Movie Review, Amusement:

I picked up another movie last night (yes I know I have a problem) called Amusement and I just have to say this movie was delightful. Now you must know that I usually never use the world delightful but when I use it to describe a movie then you know I loved it. A lot of people didn't like this movie but I did. Yes this movie had some parts in it that didn't explain certain things and it jumps from one scene to another that didn't piece together and that was the same with the dialogue in some scenes. Other then that I loved this movie, I loved the concept of the movie, the dark and twisted-ness of it and the villain. Oh the villain mmmhmmm I love me the bad boys. The movie starts out showing pictures of three young girls Tabitha, Shelby and Lisa all elementary school age then pictures of them being teenagers in their high school year book with it saying "most likely to succeed", "most likely to shine" and "most likely to be famous." After that it shows pictures of a boy with case files saying he's very dangerous and he's emotionally disturbed. It switches to Shelby and her boyfriend Rob driving down the highway with Rob starting a convoy with the other cars on the road. They pull up to the gas station at the nearest exit to fill up and to meet each other. Rob heads into the gas station while Shelby waits in the car, she looks at the big truck parked next to her and she sees a girl in the window and confused at how the girl is acting. They get back on the road and she sees the girl put a note on the window then throws it out the window and it gets caught on the windshield of Shelby's car and the note reads "Help Me" the girl suddenly comes flying out of the truck hitting their car and lands on the ground. They hurry and stop to run and help the girl and the guy driving behind them stops and yells out to Rob telling him to go and get the truck driver's plates. Rob heads off but ends up losing the truck driver so he stops and gets out of his car to look around and then the guy flips on his lights and starts driving away. Rob jumps in his car and drives back to where Shelby was and finds the other guy laying on the floor beaten up with Shelby and the other girl missing.

He tells Rob that the truck driver came back and took the girls away. He said he went to that old abandoned house up above the road. He tells Rob to wait out here while he goes in to look for the girls. It shows the truck driver talking on the phone saying that he was bringing the girl to rehab. What I don't get is if he was really taking her to rehab why would she call for help and jump out of the truck while it was moving? Suddenly the truck diver gets hit over the head with a baseball bat from the other guy and Rob back in the car hears noises coming from the back seat and he pulls the blanket off and sees the girls sitting there tied up. The other guy walks out of the house with the baseball bat laughing while Shelby is freaking out. He breaks open the window and grabs Rob saying he picked the wrong convoy. I'm still confused about the whole truck driver and the girl, they didn't really piece that together very well. It then shows Tabitha getting her suitcase out of her car and heading into her Aunt's house since she was spending a couple of days there. Her cousins inform her that their babysitter already left so she gets them ready for bed when the doorbell rings. She heads over and says hello to the guy outside of the door, apparently he was the boyfriend of the babysitter and she didn't show up to cheer leading practice so he's worried about her. Tabitha gets the kids in bed and she heads off to the guest bedroom where there's a creepy looking clown sitting in the rocking chair. If that was me I wouldn't be able to sleep in that room. She lays down then the phone rings and it's her aunt checking up on them Tabitha tells her aunt that the clown in her room is really creepy and she hates it so her aunt ask which one is it now. It looks like they have a lot of clowns in their house, she describes the clown and her aunt tells her that they don't have a clown like that so Tabitha freaks out cause the clown isn't sitting in the chair anymore. That's just like that urban legend of the clown, it looks like a lot of movies are coming from urban legends.

Tabitha runs into her cousins room and locks the door and tells the boys to wake up, they tell her that he just wants to have some fun and he was the guy who came to the door earlier. The evil guy shoves some weird knife thingy threw the door so she tells them to climb out the window and run and get help. He breaks threw the door while Tabitha is climbing outside the window and she falls onto the ground. She runs to the shed and looks for things to protect herself, she opens one of the cabinet doors and the babysitters dead body falls on top of Tabitha knocking her down to the ground. The evil clown guys runs into the shed laughing all creepy like and holds up his knife weapon like he's going to kill her. After that it shows Tabitha in the police department, the cop ask her if there is anyone that would want to hurt her or if she remembers what the man who attacked her looked like. Tabitha doesn't speak so he storms off then the trauma counselor comes into the room to ask her questions. The questions she ask Tabitha triggers flashbacks from when she was in elementary school. It's show n'tell at Briar Hills Elementary and a group of friends show each other what they brought to school. They have to make their show n' tell project in a box with a hole so you can look inside and see what it is. The little boy looked in all of his friends boxes. Tabitha's box was an amusement park with clowns, Shelby's was the highway with trees and a sports car, and Lisa's was a sleep over with all her friends. Tabitha tells the boy that she wants to see what he made so she looks in and gets upset and glares at him. Then he says "It's funny... right?" Tabitha cries out "No. It isn't!." Later it shows him looking into his box smiling and it shows a mouse strapped up in wires pulling it's arms and legs apart with it's stomach cut open showing his insides. After that the trauma counselor asks Tabitha about her friend Lisa then it switches to her "story" Lisa and her friend Cat are at the bar checking out some guy that just moved into town who's staying at a really ghetto hotel. Cat goes out with the guy and never comes home that night so the next day when she's still not home Lisa heads over to the hotel with her boyfriend to see where she is. The hotel attendant wont let Lisa in since all the beds are full so he shuts the peep whole. Lisa's boyfriend gets in to see if he can find Cat but never comes out so after 3 hours of Lisa being alone she sneaks into the hotel and finds a deaf guy sitting on the bed. She tries to explain to him what's going on but he doesn't know where anyone is and he tells her that the guy who runs the hotel wont let them leave. He grabs her and tells her to hide so he wont find her so she's laying on the bed and sees a figure of a face showing through the sheets, she freaks out and jumps off the bed then takes off the covers to find that her friend is chained up inside the bed, then Lisa gets trapped inside the hotel.

