After having its theatrical release plans scrapped and sitting on the shelf for almost two years, Amusement finally worms its way onto DVD with little to no fanfare. The sad thing is, it's not that hard to figure out why. In the hands of screenwriter Jake Wade Wall (The Hitcher and When A Stranger Calls remakes) it's a muddled mess that attempts to gather together various characters/situations into a cohesive conclusion and stumbles about in order to get to that point. It's a technically well-directed movie and it does have a few things about it I liked but we never really get a real sense of "why" and "how" things are happening and the movie's flow stinks.

Things open with Shelby (Laura Breckenridge) who's on a road trip home after a weekend away with her boyfriend. There's a bunch of talk about convoys and how if they follow the driver of a big rig they'll get home quicker because truckers know all the shortcuts. But, if you've seen any sort of thriller involving eighteen-wheelers in the past, they're also generally nutty which is proven when a mysterious girl shows up in the back window of the cab they're drifting behind holding a "help me" sign. Things escalate from there, Shelby's boyfriend does a couple of dumb (scripted) things, and Shelby ends-up being taken hostage.

Tabitha (Katheryn Winnick) is next and thrown into the typical "babysitter in peril" set-up as an evening looking after some young children (who are pretty lousy child actors) goes horribly awry when it turns out the life-size clown doll, which is featured prominently on all the marketing materials for this movie, isn't what it seems. Yeah, it's not a doll at all, but a giggling psychopath out to get her. While the evil clown imagery is pretty overused, I found the mask to be mildly creepy and the sequence felt like a mildly watchable slasher movie. It's also happens to be the best part of the entire film.

Our last victim is Lisa (Jessica Lucas), whose roommate has gone missing with the trail leading to a hotel within a spooky old mansion. Some weirdo wearing an apron, gloves, and a mask answers the door - and nobody even bats a frigging eye! Not long afterwards, the search leads to Lisa being kidnapped like the two girls before them as Wall attempts to tie it all together by throwing in a brief flashback that shows our three girls back in grade school being bullies towards a jokester classmate and his science project - which is basically a rat pinned down with it's innards exposed.

From here Amusement sputters its way to the finale as the girls fight for their lives against "The Laugh" (Keir O'Donnell), who enjoys torturing them with demented games while laughing heavily an (unfortunately) constantly. O'Donnell's not that great as our psycho and the character's penchant for laughing uncontrollably reminded me of Larry Drake in 1992's Dr. Giggles - a movie that wasn't great but at least played things for, excuse the pun, "yucks". Even the little bit of gore the movie trots out in the finale, such as pulled open chest cavities, didn't do a heck of a lot for me.

Despite being directed reasonably well by John Simpson and getting generally acceptable performances from our three female leads, Amusement simply falls apart due to being badly written. It's hard to make a movie that ties together seemingly unrelated stories and Wall certainly isn't a strong enough writer to pull it off. This is a guy whose only other screenwriting credits are remakes and the upcoming video game adaptation, Clock Tower, so we can't really expect much, but judging from this attempt at an "original" idea perhaps it's better if he sticks to being a rehash artist. (Chris Hartley, 6/6/09)

Directed By: John Simpson.
Written By: Jake Wade Wall.

Starring: Keir O'Donnell, Katheryn Winnick, Laura Breckenridge, Jessica Lucas.

Picture Ratio: 2.40:1 Widescreen (Full Frame version also included).

Picture Quality: The transfer here suffers from a few jagged lines at times but it's a clean print and handles the multiple scenes of nighttime rather well. It does get a little grainy during the scene set in a cell but this generally looks decent.

Extras: Nothing at all. Even more proof this was just dumped into video stores to try and make back some of Picturehouse/Warner's investment.