Amityville Karen — Amityville Karen(DVD)
After many years of being a Youtube film-collecting personality, and having over two hundred and Fifty acting credits to his name, Amityville Karen is the first feature-length directing credit from Shawn C Phillips. The low-budget feature is a sort of collusion between complaint culture mocking satire, hamming it up US Soapiness, and horror with low-key gore elements. Here from the folks at SRS Cinema, who release both modern B movie fare and classic examples of SOV fare, is a region-free DVD release of the film- featuring a directors/ lead actress commentary and making of featurette.
Shawn C Phillps started off his youtube channel Coolduder in the year 2006- and has gone on to become one of the platforms most known of film geeks, with to date 94.4 K followers. Since the early 2000’s he has been actively acting in B movie fare- with as of writing a highly impressive two hundred and sixty credits to his name. I’ve been aware of Shawn for the last fifteen or so years- following his amazing weight loss journey, as well as (on and off) enjoying his hoarding-up and film review vlogs. So it’s great to see him now stepping up to make his first feature film, and for the most part, Amityville Karen is an entertaining enough slice of B Movie pie. Sure there are a few pacing problems, the odd technical issues, and some of the acting is a little mixed- but if you take it for what it is, low budget shlock-come- satire, you’ll enjoy what we have here.
The film as it suggests focuses on a 'Karen'- and for those, like myself not from the USA, a 'Karen' is seemingly a busybody/ serial complainer. The film is largely set in and around a vineyard- and the films Karen(Lauren Francesca) is a local inspector who often puts the vineyard through the wringer for not adhering to the rules. The place is co-run by Troy(James Duval) a hardworking forty-something man whose trying to do the best for his clients and staff. One of the employees is Alex( Shawn C Phillps) who is also trying to do his best, as during the film he’s trying to set up a new beer tasting event.
Karen constantly visits the vineyard to belittle and ranting at Troy, and his staff- but she equally makes a nuisance of herself in her upscale neighbourhood, picking up every petty thing, or making a mountain out of a molehill. One day Karen decides to steal one of the new wines from the vineyard- which was apparently made using grapes from cursed land in Amityville- and rumour has it that is uses some of the blood of those who died in the cursed haunted house. She drinks it, and fairy soon up turns a creepy big bearded guy- who is seemingly connected to the cursed wine, he forces her to sign a paper in her own blood….fairly soon she goes on a killing spree, though she still not forgetting to moan & complain at her victims as she kills them….all giving me vibes of Angela in the second Sleepaway Camp film.
Acting wise Francesca really hams it up/ goes OTT as Karen- and she also has a rather dodgy looking short wig too. Duval is ok as trying his best Troy, though like most of the actors here he does dip into some cheesy to shouty US soap acting. Phillps plays well as getting agitated and geeky Alex. And the rest of the cast move between just about passable, and entertaining- and we even have a few cameos from the likes of Shawn’s dad Herb, as one of the bad guys who soils himself. The gore is present, though it’s largely very fleeting/ comedic- we have a badly done gut pull, and a few impressive enough corkscrew kills.
The film runs at just over the one hour and forty minutes mark- and there are sadly a few pacing issues here and there, which do make things feel a little trying at times, as well as a few technical issues- but taken as a whole Amityville Karen is a good enough debut film, and I look forward to seeing how Mr Phillips develop his directing craft- with at present him having six films in pre-production!
Moving onto this region free DVD, and we have a few extras. First off we have a commentary with director Phillps and lead actress Francesca. This is a decidedly chatty affair, which features some interesting titbits of background info/ memories of filming. We find out the film's main house was an air B&B in San Diego, and the owner hated horror films. The film was shot in just five days, Shawn did lots of jobs on the film, and Shawn’s brother designed the wine bottle labels. As well as a lot of banter about certain scenes, and general discussion about film/ all that was involved. It’s a entertaining enough track I guess, but we don’t learn a huge amount about the film beyond laid back chatting. We have a making of( 38.24), a trailer, and a few cut scenes.
After following Shawn C Phillips over the years on youtube, and him popping up in a host of B movie fare it’s great to see him making his feature-length directorial debut. I’d say go into Amityville Karen expecting more satire/ quirky comedy than a horror film- sure there are genre elements here that nod towards slashers, low key ritual shenanigans, but the focus is much more on satire/ sending-up.