Amusement

Plot synopsis:
During the opening credits, pictures of three girls when they were children, as adolescent, and as young adult are shown. The girls are Tabitha "Tabby" Wright, Lisa Swan, and Shelby Leds. These girls have great potential — "to succeed, be famous and shine" respectively — according to their senior class yearbooks. It also shows a young unnamed boy who is very psychologically disturbed as it clearly states in his psychiatric report, and that he is extremely dangerous and currently detained.
=== Shelby ===
Shelby and her boyfriend Rob are on the highway headed to Cincinnati, Ohio. On the way there, they join a convoy of vehicles, consisting of a semitruck and a Jeep. The convoy decides to pull over for gas. Rob then meets the drivers of the two vehicles. The driver of the semi tells them that the highway ahead has bad traffic and he can show them an alternate route. While in the car, Shelby sees a frightened woman in the window of the semi.
After they are on the road again, Shelby sees the same girl. A piece of paper flies from the semi, hitting their windshield. It says, "Help Me". Moments later, the girl jumps from the semi and lands on their car. The semi continues to drive as Rob, Shelby and the driver of the Jeep stop to help the girl.
Rob gets back in his car and chases the semi to get his plates at the demands of Shelby. The driver soon ends up cornering Rob and then taking off back down the hill. When Rob gets back to where the others are, the girls are gone and so is the semi. The driver of the Jeep says that he took them. Both men get in the Jeep and track the semi to an old house. When they arrive, the driver of the Jeep says he wants to try to stop the semi driver first. He moves to the front of the house, concealing himself behind the screen door as the semi driver talks to someone over the phone.
Meanwhile, Rob waits in the Jeep. He hears a noise and finds a CB-radio in the center console. Upon hearing another noise in the back seat, he turns and sees movement under a tarp. He removes the tarp only to find the two women bound and gagged.
The semi driver notices the car and comes outside. The Jeep driver then attacks and kills him by smashing his skull with a sledgehammer. Rob tries to drive away in a panic as the man approaches maniacally laughing. To Rob's horror, the driver of the Jeep holds up the keys outside his window. He then breaks open the window with his sledgehammer and attacks Rob. The fate of everyone in the car is left unknown, as is the explanation for the woman from the semi's plea for help.
=== Tabitha ===
Tabitha is in front of a big house, later revealed as her aunt's. She goes in and finds her two cousins, Max and Danny, completely alone. She asks the boys where the babysitter, named June, is and they say that she had already left. Later that evening, once the boys are in bed, Tabitha hears a knock on the door. Looking through the eyehole, she sees an anonymous figure in a hooded raincoat. She opens the door and inquires as to who he is. The figure tells her that he is the babysitter's boyfriend, Owen. He's very worried as she missed cheerleading practice. Tabitha admits that the babysitter had already left, but that she knows nothing else. Owen leaves.
After that, Tabitha goes into the guest bedroom upstairs and sees that the entire room is decorated with clown toys. One doll in particular scares her, a life-sized one sitting in the rocking chair. Her feeling of unease only intensifies as the television turns on without warning and the remote is in the clown's lap. She goes to bed, but the thunderstorm wakes her up.
Still spooked by the clown, she turns around and faces her head away from it. Unbeknownst to her, the clown's head turns to see her. Later, the phone rings. Tabitha walks to answer, not knowing that the clown had been watching her all along. The caller is her aunt, checking on the children. Tabitha assures that every thing is fine and compliments her on her new house. She does however express anxiety at the clown in her room. When her aunt asks which one, Tabitha says, "The one bigger than me". Behind her, the clown rises and walks towards her.
On the phone, her aunt says that she has no such doll. Tabitha panics and drops the phone, turning around to see the rocking chair empty. Terrified, she slips into the boys room and locks it. Tabitha whispers to wake up and hide, as a very bad man is in the house. The boys say that it is just Owen wanting to play, only increasing her terror.
After the older boy says that Owen just wants to have fun, triple-blade spikes go through the door several times, missing Tabitha by inches. She pulls their dresser against the door and gets the boys out by the window, telling them to go to their neighbor's house and get help. The clown breaks the dresser and reaches out for Tabitha. She throws a lamp at him and climbs out of the window. Only moments later, the clown stands and attempts to stab her hand.
Tabitha falls down and runs to the shed. Opening a closet, she finds the corpse of June, the babysitter. The dead body falls and pins her down. Soon after, the clown enters the room laughing with a knife. His laugh is eerily similar to the Jeep driver's. The scene blacks.
