The Amityville Movies (1979-96)
Dirs. Various
Do the Amityville movies deserve a post? Absolutely not, they're mostly rubbish, horror shite, cliché, garbage, but I did it anyhow because they were already written (for a previous blog), which meant most of the work was simply copy/paste. It's Friday. It's pissing rain outside. And I wanted an easy post.
01. The Amityville Horror (1979), Dir. Stuart Rosenberg, which was reportedly based on true events, is the first of many not-very-good entries in the haunted house franchise.
Newly-weds Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) and a long-lost Gibb brother (James Brolin) occupy 112 Ocean Avenue, a house in which a vicious murder spree once occurred. Before long, their happy life develops a homicidal slant.
Acting is good most of the time and there's a violent unease helped along by excellent editing between past and present in the first half hour, but then things go sour. It drags on and on and on, desperately trying to make the boring crap that married couples engage in seem interesting. The Lalo Schifrin score and the occasional creepy event were the only things preventing me from making good use of the stop button ◼.
02. Amityville II: The Possession (1982), Dir. Damiano Damiani, followed three years later. The Amity train crashes into 'we have no idea what to do this time' station on its second outing. It's a prequel to the first film; you can tell because of the fashions. With nothing new to offer it tries too hard to be scary and edgy, but everything feels forced, from the rocking furniture to the domestic violence, incestuous relationship, demonic possession, ancient burial ground, etc.
Some inventive camerawork and another fun score from Lalo Schifrin are the highlights.
[Writers Tip #1: If you make a prequel or a sequel, it's preferable that you actually watch the original film because continuity is a real thing.]
03. Amityville III: The Demon (1983) aka Amityville 3D. Dir. Richard Fleischer. Is it third time lucky for the residents of the Long Island house, or another pointless, vapid waste of time?
Curb your optimism, because it's shit, too. The story's hopeless. A reporter turned writer (who doesn't once write) moves into the house to debunk claims that it's possessed. Whilst there, he sucks every bit of tension out of the air with his lack of enthusiasm.
It's 55 minutes before anything happens. Prior to that there's nothing, unless you class emptiness and hysterical women as a good time.
The writer of the script used a pseudonym! That's how bad it is. To add insult to injury it was released in 3D. The majority of the time 3D is a desperate tactic to milk the wallets of fools and doubles as an admission that the product is bad. It still happens. As long as there are fools…
04. Amityville IV: The Evil Escapes (1989). Dir. Sandor Stern. As a teenager I had an Amity IV poster on my wall. I'd not seen the film, but I liked the creepiness of the image and had learned to equate organised religion with inherent evil, which is what the blackened priest seemed to imply (see pic below). If I'd known how bad the movie was, I'd probably have taken it down. You probably think that's a crap story, but it's still better than what the film delivered.
The banging doors and bleeding walls promised much, but it went lamp-shaped, literally. The evil is a possessed standing lamp. Hardly terrifying. There are some laughs to be had at the sheer ridiculousness, though. The kid with the chainsaw deserves a comedy award.
05. The Amityville Curse (1990), Dir. Tom Berry, is set in Amityville, but not at 112 Ocean Avenue, and it has nothing whatsoever in common with the backstory presented previously.
An abandoned house, a 'fixer-upper', is bought by folks hoping to make a profit. They decide to live in it while making repairs. But wait, the dwelling is evil and one of them is psychic! I didn't see that coming~ Even so, the ESP lady (Dawna Wightman) is the best the film has to offer.
06. Amityville: It's About Time (1990). Dir. Tony Randel. The cover of Part VI implies that we're back in the original house - it's a LIE. Remember the cursed lamp? It's another of those kind of stories, except it's a clock not a lamp. But it's not as bad as Part IV was. In fact, even though the tone is more like a poor man's Poltergeist than an Amityville, I'm going to say it's the best sequel yet, although it takes ages to get to that state.
It lacks finesse ('cos Tony Randel), but the microwave scene in the kitchen, the one in front of the mirror, and, most ludicrous of all, the hilarious van moment are all memorable, and each for a different reason.
There are some glaring continuity errors. And considering how often it appeared onscreen, the boom mic should've got its own screen credit.
07. Amityville: A New Generation (1993), Dir. John Murlowski, contains possessed artefact number three: a mirror. Keyes Terry (Ross Partridge), one of a group of arty-farty types, acquires the hideous item and takes it home to his large studio apartment. When someone looks into it they become influenced by its predictably predictable evil.
Keyes' investigation does eventually uncover a story that's Amityville in nature, but even though he and a couple of his fellow artists are given an actual backstory of their own they still manage to come across as two-dimensional, and the horror they're plunged into is bland.
08. Amityville: Dollhouse (1996), Dir. Steve White, features a man and woman, each with kids from a previous relationship, who move their makeshift family into a newly built house - newly built, that is, upon the site of the old Amity house! Oh, shit, no!
The evil emanates from a doll house that looks like 112 Ocean Avenue once did. It's a daft idea, but I could roll with it because even though it's another damn cursed item story, kind of, it's also an effigy and those I'm okay with.
The acting is reasonably competent. The effects are fun (living dead guy was great). The music is average. But the finale? What the fuck was that all about? It was peaking the bullshit meter, and probably took up half the budget.
I never owned a doll house. But I had a Castle Grayskull. Same difference.
The next movie is a remake of the first, again titled The Amityville Horror (2005). I chose not to give it a number, or even a review, because it's worse than any that I did waste words on.
The one after that is a found-footage film, which is a genre that I detest, so I stopped short of it. Nail. In. Coffin. I'm done. I only wish I'd had the good sense to give up sooner.
The series continued, however, and at time of writing Wikipedia lists 37 more entries with Amityville in their title. I'm guessing that many of them are direct-to-video cash-ins with minimal or no connection to the main series at all, but if you're curious to find out: among the number are movies titled Amityville Vibrator (2020); Witches of Amityville Academy (2020); Amityville in Space (2022); Amityville in the Hood (2022); Amityville Karen (2022); and Amityville Death Toilet (2023). I didn't make any of those up. I'm sure they're all horror gems.
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