It switches back to Tabitha in the police department and the counselor asks her about her friends Shelby and Lisa and she informs her she hasn't seen them since Briar Hills and the counselor tells her that she had a patient a few years ago who went to Briar Hills and he had the most distinctive laugh. She also tells her that she and her friends were found in separate cells in some old building. The counselor leaves to make a phone call and Tabitha freaks out then the door opens so she's able to leave the room. She runs out of the room and it looks to be like she's in some weird building that apparently she was found in cause that sure doesn't look like the police department. That's one of the things I had a problem with was it shows her in a room that looks like she's in the police department but when she leaves it looks like she's in some boiler room. She sees someone laying on the floor so the cop who was talking to her earlier walks up shining his flash light and bends down to look at the body on the ground and it's the counselor dead. The cop starts laughing this creepy evil laugh so Tabitha runs off screaming and he chases her down to where she gets to a room and he locks her in it. The lights turn on and it shows Lisa on her left side and Shelby on her right side chained up with their arms and legs spread apart and their stomachs cut open showing their insides, just like that little mouse when they were kids. The guy we'll call him the "laugh" since he doesn't have a name in the movie, so The Laugh goes up to Shelby with a knife pointing to her stomach like he's going to cut her then he looks at Tabitha, smiles then says "It's funny... right?" that's when she realizes who he is then he rips off the body suit that makes it look like their stomach is cut open. He goes to stab Shelby's real stomach and Tabitha starts to laugh so he walks over to her and they just laugh their little heads off and he opens the sliding glass door to let Tabitha out so she climbs out still laughing then she stabs him in the neck and runs to help Lisa and Shelby. They run out of the room and Lisa gets stabbed by The Laugh and Tabitha and Shelby run off trying to climb up a ladder to escape the building and he runs after them and climbs up, grabs Shelby's leg and pulls her down but she grabs onto him which pulls him down as well and they fall to the ground. Shelby dies but The Laugh survives of course and Tabitha runs in a "room" which ends up being a truck and they drive away but the truck stops driving and wont start back up again then The Laugh opens up the peep hole to look inside and which is where Tabitha grabs his knife weapon thingy that he used when he was dressed up as a clown and she shoves it through the door and it goes through his head and kills him and Tabitha says "Now that was funny." She drives away and the voice over at the end explains that the joke when they were little crossed the line which they made fun of him and he was sent away and they all forgot about him but he didn't forget about them and now Tabitha can't get his laugh out of her head.

Now that's why you don't make fun of other people cause you don't know if their slightly off their rocker and you making fun of them is just the tip of the ice burg to send them over the edge. Growing up in school I didn't tease or bully or make fun of the other kids cause they were weird in fact I was the one who was teased by the other kids cause I wore hearing aides and I needed to get special treatment from the teachers since I couldn't hear them. Now I'm not saying I'm just like The Laugh cause I'm not messed up in the head well not that messed up and I'm not going around trying to seek revenge on the people who teased me cause to be honest there's just too many of them that I don't have the time and effort to go through all that hassle lol. I really, really liked this movie cause it's dark and twisted and creepy and the villain is my favorite part of the movie cause his laugh is just a pleasant thing to hear and I would love to listen to that all day (yeah I know I'm weird) I understand that this movie could of been done a lot better and it was a B movie and it shows that with the special effects and acting but besides that and the things I mentioned above this movie is still pretty good. The concept of the movie, the darkness of it, the twisted side and shows what could really happen if you tease and bully other kids and you take it too far. Like I said before give peace a chance man! I love this movie and I definitely recommend it to everyone who likes B horror movies cause it's just delightful. I give this movie 4 1/2 out of 5 Skulls.

"It's funny... right?" - The Laugh