=== Interrogation and flashback ===
Soon after the clown scene ends, the scene cuts to Tabitha in a police interrogation room. She appears disoriented and in shock. An FBI agent questions her about her attacker. In her shock, she doesn't answer any of his questions. He soon leaves.
Tabitha then starts having flashbacks of her and her friends when they were children. The scene cuts to Lisa, Shelby, Tabitha and the boy from the opening credits standing in front of a school. The kids are showing off their shoebox dioramas, each with a peephole. Each girl's art is artistically different. The little boy with them wants to see all of their boxes and refuses to show them his until then.
Tabitha's is a circus, Shelby's is a farm, and Lisa's is a sleepover with three dolls. The boy calls each one boring and as he looks at each one, calls it worse than the last. The young Tabitha then looks at the boy's art, and recoils in shock and horror. The boy, however, smiles and states, "It's funny, right?" To which she replies, "No...it isn't."
The camera cuts to the school's name, revealed to be Briar Hills Elementary. When it cuts back to the children, all three girls are gone. The little boy smiles and looks into his box. Inside is a chained-up rat with its skin pulled back to reveal its organs. It becomes obvious that the boy is disturbed.
=== Lisa ===
Lisa is with her boyfriend Dan looking for her roommate, Cat, who had disappeared the night before. They go to an old hotel that Cat said she will be at. Lisa tries to get in but fails. She then goes to Dan and asks if he can make up something to get in. Dan knocks on the door and, when the male occupant responds, claims to be a health inspector. He then goes in the place and finds a music player. The man says that there is a surprise in the end, which is a knife flying out of the speakers, stabbing him in the eye.
After dark and many unanswered calls, Lisa impatiently sneaks in the house and goes in a room with beds. She meets a man, apparently deaf, who appears to help her. She finds dead bodies confined in the beds, and her friend Cat, who is still alive. While trying to free Cat, the deaf man turns out to be the killer and subdues her.
=== The Briar Hills Connection: The Final Confrontation ===
Back at the police station, Tabitha is being grilled by a therapist who asks her about her friend Shelby. Tabitha says that they were all good friends at school but have not met in years. Tabitha seemed puzzled and asks how she knows about her hometown of Briar Hills. She tells Tabby about a young boy she had as a patient. Before she walks out of the room, she tells Tabitha that Lisa and Shelby are also here, and to sit tight because she will be back after she finds "a phone that works." The therapist has an uneasy feeling and quickly leaves the room. The door opens and shuts. Tabitha, still puzzled and scared, walks out of the room after opening the unlocked door and soon understands why the therapist left in a hurry. It turns out they are not at the police station after all and at the end of the hallway she sees the therapist lying on the floor. She goes to the body and then sees the officer approaching. Tabitha realizes he's not a cop when he begins his trademark maniac laugh - he is the killer.
The killer chases her around and down the basement. Eventually Tabby is trapped and pinned in between two glass walls. When the lights come on behind, Tabby sees Lisa and then Shelby, both chained up and their skins open. The killer comes in, initially taunting them all but then shows Tabitha that the two girls are virtually unharmed, and that their 'opened-skin' is a trick. Realizing now, he will harm Shelby for real, she pretends to laugh. As he comes to her, Tabitha stabs him in the neck with a scalpel she had hidden in her hand. Eventually she is able to help her friends break free.
They try to make a run together but the killer stabs Lisa when she opens the wrong door. Tabitha and Shelby run away. They begin climbing a ladder with the killer in pursuit. He climbs up behind them and grabs hold of Shelby's ankle. Both fall down to the basement floor. Tabitha continues to climb, saddened by what she saw. Once at ground level, she is caged. Soon an elevator comes on and she realizes the killer is coming up. She hides in what she thinks is a closet. She finds the clown mask, costume, and the dead bodies of other people the killer had murdered for making fun of him when he was a child, each with their initials carved in their skulls. The killer surprises her as he looks through the peep hole and locks her in the room. She realizes she's in the back of a truck. The truck does not make it far from the house (which is the same house from the beginning of the movie). Tabitha takes hold one of the spiked handles and waits. Taking a last look, he laughs while looking through the peep hole again. Tabitha stabs him through the face, killing him and remarking: "Now that was funny."
The truck drives away, with Tabitha talking about how she and her friends had laughed at him when they were kids, thinking that he was a joke. And that after he was sent away, they had forgotten him — but he never forgot them. The film ends with her remarking that even though it's all over, she still cannot get his laugh out of her head. And his laugh is heard, again.

