Amityville: The 3Dening

It's been a pleasantly bonkers romp on Shudder through some of the Amityville Horror sequels, but it's HBO Max that currently houses the franchise's 3D entry. So break out those paper glasses and a dose of the inevitably needed headache medication and let's go!

Quick Plot: A couple who have lost their son hire a pair of psychics for a seance held in the old Amityville home. Just as a mystical orb of light shows up, so do the cameras, quickly revealing the smoke and mirrors as our couple reveal their own identities: reporters John and Melanie looking to debunk the Warren-esque shams. 

Upon further investigation, John gets an even better scoop: the Amityville property is for sale at quite the bargain. To help kickstart his divorce, he closes the deal and promptly moves in to find his realtor dead. Though we witnessed his fatal 3D fly mauling, there's no trace of the supernatural by the time the medics show up.

John has no issue with a man dying on his property before he's had a meal in its kitchen, but Melanie has a sneaking suspicion that there's something darker going on. Photographs taken the day before show the deceased distorted. Nobody else seems to care. 

As with most Amityville films, unexplainable events continue to occur in or around the house. John almost dies in an elevator, while Melanie nearly freezes to death when the house's power goes out and doors lock her in. John and his daughter Susan (pre-Hallmark, pre-prison Lori Loughlin) remain dubious until, of course, it's too late. 

Well, too late for some, though John counts no less than three dead people that have come into contact with the house only to die right after. 

Directed by Soylent Green's Richard Fleischer, Amityville 3D is surprisingly decent as actual film quality goes. It moves better than the overrated original and feels in some ways more professionally put together than the seedy (but effective) part 2. Much like Jaws 3D, this is a movie that would hold up perfectly well had it not been for its reliance on terribly aging technology.

That being said, it's hard to fully enjoy Amityville 3D after the goofier wackiness of what came after. Evil Escapes is about a haunted floor lamp going Maximum Overdrive on Patty Duke! Amityville Dollhouse includes a portal to hell and rubber tarantula. It's About Time is about a killer clock and ends with a character saying IT'S ABOUT TIME! 

Amitvyille 3D is, like, a real movie attempting to do real things. It comes very close to succeeding, but its effectiveness will mostly depend on its audience's ability to look past the limits of dated style. It obviously will vary.

High Points

Considering its incredibly dark origins, it's not a surprise that Amityville movies often go there when it comes to young victims. Amitvyille 3D is no exception, with a surprisingly effective ghost reveal of a character you expect to be safe

Low Points

Not surprisingly, watching an '80s shot 3D film in flat 2022 times makes the scares a little, you now, silly

Lessons Learned

You only have to look at a man to know he's sick

Sex with a ghost is fantastic (at least that's what a baby-faced Meg Ryan has read)

Next time you need a good screamer, call Robert Joy 

Rent/Bury/Buy

I was surprised to find Amitvyille 3D a far better film than expected, though slightly disappointed that it wasn't quite as fun as later series entries. That being said, it's not a bad way to spend 90 minutes and genuinely offers up a few surprises. One could do a whole lot worse. 

It's About Time We Played In An Amityville Dollhouse!

 I hate to repeat myself, but this series keeps forcing me to recap several key points:

- The Amityville Horror (1979) is not a good movie

- The 926 sequels (both official and non) sure know how to have a good time.

Messy exorcisms? Evil clocks? Killer floor lamps that looks like the lovechild of Jack Skellington and every sleazy Italian landlord in the opening of a Law & Order murder scene? Classics I say. 

Surely #8: Amityville Dollhouse has to keep the cycle going, right? 

Quick Plot: Contractor Bill is excited to move his newly merged family into the house he's been building: a '90s McMansion that happens to be located on the same lot where a family burned to death. Trifles, that, since the real problem is having his new wife Claire, her nerdy son Jimmy, and his kids (moody teen Todd and normal daughter Jessica) all get along.

Jimmy, you see, is what we'd call an indoor kid. His only friend is a pet mouse named Max (don't get too attached) and the fact that he bears such an uncanny resemblance to Robin Arryn (that kid who breastfed far too long on Game of Thrones) certainly doesn't help him socially.

 

Despite some in-fighting, life seems to be going smoothly enough for Jessica's birthday party, which promptly gets spoiled when Todd throws a toy tarantula into the piñata to give Jimmy a good scare. The problem? It's most definitely alive.

Surely said trick has nothing to do with the mysterious dollhouse Bill found in the house's shed, a dollhouse with a layout that might look familiar to fans of the 1979 original. 

OF COURSE IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THE DOLLHOUSE YOU FOOLS.

While the movie makes no effort in any way to explain the connection, it's clear from the moment the dollhouse makes its first kill that evil is afoot. 

