Amityville in the Hood (2021) Review
Let me start my review of Amityville in the Hood by quoting its IMDB page “An Eastside gang uses the Amityville property to grow marijuana when they are attacked by a rival gang and their drugs stolen. Soon, it’s unleashed on the Westside streets of Compton, where anyone who smokes it suffers one KILLER buzz.”
Anyone familiar with the Amityville franchise and American geography will see the issue immediately. For those who aren’t, Amityville is a suburb of New York City and on the East Coast. Compton on the other hand is a part of Los Angeles and is on the other side of the country. With logistics like that, you’re not going to turn much of a profit.
It’s actually easier to believe that once again the town of Amityville has picked up and relocated. It went to Texas in Amityville Cult, all the way to the UK for Amityville Scarecrow, and Los Angeles once before in Amityville Cop. So I suppose I should have expected Amityville in the Hood sooner or later. After all, the Leprechaun does need somewhere to stay.
But then a newscast says the weed was grown in Amityville NY. So why was an L.A. gang growing weed there? And why were their rivals also out there? Not to mention why bring it all the way back to California to sell rather than get rid of it in NY if the gangs are active there? Maybe it’s so Sheriff Malone (D.T. Carney, Cold Blooded Killers, Left Alone in the Snow) on the East Coast and Detective White (Thom Michael Mulligan, Emulator, The Sweet Taste of Souls) get to kill time with long cross country phone calls.
Director Dustin Ferguson (Rattlers 2, Apex Predators) and co-writer Jeremiah Douglas (Axed to Pieces, Meathook Massacre Part VI: Bloodline) open the film with some scenes from Ferguson’s previous films Amityville Toybox and Amityville Clownhouse to establish that the house is haunted before moving on to the drugs being stolen, skipping over what I thought would be the film’s main attraction, a haunted grow house. Like the criminally underrated Cookers, only with weed instead of meth.
From there Amityville in the Hood sticks with its gangsta elements as Big M, Esau McKnight who was in Pray for Death with Shô Kosugi, and Blade with Wesley Snipes, is upset over his weed being stolen. So upset that he kills a hooker (Jennifer Nangle, 40uR, Paranormal Attraction) for her poor oral skills.
By halfway through Amityville in the Hood there is one, yes a whole one, supernatural incident linked to the demonic weed, now dubbed Amityville Possession which just invites comparisons to a much better film. And that incident takes place almost entirely off-screen. We don’t even see the possessed woman’s face let alone any of the carnage she allegedly causes.
Instead, we get lots of footage of the seamier side of Los Angeles, long frequently pointless conversations, and long flashback sequences filled with footage from Ferguson’s other films. With a title like Amityville in the Hood you know there are going to be several horrible rap tracks on the soundtrack. That includes “The Amityville Rap” by Ferguson under the name MC Dirty D, which makes Vanilla Ice’s “Ninja Rap” sound inspired.
Amityville in the Hood really isn’t even a horror movie. It’s a crime film with a few supernatural elements, most of which are in the flashbacks. Is it the worst Amityville film I’ve seen? Quite possibly, most of the others at least tried to have a plot, even Amityville Vampire had a couple of good effects and some skin. The Amityville Moon had a halfway decent werewolf suit. This has “The Amityville Rap”.
Even its distributor, Wild Eye Releasing, refers to Amityville in the Hood, as “Ridiculous B-Movie Horror” which should tell you something. It’s available on Digital and VOD platforms and you can check Wild Eye’s Facebook page for more details.