Tags: revenge, cruelty, murder, violence, flashback

Review:
I wasn't amused with "Amusement".The laughable synopsis on the cover goes like that: Tabitha,Shelby and Lisa.They're longtime friends on separate life paths.But they share a horrific destination when a seemingly innocent incident from their school days comes back to terrify them.Someone wants payback:warped vengeance...mind-games vengeance...taunting,shredding,slashing vengeance.Inside a stone-walled chamber of prison cells and mechanisms of doom,the three women and other victims face a fierce fight to survive."Amusement" is terrible.With dumb plot and zero scares it offers nothing even remotely interesting even for seasoned horror fan.The killer is an underdeveloped cliché with truly annoying laugh.There is only one effectively creepy scene in which the emerging female lead is confronted with a room stuffed with dolls and clowns.The violence is tame so gorehounds and slasher fans will be disappointed.4 out of 10..
Sure, visually the movie looks nice and like most people mentioned the Clown Segment is pretty creepy...
but we need a psychologist in there plus some unexpected twist and a moral ending to at least make it look smart on first sight.Phew...things build up, the whole reason for the movie title is unfolded and pretty meaningless, the characters get killed in most uninspired ways possible, the flashbacks are clumsy and don't explain much and we never learn why people are sown into mattresses or crazy guy has a fetish for pulling living things open.
in the first scene, when the "amusement" guy is sneaking up on the "bad" man talking in the house, why would the truck driver (the one on the phone) be inside the house because for one thing, it's not his.
And two, later on we find out it's the "amusement" guys house (i'm sorry if i'm not making sense with the "amusement"/"bad" guy titles but the movie wasn't significant enough for me to remember their names.
Later on, there's a therapist who's interviewing the blonde girl, and in the middle of the interview she discovers (the therapist) that shes in the trap of one of her old patients (the "amusement" guy) she tries to escape but is killed, but how could she not know that she wasn't in an FBI station when there's a maze of pathways to get out, some of which lead to dangerous situations.
Also, as noted by other reviewers, the characters were totally one dimensional, surfacey, and straight up archetypes completely lacking in any development, depth, or uniqueness.To me, it seems like a really bad indie film that somehow got a lot of funding and made it into DVD market.
I feel like I can't really make any comment on the acting because, honestly, I can't imagine any actors or actresses who would be able to give this film the animation and depth that it so sorely lacks.In short, save your money and your time, and don't see it..
This instantly forgettable piece of generic, modern horror sees a giggling psycho (known as The Laugh) wreaking revenge on three beautiful young women who, years before, failed to find his school project—a diorama featuring a mutilated rat—as amusing as he had hoped.The film opens in an innovative enough manner, with each girl's abduction being shown as a 'story within a story', but soon descends into mediocrity as the focus of the plot becomes the standard woman in peril garbage that we have seen countless times before.
To make matters worse, director John Simpson's visuals suffer from the grimy 'torture porn' look and feel that is all the rage these days, and Jake Wade Wall's script is packed with so many plot holes, clichés, and dumb characters that taking the film seriously is very hard indeed.Admittedly, Simpson does manage to create quite a bit of tense atmosphere during one effective section of the film involving a room full of creepy toy clowns, but the premise is hardly original, and one does have to question how a killer in a creepy clown costume can enter a house completely unnoticed.Thank heavens for the presence of hottie Katheryn Winnick (the lovely renaissance slut from Satan's Little Helper) as lead victim Tabitha, for without her as diverting eye-candy, Amusement would have been a whole lot more difficult to endure..
Here's the thing,If you give this movie a low rating, you haven't seen more than 90% of the low-budget horror movies that get released these days."Amusement" script is pretty hollow, but the cinematography, the photography, the ambiance and some of the acting make up for the lack of a strong story.There are some good frightening moments, and the tension is there from beginning to end.If you like slashers with some suspense do give it a go.Besides, there's a killer clown in it, and that alone makes it worth the watch..
O.k., there are a lot of plot holes, the movie is way too short and it could have been a lot better with a better scenario, but there are a few very good scenes, especially the scene with the clown...
I suppose a deranged killer can have a lot of disposable income, but you just don't imagine him spending it all on an apparent one time event.Again, it's easy to pick apart the missing pieces of this film, but while I was watching it I felt it was nicely done and well worth my time..
I began to have my doubts about Amusement when I caught site of the actress who starred in that boring piece of garbage, Hit And Run. My fears were unfounded, for I thought this was actually pretty good.I think it did a good job of pacing the action and suspense and keeping things interesting by showing the viewer a series of seemingly random attacks by apparently various madmen and asking the less lazy among us to try to piece it together.The movie's twists are amusing but not altogether surprising.