Its first kill is the pink and purple bicycle intended for Jessica's birthday.

Up next, poor little Max, who sneaks into the dollhouse and turns into a Food of the Gods-ish monster puppet, quickly slain when Todd knocks into the toy. As if the tension wasn't high enough, Claire suddenly finds herself aggressively attracted to her teenage stepson, Bill has recurring nightmares about his family dying horribly, Jessica can't shake a tummy ache, and Jimmy is being visited by the decaying ghost of his dead soldier father intent on murdering his replacement. 

All that PLUS evil voodoo dolls and violent bookshelves!

Directed by Steve White (a veteran producer with this as his sole directing credit), Amitvyille Dollhouse is not a lazy film. Take, for example, a breakfast scene that clearly involves a camera shot by way of a lazy susan, giving us an earnest attempt at artful cinematography in a movie that will eventually have our heroes hiding from these things in a laser field. 

Obviously, I had a good time and obviously, you'll get the same basic conclusion I drew from It's About Time and The Evil Escapes, what it lacks in actual scares is more than made up by enthusiastic weirdness. 

I can't think of a nicer thing to say about an evil dollhouse movie. 

High Points

Sure, your Paranormal Activities and Burnt Offerings work by building a steady level of slow building tension, I will never complain about a trashy genre movie just saying "screw it, let's throw in a giant mouse puppet at the 30 minute mark"

Low Points

SPOILERS! As is often the case in Amityville movies, it's a little unfair that the main family is fully spared while those unlucky enough to stop by end up horribly murdered. In the case of Dollhouse, that sad fate falls to the groovy new age uncle and worse, Todd's perfectly pleasant girlfriend Dana, who divulges her sad life story only to constantly be called trash by Bill and Claire and ultimately get her entire face burnt to a crisp. It's not a good look for the film

Lessons Learned

Once a geek, always a geek

There's a notable difference between killing and hurting

Half a bottle of tequila filled margaritas are great and all, but have you tried paying attention to your girlfriend so her face isn't burned off by your haunted fireplace?

Rent/Bury/Buy

Amityville Dollhouse is streaming on my new favorite (and free) service in the world, Tubi. Sure, you'll have to watch the occasional commercial, but if it's the only way you can also watch tiny sock dolls come to life and use books as weapons, you can manage. 

Maximum Overlight

I'm slowly learning that the Amityville franchise has a lot to offer. While for so long, I found the original film an overrated bit of haunted house drama better served by the less-discussed Burnt Offerings, my out-of-order trek through the sequels is proving to be a delight. And much thanks to the fabulous Gaylords of Darkness podcast for turning my eyes to the KILLER LAMP installment, now streaming on Amazon. 

Quick Plot: The Amityville house is almost clean, but needs a final priest gang  invasion to finish the job. Young Father Kibbler, fairly new to the job, gets bedroom duty where he sees an evil spirit, um, travel from the wall outlet through the cord of an incredibly designed floor lamp, become a Great and Powerful Oz-like bulb face, and cause a power surge that sends the priest into shock.

THIS, folks, THIS is why I love the horror genre.

Despite the injury, the priest team is convinced they've cleared the home of any evil, which is enough for the realtors to throw a yard sale to clear out whatever belongings the Lutzes left behind. A pair of sassy seniors stop by and like any sane Long Islander, spot this thing on sale for $100 (in 1988 money) and know a great deal.

THIS THING:

Helen decides to send it westward to her sister Alice as a birthday gag, but not before she slices her finger on the brass finishing and ends up confined to a hospital, her bed surrounded by hazmat plastic because Amityville tetanus is no joke.

Back in California, Alice is grumpily being visited by her newly widowed daughter Nancy (Patty Duke!) and three grandkids: nice enough teen daughter Amanda, animal-loving adolescent Brian, and creepy weirdo Jessica.

A wealthy dame who clearly prefers the company of her household pets and housekeeper, Alice isn't thrilled with Nancy's stay or life decisions, and the immediate onslaught of dead animals, power outages, polluted tap water, oil spills, manic chainsaws destroying her root cellar, and dreaded food dispenser attacks certainly points to this family visit being bad news.

Amanda and Brian are rather heartbroken that their grandmother seems to blame them for what's clearly something supernatural, and eventually, as Father Kibbler recovers to make his own trek to the new haunted house, even Alice has to agree that Amityville's curse has gone bicoastal.

Amityville: The Evil Escapes was technically a made-for-TV thriller, and while some of its timed-for-commercial beats are noticeable, it feels as wonderfully bonkers as the slightly more R-rated It's About Time. Writer/director Sandor Stern was a small screen veteran, though many horror films will know him better from the delightfully weird and absurdly Canadian Pin. Here, he dives into a well-known property with a whole lot of energy.

