#35 -- Amusement (2008)

Director: John Simpson

Rating: 3 / 5

A word to the wise, kids: Don't be a bully.

Bullying never works out well for either party involved. And sometimes, if you don't watch who you bully, you just might wind up dead. 

A kid is bullied by three girls (what kind of boy lets girls bully him, anyway?). That kid grows up to be a crazy son of a bitch. He's angry and thirsty - thirsty for revenge. This movie is kind of made up of three different stories. They seem completely disconnected at first, but end up tying together and playing a big part in the overall plot. 

First, we have Shelby. She and her boyfriend have been on vacation, it seems, and that vacation hasn't gone well. They're on their way home, and Boyfriend is playing some kind of game with other cars. He calls it a convoy. I have no idea what this is, but that may just be because of my complete incompetence when it comes to cars. But he explains it as communicating with the other cars while they're driving down the road. His convoy consists of a semi-truck and an SUV. They all end up pulling into a gas station and they meet up. The truck is driven by...well, we'll just call him Trucker. 

The SUV is driven by a nerdy looking middle-aged man. Trucker tells them that the interstate is packed up, that the cars aren't moving at all. But he knows a way around it and invites the others to follow him. While they're still sitting in the parking lot, Shelby sees a girl in the back of Trucker's truck. She doesn't think much of it, really. But as they're following behind him, the girl puts her face up to the window, holding a sign that says "Help me." Shelby is surprised, and begins to tell Boyfriend about it - and then the girl slams into their windshield. She's jumped out of the truck. She tells them not to let him get her. Shelby and Nerdy stay with the girl, and Boyfriend goes on a trucker chase to get Trucker's license plate number. But Trucker ends up chasing Boyfriend, and by the time he gets back, the girls and Trucker are gone. Nerdy tells him that he's taken both the girls hostage, and they go to find them. They come to a little shack, and Nerdy volunteers to go check everything out. Boyfriend is sitting in Nerdy's SUV waiting. Nerdy waits outside the door for Trucker, and when he walks out, Nerdy bashes him over the head and kills him. Boyfriend looks in the back of the SUV and sees the girls, beaten and bloody. Nerdy then returns to his SUV and...well, it's implied that he is going to either beat or kill Boyfriend, but it ends, so we don't get to see. Trucker was actually trying to take that girl to rehab. She wasn't really in any trouble; she was just a druggie who didn't want to give up her addiction.

Then we have Tabitha. She's babysitting for her little cousins. The boys were being babysat by another girl, but Tabitha has come to take over for her. When she gets there, the boys tell her that the babysitter has already left. Not long after, a boy shows up claiming to be Babysitter's boyfriend, and says that he hasn't seen or heard from her. Tabitha just assumes that the girl went to a friend's house. Tabitha is going to be sleeping in the guest room - and it's full of clown statues. They don't bother her too much, except for the life-size one sitting in the rocking chair. Her aunt calls, and Tabitha tells her she has a problem with the clown. But there's a bigger problem - Auntie says that they don't own a clown like that. Tabitha turns around, and...SURPRISE! The rocking chair is empty. They clown chases her and the boys around a little bit, and she ends up in a storage shed - where she finds Babysitter's body. The boys say that Clown just wants to play, but his games are NOT for children. 

Lastly, Lisa. She's clubbing with her roommate, and Roomie wants to spend some time with a guy in the bar. Lisa goes to spend some time with her boyfriend, and the two roomies were to meet back at home for "roommate night." When Lisa gets home Roomie is not there. So she invites Boyfriend back for some more fun. She wakes up in the morning, and Roomie still has not gotten home. So she decides to go to the hotel where Barboy is staying; she's sure that Roomie has gone to the hotel with him. The manager of the hotel tells her that all the beds are full and won't let her in. But she gets Boyfriend to use his Health Inspector badge to get in. Boyfriend is looking at a large music box; a blade shoots out of the box and flies into his eye. Lisa waits outside for a while, but eventually gets worried, so she sneaks into the hotel. After realizing that there is, in fact, NO ONE THERE, she finds many bodies sewn into the beds. So the beds were full, just...not by living people. 

Tabitha wakes up in an interrogation room. She is informed that she and her friends (who she hasn't seen since elementary school) were all found in the building, in separate cells. She suddenly remembers a boy they went to school with. They had all made some art projects: boxes with scenes inside that were viewed by looking into a hole. The boy's box contained a squirrel, or some kind of rodent, suspended with its stomach cut open. He said, "Funny, isn't it?" This boy wants revenge on them for bullying him, though the actual bullying was never shown. He's decided to torture them. He's got all sorts of mechanisms and things inside this building, including a room that shrinks and almost crushes Tabitha. He has Shelby and Lisa suspended with their stomachs cut open, or so it seems. He eventually rips the cloth off of them - the cloth that makes it LOOK like they've been cut open. They're completely unharmed; just scared out of their minds. He asks Tabitha, "It's funny, isn't it?" She starts laughing. This makes him happy. He lets her out, and she stabs him in the neck. As they're running away, Lisa gets stabbed and killed. Tabitha and Shelby keep running, and they get to a large ladder leading up to a hole. One of them (I won't say which) falls to her death, and the other makes it to the top. It looks like this is where Crazy Man lives; its set up like an apartment. But doors close all round our survivor, and we see that she is in a semi truck, and we (or at least I do) that this is what was happening to the girl in the truck that Shelby saw in the beginning. I'm not sure if that's the case, though.

This movie was entertaining. Tabitha's initial story involving the clown was the best part. The clown's creepy laugh was amazing. It was kind of confusing at times, because the story wasn't completely laid out for us. It just leaves it up to our own imagination, which I guess isn't all that bad. I honestly watched it mainly for the clown, because I dig some killer clowns. So if you're also into that sort of thing, definitely watch this one - because that clown rocks.