Amityville: Descendants of Darkness (IkuZo! Studios) 2026 Review
Having previously witnessed through the interesting if a bit underwhelming anthology Actor's Curse, I approached the next installment of Phil Herman’s anthology series, Amityville: Descendants of Darkness (2026) with a small dose of skepticism. However, director Phil Herman’s and his crew’s newest micro-budget endeavor proves to be a surprisingly ambitious pivot of sorts. While the broader, chaotic "series" seems notorious for it’s low-budget, straight-to-streaming quality, Descendants of Darkness steps up as a genuine improvement in the indie horror sphere. It manages to inject a coherent, structurally sound, and creative addition to a notoriously unhinged cinematic legacy.
Unlike the last film which centered around film crew concepts, these short stories are Amityville themed. To understand what that even means, it helps to understand what "Amityville" actually is to the horror genre if you are not familiar with it. The trope stems from a real-world tragedy in November 1974, when Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered six members of his family at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York. The subsequent owners, the Lutz family, claimed the house was violently haunted by demonic entities, inspiring Jay Anson's bestselling 1977 book and the landmark 1979 film, The Amityville Horror.
Our host, Tiffany Sinclair) sets up and recounts us four creepy tales.
In the decades since, the Amityville brand has transformed into a unique pop-culture phenomenon. Because "Amityville" is a real town, the name and basic historical elements cannot be copyrighted. This legal loophole effectively places the concept in the public domain, allowing any independent filmmaker to slap the title on their script to instantly capture the attention of horror fans. Search for titles with Amityville in the title and you will stumble upon like a thousand movies.
Rather than retreading the tired, singular haunted house formula as most of these movies do, Descendants of Darkness utilizes a wrap around anthology format. The narrative framework is driven by paranormal investigator Dr. Evelyn Marsh (Tiffany Sinclair), who posits that the original evil from the infamous house has spread across the country like a virus, attaching itself to cursed objects, bloodlines, and unsuspecting victims. She does a decent job of setting up the vibe and atmosphere, but I wish there was more camera work or something added to these segments to help them pop out just a bit more. Such as having the camera slowly move in on Evelyn’s face as she sets up the next tale. The movie also takes a while to actually get started, with a lengthy credits opener and news segment, taking a full ten minutes to get into our first story. But once we actually get there, things dramatically improve.
Man, I wouldn’t want to run into this guys, hopefully they go to a different pizza restaurant then I do.
The film splits this concept across four distinct tales. The first tale, The Shed (directed by Todd Sheets) is a fairly solid opening. It follows a group of characters who are trying to dig up some treasure in a locked shed, only to be greeted by demonic chaos and gore. If there is one thing this short does well, is its use of sweet partial gore effects and fun camera work. The acting ranges from either over the top to flat and lacking range, so it’s a mixed bag there. But otherwise, The Shed is just campy fun.
Possessed Relic, the following tale is a somewhat jarring segment with Spanish actors. A husband and wife deal with awkward tension between them as a cursed chair enters the mix. Blood Moon Over Amityville, the third tale, boosts some sweet locations and feels the most cinematic, with the most creepiest moment as a character enters a abandon building. We follow a detective who is haunted one of his past cases. The only downside to Blood Moon is it comes to an abrupt end, failing to deliver any sense of a satisfying conclusion from what it seemed like it was setting up.
The third tale has some of the best and coolest locations, making for some cool shots.
Echoes of the Damned is our finale, tracking a man’s psychological disintegration after moving into a new home built on the original cursed soil. There feels more in the vein of the first tale, where’s it more campy and over the top, but in a fun way. Deanna Marie who plays Karen, is clearly having fun with the role and that way she tilts her head a lot just adds to the performance. The entire value of Descendants of Darkness lies in the fact that they are, at heart, simple horror tales that don’t challenge the viewer nor demand close attention and analysis, but is fun to watch and go along with none the less. It definitely has its value, much in the same way a no-brainer action flick hits the spot sometimes; every now and again, we all just want to see some people meet their demise in gory and fun ways.
Amityville: Descendants of Darkness does not boast a Hollywood budget, but it completely outshines predecessors like Actor's Curse by anchoring its segments with a strong conceptual backbone and some noteworthy effects. It helps there are more dynamic locations and less characters talking at the camera this time around. It embraces the absurd freedom of the public domain title while respecting the atmospheric dread that horror fans expect from the Amityville name. It is a flawed but highly entertaining step in the right direction for this zero-budget anthology horror.