The Story is Bad. I don't know who John Simpson is but the direction in this movie is as good as any mainstream, Hollywood, big budget thriller.
Instead it's something that he himself is responsible for and showed that he was really creepy even back then.And you'd think that the image of the clown on the front cover would play a part in all parts of this movie but it doesn't.
For this movie that's exactly what is dealt with to some degree, although it's not done well.The story focuses on three friends, Tabitha (Katheryn Winnick), Lisa (Jessica Lucas) and Shelby (Laura Breckenridge).
Mixed Bag. I didn't know what expect from this.I thought it was decent movie, I liked some of the sub plots of it.And they all come together.I liked the start of, when a young couple Drive and there twist and turns in those scenes, which really surprised me at the time.Liked scene with Clown , thought it was so-what creepy but very predicable.The rest of it, I can't remember much, only watched last night, Some parts of the movie are very forgettable.The acting was decent, compare to the last movie I saw.5 our of 10.
After stopping at a petrol station you are introduced to a couple of the members of the convoy, one is a trucker and the other a dad of three (or so you think) as with most horror movies you come to think straight away that you know who the killer is as at the beginning all the signs point to the trucker in the convoy, but you are very much surprised.
And her childhood friend and her boyfriend on they way back from a club her room mate goes missing so they try to find the guy who she went home with, so end up going to this creepy looking hostel.
It has some very interesting twists and turns, I have to admit that in some places this film can become a bit predictable but I always except that with any horror film really but the plot really makes up for this as at some point you start to think ' hold on a minute what's going on??'.
I've seen a lot of horror films and, while amusement has its problems, it's much better than the low/no budget fare of the 1980s and a great deal better than the endless stream of 'Scream' clones that have been flooding the theaters since the late 90s.Although the acting and dialogue aren't great, they're both better than what I've seen in most horror movies of recent vintage.
I've absolutely seen far worse acting and goofier dialogue in horror films that have achieved some sizeable following (most of the old Nightmare on Elm Street sequels, for example).The only truly notable pitfalls of Amusement are the multiple plot holes that plague the film and the fact that the director gives away the 'twist' ending far too early for it to be considered a 'twist' ending.
And this movie does'nt deserve to go direct to video.It is much better then that.If u following movies for quite some time then u must see the difference between a b grade movie and this great flick.One thing i think u must say after watching this movie that u don't waste your money.I recommend it go for it.Its really fun..
There wasn't many plot holes, the acting was pretty good and the 'clichés' people complain about are about as cliché as cop movie containing cops and guns, not really clichés but more like necessary genre devices.In my opinion, before claiming there is an abundance of plot holes and inconsistencies, one should first pay close attention to the movie before making incorrect statements, otherwise, one might look like a twit.
I conpletely grasped everything that is going on; i had no issues understanding what so ever.The story was original and the sequence in which the events unfolded was different than most linear horror movies.
In all, the film was well put together and worth a watch, just pay attention.I was kind of hesitant watching the movie due to the excessive poor reviews I read here but I learned a long time ago to pay little attention to what other IMDb users say.
The acting was pretty good and the clown was really creepy as many other reviews have stated.
Despite some pretty bad reviews, I actually strangely liked this movie.
You'll enjoy the actual stories of each of the girls in the beginning more so then the conclusion.It's sort of like watching 3 different horror films, all boxed up and wrapped up neatly with a bow.
This is more so a creepy "What if this was real?"rather than a "Jump out of your seat." sort or horror.The acting was lacking, but it wasn't enough to make me stop the film or think less of the movie as a whole.
I would have watched a sequel just to see how far it can go in the story line.Overall, pretty good and worth a watch if you're a horror film lover..
Amusement is an original, sleek and fresh breath of air in this particular genre of horror.The director has to be commended for such good lighting work and choice of backgrounds, it felt like watching a comic book come to life the way shots were angled and so colourfully put together.
There's a great cast of fresh faces whom (unlike the conventional method of over reacting to a paper cut) act out situations the same way a normal person would react to them.There were a lot of good twists in this movie that really kept you guessing, inter-weaved plots and climactic chapters of events make this picture worth seeing again and again to figure out just what the hell is going on!
Soundtrack was brilliant and a few hints of dark comedy really made this a worthwhile watch.I'm surprised at how low this film was rated (its like there's a whole nation of 10 year old's with IMDb accounts who have just enough muscle spasm issues to keep 1 starring whatever new feature pops up on here).Conclusion?
