Director/Photography – Shawn C. Phillips, Screenplay – Julie Anne Prescott, Producers – Ron Bonk, Mem Ferda, Lauren Francesca & Shawn C. Phillips, Music – Toshi Hiroshima, Special Effects – Oliver Poser & Eric Yoder. Production Company – SRS Cinema.
Cast
Lauren Francesca (Karen), James Duval (Troy), Shawn C. Phillips (Alex), Derek Long (Dallas), Jennifer Nangle (Annie), Caleb Thomas (Kevin), Kyle Clarington (Hank), Lilith Stabs (Bianca), Craig Sapernoff (Gerald), Mike Ferguson (The Captain), Marc Pearce (Ivan), Ashleeann Cittell (Helen)
Plot
In Amityville, Karen is an officious compliance officer who terrorises those around her neighbourhood with petty complaints about rules or how offensive and disrespectful their behaviour is. She relishes the opportunity to shut down the winery of Dallas and Hank over minor infringements. The barman Troy gives her a bottle of the locally made wine to take home. Karen drinks the bottle that evening and, as she sleeps, has a dream where she sees a demonic figure that climbs up her bed. The next day, the possessed Karen sets out to a wine-tasting event and begins to slaughter all and sundry.
Amityville Karen comes from SRS Cinema, the production company of filmmaker Ron Bonk, director of films such as Clay (2007), Ms Cannibal Holocaust (2012), Empire State of the Dead (2016), She Kills (2016) and House Shark (2017). SRS Cinema also specialises in the production and distribution of low-budget horror and exploitation films, including titles such as Inbred Redneck Alien Abduction (2004), Satan’s Cannibal Holocaust (2007), Terror at Blood Fart Lake (2009) and Sharks of the Corn (2021), among others.
Amityville Karen is directed by Shawn C. Phillips who has over 230 credits as an actor since the late 2000s, most of them in low-budget genre fare such as this. Phillips directed a crapload of segments for horror anthologies such as Theatre of the Deranged (2012), Treasure Chest of Horrors (2012), Treasure Chest of Horrors II (2013), Dysmorphia (2014), 60 Seconds to Die (2017), 60 Seconds 2 Die (2018), Virus of the Dead (2018), Frames of Fear 3 (2020), Natasha Nighty’s Boudoir of Blood (2020). 60 Seconds to Di3 (2021), before making his directorial debut with Amityville Karen. He subsequently went on to make Amityville Shark House (2023), Woods Witch (2023) and Amityville Bigfoot (2024). In addition, he has made acting appearances in a number of other Amityville-titled films including Amityville Hex (2021), Amityville in the Hood (2021), Amityville Thanksgiving (2022), Amityville Frankenstein (2023), Amityville Webcam (2024) and Desert Fiends (2024).
There have been a mountain of titles that take the name Amityville ever since the hoax that began with the supposedly true-life book The Amityville Horror (1977) where claims were made that a family were driven out of a house after 28 days by supernatural forces. This was followed by a film based on the book with The Amityville Horror (1979), which proved a substantial hit, and was followed by several sequels and then numerous films bearing the Amityville name. Some of these Amityville films claim connection to the original, most just appropriate the name Amityville as something scary with a scanty nod to being set in the town or some such. (See bottom of the page for a full list of other Amityville films). It is abundantly obvious by the time that we get to Amityville Karen, as well as some of the other abovementioned Amityville titles that Shawn C. Phillips is associated with, that nobody is taking things seriously anymore.
Lauren Francesca as Karen
Karen was a term that emerged in the late 2010s via internet meme. It is the nickname given to a certain type of entitled white woman who is extremely self-centred, complains a great deal, has a willingness to bully people by calling the authorities and will split hairs over the slightest legal infringement. There is even supposedly an official Karen haircut.
Lauren Francesca, who emerged as a YouTube comedy star and has accrued quite a number of genre credits, gets right into the part and gives an incredibly abrasive and annoying performance – exactly what you expect a Karen to be. The film’s amusements are the ones with Lauren Francesca running around being awful to people, threatening to bring holy hell down for the slightest transgression and getting offended by everything. The film is somewhat less interesting when it actually has her possessed and going around killing people.
Amityville Karen is a cheaply made film – which was fairly much to be expected from the outset. All was apparently shot over the space of five days, while the locations simply look as though the filmmakers have been shot around people’s homes. With the exception of Lauren Francesca, the other performances are variable, while the sound recording is a little uneven in places. For some reason, the part that Shawn C. Phillips gives himself is that of a weirdly nerdy ugly creep. There are some occasional gore effects, although one where Craig Sapernoff has his intestines torn out looks incredibly fake. The film also reaches a very abrupt ending.
The other Amityville films consists of:- The Amityville Horror (1979), Amityville II: The Possession (1982), Amityville 3-D (1983) and Amityville: The Evil Escapes (1989). However, there have been a considerable number of other films also claiming connection – The Amityville Curse (1989), Amityville 1992: It’s About Time (1992), Amityville: A New Generation (1993), Amityville: Dollhouse (1996), The Amityville Haunting (2011), The Amityville Asylum (2013), Amityville Death House (2015), Amityville Playhouse (2015), The Amityville Legacy (2016), Amityville: No Escape (2016), Amityville Terror (2016), Amityville: Vanishing Point (2016), Amityville Exorcism (2017), Amityville: The Awakening (2017), The Amityville Murders (2018), Mt. Misery Road/Amityville: Mt. Misery Road (2018), The Dawn (2019), The Amityville Harvest (2020), Amityville Island (2020), Amityville Vibrator (2020), Witches of Amityville Academy (2020), Amityville Cop (2021), Amityville Cult (2021), Amityville Hex (2021), Amityville in the Hood (2021), The Amityville Moon (2021), Amityville Scarecrow (2021), The Amityville Exorcist (2022), Amityville in Space (2022), Amityville in Space (2022), Amityville Thanksgiving (2022), Amityville Emanuelle (2023), Amityville Shark House (2023), Amityville Bigfoot (2024) and Amityville Webcam (2024). The Amityville Horror (2005) was a remake of the original. There have been several documentaries Amityville 2000/The Amityville Horror: 25 Years Later (2000), The Real Amityville Horror (2005) and Amityville: The Final Testament (2010), which tried to examine what happened in the house, while the parapsychological investigation into the house is also featured in The Conjuring 2 (2016).
