Sequel ‘Amityville VR’ Expands Upon the World of ‘Amityville AI’ [The Amityville IP]

For more than two years, Joe Lipsett has dissected Amityville Horror films to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”

To say that I was going into Amityville VR with trepidation after the failure of its predecessor, Amityville AI, is something of an understatement. After all, the first film struggled to even understand its own title, so what fresh hell would a foray into VR entail?

Well, colour me surprised because while VR isn’t suddenly topping my “under seen and under appreciated” list of horror titles, it is a far more interesting and watchable film than AI.

Both films hail from director Matt Jaissle and follow software developer Stuart Birdsall (William Childress), but the sequel dramatically cuts down on the latter’s presence. In the world of the films, some time has passed since the events of AI; in the interim the nefarious homicidal program has shut down all government computers and networks, essentially dooming humanity to a (mostly off-screen) dystopia.

Birdsall is abducted by two federal agents (one played by Jim Bunny Bundshuh; the other by Jaissle himself) who insist on plugging Birdsall into a simulated virtual reality world to defeat The Demon Queen (Amanda Foster), who is the embodiment of the computer threat. The result requires Birdsall to wander through countless heightened reality environments such as cornfields, woods, and suburban houses decorated with Halloween decorations.

The strength of shifting the narrative to VR is that, outside of the moments set in reality, the majority of the film is presented from the character’s POV. This plays more like a first-person video game, and simultaneously eliminates one of AI’s biggest issues by taking away most of Childress’ time on screen.

It should be noted that due to the bare bones budget, Amityville VR isn’t the most exciting film. The logistics of the VR world, and by extension the script, barely make any sense (in case you were wondering: Jaissle’s second Amityville film appears to understand VR only slightly better than its predecessor understood AI).

In some ways, it hardly matters, though. In AI, the film was set in a modern, tech-savvy world that the production design and art department couldn’t deliver in a believable way. In VR, if the world looks a little wonky or the “VR game” lacks structure or rules, it kinda works to support both the world and the character.

VR doesn’t actually always look real; in fact, sometimes it even looks shoddy. As for the film’s tendency to fall into languid and repetitive story beats, it can be read (perhaps generously) as a reflection of Birdsall’s uncertainty about what he’s doing.

The character is trying to 1) figure out and 2) conquer this world (under duress, no less!), so it’s understandable that he spends significant periods of time wandering around aimlessly, exploring the world and dodging the Demon Queen or her minions. It’s not always super exciting, but at least in this movie it makes a bit more sense.

The Amityville IP Awards go to…

• Villainess: Foster’s performance is never threatening, though it is often knowingly campy and occasionally even veers into sultry. There’s something intriguing about the Demon Queen’s provocations of Birdsall (and, by virtue of the way the movie is filmed, us) and it’s a fun decision to stage the climax as a game of chess rather than attempt to mount it with FX that VR can’t afford.
• Bland Feds: Arguably the weakest parts of the film are the “real life” scenes in which the Feds harass and even beat Birdsall. These are set in a generic grey warehouse/bunker with no personality; it’s meant to embody a society and a government on the brink of collapse, but between the repetitive dialogue and the not great acting from Bundshuh, Jaissle and Childress, these parts of the film drag.
• Johnny Part 2: In Amityville AI, Birdsall had a wooded encounter with a sack-wearing killer. The same guy appears in the VR, though this time his mask is ripped off to reveal a creature with an upside down cross on his forehead. It’s not exactly clear who this villain is meant to be, though; it mostly just plays like a generic creature design.
• Vicki? Speaking of callbacks to the first film, Birdsall’s wife Vicki (Laura Schubring) briefly appears in the VR world to threaten him/us with a knife. Between this and the return of the Johnny creature, there’s a potentially intriguing idea that the VR world is informed, at least partially, by users’ fears and memories. This isn’t really explored, though.
• Tim: Birdsall isn’t alone in the VR environment because there’s a “friendly” character named Tim whose avatar is a dollar store skeleton. We’re told he’s actually “a short Jewish guy from Queens” (the actor never appears on screen), but Tim provides both comedic relief and support for Birdsall that was welcome.

Next time: I haven’t forgotten about the second secret Amityville, but there’s one more regular film to cover off as Mark Polonia returns for a fifth (!) entry with the Western Once Upon A Time in Amityville (2024). If you want to revisit his previous entries, they include: Amityville Death House, Amityville Island, Amityville Exorcism, and Amityville in Space.

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