Lest you forget, THIS MOVIE IS ABOUT A HAUNTED FLOOR LAMP. A garish, rather ugly floor lamp that sort of looks like Jack Skellington's great Italian uncle from Long Island (as an Italian from Long Island, I am indeed allowed to say such things).

The lamp, or evil that escaped Nassau County via the lamp, can possess such items as toaster ovens, chainsaws, windows, and repair vans. It BLOWS UP when hurled down a mountain. It is everything I've ever wanted to be and more. The only way it could have been better had been if instead of the admittedly FABULOUS floor lamp star, there had been a different casting decision wherein Stern went with this admittedly smaller table lamp Helen spots first at the estate sale:

CAN YOU IMAGINE THE MOVIE WE COULD HAVE HAD???

High Points
More often than not, the "little brother" in cinema is an insufferable brat who exists solely to torment his sisters. What a lovely delight that Brian (Aron Eisenberg) is actually the film's most pleasant character, a supportive son who absolutely loves animals and is genuinely devastated that a) they keep turning up dead and b) he's the prime suspect. This is a sensitive kid, and it's rare to see that handled so matter of factly in the genre

Low Points

Look, this is essentially a perfect movie and gave me everything I could ever want right down to the final feline-centric shot. My only beef? We never get the followup. HOW CAN YOU LEAVE ME HANGING WITH THE UNFULFILLED PROMISE OF A HAUNTED CAT????

Lessons Learned
At a certain age, fun is the most important thing

At a certain age, a disgusting purple mummy finger isn't the worst thing

At a certain age, a disgusting purple mummy finger will prove to be fatal

The Winning Line

"Show me where the basement is!"

Has the answer ever not been "downstairs???"

Rent/Bury/Buy 

Obviously, Amityville: The Evil Escapes is a helluva good time. Have a go. Now. 

When It's All There, Right In the Title...

Despite my Long Island heritage, the Amityville Horror franchise is a pretty large blind spot in my genre fandom, so when one of its many, many entries popped up on Shudder with one of the best/dumbest subtitles I've ever seen, how could I not give it a go?

IT'S ABOUT TIME!

Quick Plot: Architect Jake returns home after a business trip to New York--well, a little east of New York, that is--bringing with him an antique clock that he thinks his teenage kids will adore. 

Cause, you know, if there's one thing teenagers in any decade dig, it's antique clocks. 

Good girl Lisa and bad boy Rusty have been under the care of Andrea, Jake's all-too-generous ex-girlfriend who can't seem to shake her old relationship off.

They are not overly impressed by the clock. 

Jake, on the other hand, quickly falls under its spell (because obviously, it's evil). After being attacked by the usually friendly German Shepherd next door (in a delightfully The Beyond-like sequence), Jake is injured enough that poor saintly Andrea moves back in to help, just in time for her ex to begin displaying some werewolf-ish aggression.

Meanwhile, daughter Lisa's haunting takes on a different manifestation: horniness. 

Only Andrea and Rusty seem to be immune to the clock's possessing spirit, and both enlist the help of those closest to them to solve the mystery. For Andrea, that means her current squeeze, a pretentious psychiatrist just begging for a vicious death. For Rusty, it's his best friend: the eccentric old lady next door who always has a chess set ready for when he wants to cut class and...play chess with the eccentric old lady next door.

As Jake gets angrier and Lisa hornier, the clock's evil intensifies. 

It's pretty sweet.

Directed by Hellraiser 2 and Ticks' Tony Randel, Amitvyille 1992: It's About Time is exactly as much fun as its silly title implies. There are wacky, creative genre sequences laced with an odd sense of humor. A pre-Final Destination-ish drawn-out near death experience involving an ice cream truck, a mirror possession, toy train set seduction that turns into a body melt. It's a weird thing to enjoy, but you also kind of have to appreciate that it flirts with some sibling seduction, clearly an homage to The Amityville Horror II: Possession. 

I can't speak to how It's About Time measures up against the rest of the rarely universally loved Amityville series, but by golly, it sure is fun on its own. You might even say ...

High Points

The Sterling's house is so wonderfully late '80s awful that it genuinely makes the whole film pop

I do not have the ability to express how happy the film's final line made me, mostly because it's a feeling that might be bigger than anything else I've experienced in my entire 38 years of life

Low Points

As is true of many an early '90s horror film, there's a sort of lack of commitment to a full out spooky or comedic tone. While it works out when you watch it 30 years later, I do wonder what the real intention was meant to be

Lessons Learned

Unleashed architects are one of the more dangerous sorts to be haunted

Life is like a Skullcrusher song

Ice cream truck drivers can radio in emergencies

Rent/Bury/Buy

Sit yourself down and watch this weird little movie. I know what you like. 

And in case you forgot...