I am a giant fan of horror films and I can over look bad acting or plot holes in movies that I truly enjoy...that being said amusement is one of those films that if you think to hard the movie completely falls apart.
the film begins with a couple taking part of a three car convoy but things take a turn for the worst when the three cars stop for gas and one of the couples notices a terrified girl looking out of the big rigs window.
I would like to have seen more blood through out and he missed something that just about all good horror films have, boobs.
Amusement is a movie that I've had on my list for quite some time, mostly because of the scary ass clown on the cover.
There is one semi-intense scene that will provoke your coulrophobia and it was only included, I suspect, as an excuse to create an enticing DVD spread for horror fans.Starting off with the plot, this movie doesn't have one, at least not a coherent one or one that makes an iota of sense.
It feels good to look at for the moment, but tomorrow you've forgotten all about it.The acting is a bit so-so, and the laughter from the character named Laughter is not as creepy as it is suppose to be.Some unexpected twists in a story that's mostly weak and confusing.
First of all, don't get suckered in by the cover of this movie, because it looks a lot more interesting than the actual movie turned out to be.The stories told in "Amusement" are really good at building up suspense, but then as they are about to climax, they end.
So thumbs up on that matter.As for the acting in "Amusement", well I think the ladies Katheryn Winnick (playing Tabitha), Laura Breckenridge (playing Shelby) and Jessica Lucas (playing Lisa) were doing good jobs with their roles, and they were the ones carrying the movie.
The killer, The Laugh, played by Keir O'Donnell, was just downright annoying to watch."Amusement" had potential to be a really good horror movie, but it was killed off by the untimely endings of the episodes and failing to deliver climaxes to the built up suspense.
Truly Original Work of Art. After watching countless number of horror films, I believe that before I saw this film that I had come to the conclusion that I had seen every formula in this genre that there could possibly be.
"Amusement" isn't so much a bad film; it's more like a stupid film with a whole lot of senseless plot twists and implausible character drawings.
It definitely contains some of the essential horror movie qualities, like genuinely creepy images and ravishing scream queens, but the screenplay is too full of holes and improbabilities that it actually becomes infuriating.
The first hour of the film almost plays like an anthology, with three separate stories about beautiful girls being stalked by a common psychopath.
Bottomline, "Amusement" should be avoided unless you feel particularly masochistic or, like me, you get entertainment out of bad films..
This was one of the worst horrors I've watched, not because of bad acting or a low budget or anything else but because it was so utterly boring and had no depth.The whole thing was completely disjointed, there was no real explanation for the killer's tendencies and the scenes jumped all over the place.
There was also no back story and you didn't get a chance to build up a connection to any of the main characters.There was very little gore in the movie and no actual frightening moments.
This wasn't a very good movie, despite having some okay actors and some above par production values.The premise is that these three girls got their playmate into trouble for torturing a squirrel to death when he was a kid, and now that he's grown up, he arranges to have them all killed in very creepy ways.
(The setting is pretty impressive, I'd love to visit this hotel.) They find Tabitha sewn into a bed (Yep), there's some flashbacks to their childhood, and we see that the three girls didn't like this weird kid's cruel project, and this causes him to get "sent away." Well, now he's real mad, but yet very amused.
Amusement is a mediocre horror/thriller movie about a psychopath that stalks three girls that he went to school with.
The movie plays out like an anthology series before reaching the climax at the end where all three girls are trapped with the madman.In typical fashion the killer is an idiot and the victims are equally stupid.
During one scene in the end you more or less find yourself almost rooting for the killer to catch them all since they are so stupid.The first segment starts out good with a truck driver that has something to hide.
The acting is far from brilliant but not awful either.What i like about this film is the killer, the "bad guy".
People suffering of clown phobia will have nightmares of the scene where the clown is in the house and "comes to life" and i recommend people like that to not watch this film.Overall, this movie is worth watching but will leave hardcore horror fans disappointed.6/10BTW: If you are a gore hound this movie has some pretty cool death scenes so you might want to give it a try..
His laugh is creepy though and the clown scenes were, I thought, really the only truly scary thing about this movie..
The plot of this film is about a psycho killer trying to track down and kill 3 girls during his childhood out of amusement like the title says.
I did however like the idea of how they all had different stories leading up to meeting the killer one way or another as it all comes together in the very last scene.
It needed to be plotted out a whole lot better, it's one of those films were you confused throughout it then it makes sense during the end.