Amityville: Evil Never Dies

This film essentially begins with a woman by the name of "Mrs. Pangborn" (Sheri Lee) presenting a birthday cake to her teenage son and daughter. While she's doing this, her husband "Senator Ty Pangborn" (Dan Mauro) comes downstairs dressed in a clown costume and proceeds to murder all three of them with a shotgun before taking his own life. The scene then shifts to a week later with two young men and a woman breaking into the house and attempting to steal a picture of a clown which was supposedly taken from the original haunted house in Amityville. While trying to do so, however, a clown materializes and murders them all. After that, the scene then shifts once again to a man by the name of "Ben" (Ben Gothier) buying a toy monkey at a small shop and taking it home. But what neither Ben nor his wife "Michelle" (Michelle Muir-Lewis) realize is that this toy monkey was also taken from the same haunted house in Amityville, and it is possessed by an evil spirit which intends to kill both of them. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that the director (Dustin Ferguson) borrowed heavily from his earlier film "Amityville Toybox" produced about a year earlier. To that effect, not only did he feature the same toy monkey, but he also replayed several scenes from that earlier picture as well. Talk about a complete lack of imagination. Yet as dull as the plot turned out to be, the main problem with this movie concerned the extremely poor audio technique. More specifically, at times the audio was so low that it was difficult to hear what the characters were saying. At other times, the background music drowned out the dialogue completely. Not that it really mattered because there really wasn't anything here to arouse that much interest anyway. Be that as it may, although I very seldom give a film the lowest mark possible, I have to say that this particular movie is a rare exception to that rule--it's just that bad.

I don't recall seeing any scary clowns in this movie. I think there was one clown right at the beginning that didn't have anything to do with the story, what little there was of it. And that was about it. There was not a clownhouse full of clowns, and it certainly wasn't an Amityville house full of clowns. For that matter, it wasn't even an Amityville house. What in the world is going on here?

Okay ... let's suss this out. The title of the movie is "Amityville Clownhouse." I've got that much. So, to wit ...

1. In a Clownhouse, you would expect a house that is full of clowns. Furthermore, being a movie that is labeled a "Horror" movie, you would expect a house full of murderous clowns with terrifying makeup, similar to the clown on the poster. Right? Well ... wrong. That is not in this movie. There is no clownhouse, and there are no terrifying clowns. Basically, there are NO clowns to speak of.

2. In an Amityville movie, you would expect and Amityville-looking house, buuuuut ... NO! You would be wrong. There is no Amityville house at all. And the house that IS there does not have clowns in it, so not only is it NOT a clownhouse, as previously mentioned, but it is not even an Amityville house, so the title is a big, old misdirection.

In conclusion, I honestly don't know what this is supposed to be, but it isn't what the title says it is by one iota. What I would have named it is ... "Boring, Terribly Directed & Acted Waste of Time." That would have been entirely accurate. Too bad, too, because something really cool could have been made from that title alone. What a shame. What a darn shame. :(

I wrote this review originally, but I no longer use that account, so I will have to rewrite it:

I don't recall seeing any scary clowns in this movie. I think there was one clown right at the beginning that didn't have anything to do with the story, what little there was of it. And that was about it. There was not a clownhouse full of clowns, and it certainly wasn't an Amityville house full of clowns. For that matter, it wasn't even an Amityville house. What in the world is going on here?

Okay ... let's suss this out. The title of the movie is "Amityville Clownhouse." I've got that much. So, to wit ...

1. In a Clownhouse, you would expect a house that is full of clowns. Furthermore, being a movie that is labeled a "Horror" movie, you would expect a house full of murderous clowns with terrifying makeup, similar to the clown on the poster. Right? Well ... wrong. That is not in this movie. There is no clownhouse, and there are no terrifying clowns. Basically, there are NO clowns to speak of.

2. In an Amityville movie, you would expect an Amityville-looking house, buuuuut ... NO! You would be wrong there, as well. There is no Amityville house at all. And the house that IS there does not have clowns in it, so not only is it NOT a clownhouse, as previously mentioned, but it is not even an Amityville house, so the title is a big, old misdirection, as are the reviews that give this laughable attempt at a movie anything more than a 1/10.

In conclusion, I honestly don't know what this is supposed to be, but it isn't what the title says it is in the least. What I would have named it is ... "Boring, Tedious, Terribly Directed & Acted Waste of Time." That would have been entirely accurate. Too bad, also, because something really cool could have been made from the title, "Amityville Clownhouse," alone. What a shame. What a darn, shame of a missed opportunity. :(

This movie made me dumber watching it and it gave me eye cancer

Several years after an unfortunate accident, a couple determined to move on with their lives finds that the increase of hostility on his end comes from an evil entity housed inside a cursed antique toy monkey that was initial bought at the original Amityville house and must find a way to break its influence over him.

This was a rather solid and enjoyable genre effort. Among the more enjoyable features here is the rather enjoyable setup that brings trouble to the couple. After the initial attacks at the old house and how they inadvertently buy the cursed monkey toy, the resulting scenes of them coming under strange occurrences are a great touch to add some suspense to things. From his sudden nightmares and cold behavior to her inability to get the psychic flashes out of her mind of the old house, the setup to what's going on is a perfectly serviceable setup that has a nice connection built up here with the toy's influence on their lives. As well, there's the fun that comes from the supernatural exploits present. With the strong opening of the father in clown-makeup blowing away the family during the birthday party giving a great idea of what's in store here, The rest of the scenes are quite fun, including the spirits killing the lookers in somewhat chilling and graphic encounters, the flashing-red lit sequences of him under the influence killing the prostitute and later beating on his wife or a later ambush on a visiting neighbor. A fine finale detailing the battle with the creatures is somewhat brief but still works nicely with the bizarre flash images of the demons and the deranged images at play during the scene. The other great factor here is a nice bit of building a psychological change that begins affecting him as the film attempts the idea of him being influenced into acting out-of-character, much like the characters from the other entries. While it seems illogical to wait as long as possible without doing anything, especially with how he acts during these scenes of berating her and even getting physical, there's some fun work here involving these scenes furthering the possessed doll nicely. The few scenes where it suffers from its low-budget limitations including some padding and a few glimpses of the limiting effects do bring this down somewhat, but not enough.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, and Brief Nudity.