Horror Movie Review: Amityville Vampire (2021)

Here we go again… it’s another ‘direct-to-video’ horror flick that tacks on the Amityville name in the hope of convincing some gullible people that it is in some way connected to the original horror of 112 Ocean Avenue.

It’s not. It’s got nothing to do with the real-life or purported demonic shenanigans that surround the infamous house. You know it, we know it, everyone knows it at this stage. Yet, the first few minutes will stop most in their tracks as we actually see the house. Not only that, we go inside where a cleaning crew get into some bother when one of their own is possessed and turned into a vampire.

Momentarily, it looks like Amityville Vampire might be trying to do something with the Amityville name. It’s an intriguing prologue, yet it means nothing as to the surprise of nobody, the rest of the movie has absolutely nothing to do with the house. It feels extremely tacked on which makes sense when you see that it went under the name of ‘Red Moon Lake’. Before someone thought there was still money to be made with the Amityville name.

Written by Carlos Perez and directed by Tim Vigil, the actual story of this film is now introduced. We first meet Lillith (Jin N. Tonic), a vampire, who kills off some hapless campers before being introduced to Johnny (Anthony Dearce) and Fran (Miranda Melhado) who are boyfriend and girlfriend. They are going off to the woods for the weekend and on the way, Johnny regals Fran with some stories.

Two stories in fact, both related to Lillth. One that has her in the role of a wealthy businesswoman aiming to feed upon her depressed employee. The other, which has her taking advantage of a man when he is at his most desperate. Both are all about showing Lillith’s power and to be fair, they do that well.

Once the stories are out of the way, it’s all about Johnny and Fran. Who then run into trouble when they get attacked by a psychotic pair of men. Unknown to them all though, Lillith is nearby and is looking forward to a feeding frenzy.

If you’re thinking that this sounds like such a mess of a movie, you would be right. The script is all over the place and lacks coherency. Ignoring the Amityville part of the name, the vampiric side of this film is seriously lacking. If that wasn’t bad enough, it’s incredibly dialogue heavy and the acting is not up to par. Throw in some shoddy effects and lack of inspiring gore, and what you have is a very amateurish film.

That it is around 90 minutes long, makes it all the more painful to watch. It wouldn’t necessarily have been more enjoyable if it had 15 or 20 minutes shaved off it but it would have been shorter.

It’s just another film in a long line of films that has nothing going for it and only gets a bit of attention because it has the Amityville name slapped on it. As a horror film, it’s terrible but when judged as part of the Amityville ‘series’ it’s just bad. High praise when you consider how many films with the Amityville name are considered the absolute worst.