Amityville 3-D

Why would anyone want to live in the Amityville house? It's got a bilious basement with a bottomless pit, a lethal living room, and feral flies that swarm in the attic. The sinks don't work either. In fact, this house is going straight to Hell - literally!

Into this questionable piece of real estate moves Tony Roberts, a skeptical journalist who doesn't believe the horror stories concerning the house (or hasn't learned anything from the first two movies) and is determined not to let `superstition' get the better of him. But get the better of him it does…

This is in no way a great movie – but it keeps me entertained every time I watch it, the hallmark of good low-budget horror fun. And dig that neat poster – great horror movie graphics! There's also some amusement to be had due to the presence of a few future stars in the cast – such as Lori Loughlin as the daughter of the journalist, who would trade in her haunted house for a Full House. And then there's Meg Ryan, touring the Amityville residence and pondering the joys of sexual relations with ghosts. Whatever floats your boat, Meg!

In the house where Sonny slaughtered the Montelli family, the reporter John Baxter (Tony Roberts) and the photographer Melanie (Candy Clark) disclose two charlatans, who cheated the persons pretending they were medium. The broker, who presently owns the house, is having difficulties to sell the mansion due to its fame, and John decides to buy the house by very low price. When he moves to the cursed place, many fatal tragedies happen with the broker, his daughter and his lover Melanie. This movie is very silly and boring. Its greatest attraction in the present day is to see Meg Ryan in the beginning of her career. The Brazilian DVD is a shame: it has a recent picture of Meg Ryan on the cover, and her name is highlighted as if she were the lead actress, showing a total lack of respect of the distributor with the viewers and consumers. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): `Amityville 3D'

At this point the true events that took place in the house are no longer relevant. This is an entirely different story concocted by the screenwriters and I must say it's the best work of fiction on film that involves the Amityville house.

The cinematography is great, the music, while not Schifrin, is still chilling, the acting is very very good. And there are some really scary moments in the film. The overall story I think engulfs the viewer. It's really interesting because the main character believes it's all a hoax, (much like a portion of the people do today) and he comes to find out that things in Amityville are much more unsettling than he thought they'd be.

The only thing (as with all 80's 3-D films) is that there are obvious things going on which were supposed to lurch out at the audience. It seems rather silly when the camera stays on a certain image for more than five seconds when it is no longer presented in it's 3-D image. It induces a chuckle when ever this happens, but it doesn't detract from the film itself.

Magazine writer John Baxter (Tony Roberts) and his partner Melanie (Candy Clark) expose a fake psychic racket operating in the Amityville house. Being recently divorced and needing a new house, John decides to buy the place. He gets a good deal in exchange for keeping the real estate agent, who knew about fake psychics, out of the story. John is a disbeliever and skeptic of supernatural phenomenon so he's not worried about the house's history. Once he moves in, of course, strange things start happening.

Amityville 3-D has a bad reputation and most of it is deserved. The plot is tiresome and the scares are often laughable. Still, I can't help but enjoy it on some guilty pleasure level. Tony Roberts is a stiff lead. He reminds me of a less charismatic Ron Perlman. Yet there's something fascinating about watching this guy work. Maybe it's the hair. Or maybe it's that he clearly believes he is above the material. Lori Loughlin makes her film debut as his daughter. She doesn't get a lot to do but she's good enough so that you wouldn't automatically assume this was her first movie. Meg Ryan (!) plays her friend in one of Meg's early film roles. I was a little worried after Amityville II that we'd get some inappropriate sexual action between Tony Roberts and Meg Ryan or, worse yet, Roberts and Lori Loughlin. But thankfully nobody has sex with Tony Roberts. The often awful Candy Clark rounds out the main cast. She's up to her usual scenery chewing so everybody grab a seat. The best performances would come from Tess Harper as the ex-wife and Robert Joy as a paranormal investigator.

Perhaps the most amusing change to the Amityville series here comes from the fact the "ghosts" can attack someone even if they are miles away from the house. It's silly but allows for some enjoyable shock scenes. Look, this isn't a great movie. It isn't even a good one, really. But it still entertains in a so-bad-it's-good way. If you're looking for something like that, awesome! Here you go. But if you want something you can seriously be scared by, look elsewhere.

There must have been a law in the 1980's that stated that if you are to make a third film to a set of horror movies you must make them in 3-d as this was one of them, along with other such fine films as Jaws 3-D and Friday the 13th part III in 3-D. Sad to say, but I enjoyed all these movies even though I know in my heart of heart they were all bad movies. However, just because a movie is bad does not make it non-entertaining. Well at least to me it does not...perhaps to a more mainstream viewer, I admit I am a little more offbeat than most people to say the least. This story has a guy moving into the Amityville house for whatever reasons after he proves this one little group of people are fake psychics. Through a series of events though he begins to find out just how real the horrors are in the house that has had cast evil upon all those who lived there. I have to say the movie is not as graphic as the second movie, but it has a lot more to it than the first movie in the ways of scares and such and it has a nice conclusion too. Still the movie has to many 3-D moments too to be a really good movie. You know the scenes, pointless scenes where they aim something directly at the camera and such. Still, the movie runs at a fast clip and is entertaining to watch, plus you get to see a young Meg Ryan in one of her first roles.