The Amityville Asylum
The Amityville Asylum
| 03 June 2013 (USA)
The Amityville Asylum Trailers

Lisa Templeton begins a new job as a cleaner at High Hopes Hospital, a mental institution in Amityville, Long Island. Initially delighted to get the job, Lisa soon realises that all is not as it seems. Intimidated by staff and the psychotic ramblings of the patients, she is further unnerved by apparent supernatural occurrences on the night shift. To preserve her sanity Lisa must uncover the mysterious history of the institution and it's inmates. But the truth is far more terrifying than she could ever imagine.

Reviews
Nigel P

Despite a disastrous interview, young Lisa is delighted to gain employment as cleaner at the High Hopes Hospital. After meeting head Doctor Mixter (Jared Morgan), the chief (only?) cleaner Delaney (a curious Welsh/Russian hybrid played by Lee Bane), she is introduced to some of the patients, including one played by a terrifying Eileen Daly (who also sings the end theme). The first thing that strikes me about this Andrew Jones produced film is how empty the asylum is. Granted, Lisa is working the night-shift, but there is no background noise, nothing. Also, the location of 'Amityville' is something of a mystery. Lisa and the security guard are American, Delaney could be from any number of places, the young female reporter is Welsh and Mixter is decidedly English.I'm a big fan of Andrew's work, but assigning his low-budget, tightly shot styles to the Amityville series (this is the tenth film in the run) is a curious decision. Having said that, the sequels had become so far removed from the style of the original film by this time, perhaps Jones' slow-burning style isn't that jarring. The idea of High Hopes Hospital being built on the land where once stood the Amityville House is curious – Amityville was a residential area, and this institute would appear to be in the centre of it, not that we are afforded any establishing exterior shots, or barely any outside shots at all – which is why I am never convinced we are actually anywhere near America at any point (we aren't – this was filmed in Wales).UK born Sophia Del Pizzo plays American Lisa, her accent sounding perfectly convincing to my equally UK ear – although American viewers may disagree. As is often the case with Jones' films, we care about his main character, so that when she begins to doubt her own sanity, we are wishing her well.Sadly, this isn't Jones' finest hour. Possibly because the link to Amityville is so tenuous, possibly because the coldly-lit slow-burning style isn't what we expect from an Amityville film, possibly because unfortunately it is a very plodding affair … all of these things together are never convincing and rarely frightening. Which is a shame, because the cast try hard, especially Pizzo and Daly, to inject some life into the proceedings."Get your hands up, you sick f***!" "I see we've dispensed with the usual pleasantries."

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InDyingArms

This film was unbelievable. I honestly can't even believe I fell for this garbage, my curiosity got the best of me, thanks to the title. I personally don't even know where to start with this, so allow me to start with the plot. Oh wait a minute, there seemed to be none. As far as I could tell from this film, the plot was a mixed around, confusing mess of random events just to consume running time. Even from what I could collect from the given "plot" it's still a very confusing mess of an idea. This girl decides to work in this asylum, but it's completely "haunted" due to it being built on the now torn down Amityville house? What!? From there on out, us as the audience are sitting back, watching as a load of confusing, extremely hard to follow mess is being thrown at our face. The characters in this film are so horribly clichéd, and so horribly boring, and unpleasing it's hard to even watch them deliver their lines. The characters themselves, we can't even really tell how, or what they even are due to they're underwhelming, depressing - like line delivery / acting itself. Some of they're deliveries don't even remotely make any sense, and go as far as angering the audience with they're horrible character choice making, if that. This movie gets even worse as it's supposed classification of horror just delivers itself as a very dull, very uneventful, boring, and just simply bad.I truly can't say anything else about this film. I realize it's on a micro-budget. But it's so horribly bad, and it tries so desperately to take itself seriously. But utterly fails, instead turning itself into a terrible, terrible film. It makes little, to no sense involving its plot, characters, scares, and overall storyline. The characters given are clichéd, boring, and even depressing. And overall, once again, involving it's needed elements, it just failed. And came out, even, ridiculous. I don't recommend this horrid, convoluted film under any circumstances, I truly can't.

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emmaward007

Looked really good, and scary from the cover, and description, but it was absolutely the worst movie i have ever seen in my life ! But it made me laugh, with the terrible acting, bad directing, and script was so bad... no more words can describe how bad this was, now i will burn it, and dance all over the ashes of this DVD... totally ripped off, i want my cash back, and the 2 hours i wasted of my life watching this terrible film, i wish that i had just watched Barney, or mickey mouse. I would rather someone set fire to me, and burn my eyeballs off than for me to have to sit and watch it again. As for the sound track, it was like a 2 year old in a school class room.

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Sam Winnard

The DVD case for this film looks eerie, dark and dingy building, grey sky, angry crows circling; the works, however none of these make it into the film. The plot is terrible, loosely pieced together and leaves a lot of unanswered questions, such as; why is an American actor doing an Eastern European accent all film. The plot is terrible but the acting is far worse, most low budget movies cast inexperienced actors which leads to some overacting, but most of the film is under acted and you grow to dislike the main character due to her monotone delivery of the script and her unconvincing and delayed facial expressions leaving you to have no empathy whatsoever when some anonymous person finally shoots her in the head. I actually managed to sit through the whole thing, the ending was obscure, the 'ghosts' never reappeared (or were explained) and her mother who was referred to throughout the film has no significance. It feels like the movie goes through a lot of clichés; asylum, history Of murder on the land, ghosts, psychopaths, young girl cleaning alone at night, satanic rituals, and just for the hell of it let's throw in the fact the asylum built on an ancient Indian burial ground. However, thanks to this film I now know you can get an 8 cylinder Hoover that is quiet enough to not wake someone while they're sleeping, all thanks to the 10 minute scene on cleaning products.

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