next we'll go back to season one for a little while, since in the time it took for our trip to Texas (where  our gear was stolen @#$%) they've put out roughly a half dozen more Amityville movies (or we found ones that hadn't previously shown up in our research). 

Not to be confused with the other Leatherface, but at least not a variation of Chain Massacre Saw Texas. This is a prequel, but not tied to the other previous prequels except maybe? I'm beginning to think maybe this series needs to go to space, New York, or Dinosaur Island.

We're back! Sorry for the gap. There was an incident and we lost our gear and some episodes, had to replace all of the above amid the holidays, and may ourselves now be personally cursed by the Amityville house. We're past most of the hurdles, recording, and editing again.  This week we check in on Leatherface during that anti-piracy measure they could upsell people on, 3D! But we didn't watch it in 3D, because that trend just didn't actually trend. Enjoy!

Before there was the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, there was... a Texas chainsaw massacre. Questions are answered, and not the ones you think! Or care about! Prequels are an evergreen way to bring back dead characters, tension be damned! Anyway we see how the sausage is made, back when these butchers actually made sausage.

After another hearty gap, Platinum Dunes got some pretty people and gimmicky filters together for this CW style retelling of the original. We have many thoughts. This is one of those episodes longer than the movie. So many thoughts.

The one they didn't want you to see! Even though, as it turns out, it's much more watchable than some of the ones to follow. We get in some bickering around random things as well. Oscar winners! Robot leg! Enjoy!

We reach 1990, when horror was hitting a rough patch. We cover the time just before this one, when franchises were being run into the ground and box office was dropping off hard, through to the next few years when award and prestige returned to the genre. We'll also talk about this entry, the first without Tobe Hooper.

Our second film series is reenforcing the idea that the second entry in a horror series should just go all out, humor, big ideas, broader scope. We also discuss the twelve years of horror between the first one and this, how much the landscape had changed.

While we wait a few months for more Amityville movies, We're headed to Texas. This franchise stays put! No cursed items, no travel or possessions, just Texas! And Oklahoma for a bit, but not this week.  We're numbering the episodes this way so if people want to listen by season they can, as we'll add episodes for each season as new entries come out. Like how 3 more episodes for season one are on the way after season two.

The End! For now! The very last one released! Except we've been hard at work on a new season and two more have come out. F$#%@!!! Maybe it was the closure looming, even fleetingly, but this one seems like an excellent amalgam of this journey so far. To quote Dick Smothers, "That was not a compliment." We'll have a single skip week then launch into season 2, which is a full rewatch / discovery of skipped ones on another horror series, plus a different angle on our tangents. Details at the end of this episode!

"they went there." While that covers so much of this franchise, the two 'there' concepts that come up in budget horror are space and the hood. And weirdly, space is usually first. We honestly don't break down too much of why, because there are way too many reasons better articulated by others. Instead, us two white dudes watch a movie made by at least some white dudes. 

Yes, there have been police officers in previous movies. But not like this! Other movies have had cops like this, though, which we discuss in the preshow. After some computer trouble, we're back for our end run of currently available Amityville movies!

Yep, it's a werewolf movie. We haven't gone to space yet, though we know it's coming. Join us in the ring as we take on the lycanthrope-a-dope, and somehow distract ourselves with musical theater. Weirdly we get from werewolves to musicals in several ways, some of them predictable.

There's nothing scarier than a scarecrow, unless you aren't a crow. Then results may vary. Can we spin straw into gold? Is this outstanding in its field? 

This week we dive into the band that gave us such classics as Possessed Fire Woman and She Sells Sanctuary on Ocean Ave. Not to be confused with The Amityville Church, The Amityville Cure, or Amityville Clash, purely because of name like the whole Pullman / Paxton issue. Or this is another movie. Beforehand we discuss other films with cults featured prominently.

A bit of a long episode, longer than the movie. We're starting to break. I can feel it. Tired. Angry. Resentful. But the end (for now) is in sight. We can do this.