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!

After watching 'Possession' (which was surprisingly decent), I prepared to watch the second sequel of the franchise and this one was a little lacking. The big draw cards were obvious… the novelty of 3D effects (which seemed to be a big thing around this period) and at the time a virtually unknown Meg Ryan. Well too bad I wasn't watching it in 3D and Ryan (while memorable) is quite lesser character to the scheme of things. So what's there to like? Hard to really pin point, as when you try to draw good points, there's something else to counter-balance it.

The story is kind of interesting (with it's scientific and skeptical reactions with a talkative script); but remains quite disjointed (made of set-pieces and ideas we've seen all before) and the lack of total cohesion becomes quite stodgy. By the end it doesn't show faith in its cluttered story becoming unsatisfying and succumbing to cheesiness (lookout for eccentrically unexplainable climax dogged with dodgy effects), after slowly grinding away with well placed touches of suspense and jolts. But it didn't entirely have the venom in its shocks, but an unnerving atmosphere still engulfed the Amityville house and the stormy score erratically punched the cues. A respectable cast featuring the likes of Tony Roberts, Candy Clark, Tess Harper and Robert Joy work their butts off to invoke something out their characters, but no one is terribly likable… with maybe the exception of Clark's character. Director Richard Fleischer (who has some fine films behind him) never draws anything in the way of style or suffocation through an effective backdrop, instead letting a downbeat vibe grow and the execution for most part is plainly devised.

Re-cycled and blotchy, but mildly amusing haunted house enterprise.

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.

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.

After the somewhat controversial second Amityville movie, it was perhaps a surprise another sequel followed so quickly, but there was a 3D trend to jump on, so off we go!

It's actually quite a novel setup, following reporter John Baxter (Tony Roberts) who, along with a team including Parapsychologist Dr West (Robert Joy) specialises in uncovering paranormal hoaxes. The movie opens with him exposing a fake in the Amityville house, leading to the tenants being evicted and the house empty. As such the realtor (John Harkins) offers him the place for peanuts, and being a professional sceptic the house's nasty reputation doesn't phase him. As spooky incidents in and around the property pile up, will he maintain his defiance? And what is with that spooky well in the basement?

I liked the setup, it certainly makes a slight change from the previous two entries protagonist families. One thing I find interesting about the Amityville series is how no 2 movies feel the same, but unfortunately the one unifying factor between the first 3 is how disjointed they feel. This starts off better, but quickly falls into the familiar trap, with Baxter's teenage daughter Susan (Lori Loughlin) and her friend Lisa (Meg Ryan) briefly seeming to take centre stage. Even the deaths in the movie have no real 'theme' or logic - the car death is 1. Nonsensical 2. Nowhere near the house. We briefly lurch into Poltergeist-esque territory at one stage before an ending that makes no real sense, but does feature a pretty cool looking demon.

In terms of acting, it's a step up from part 2, I mean I've seen a lot of the cast in other movies, and most of them are at least workable. I doubt Meg Ryan talks about this one much.

In the pantheon of Amityville movies, I actually find this one of the more enjoyable entries. That's a liberal use of 'enjoyable' though as a lot of these movies are dreadful. This one is watchable, though I'm not sure I'd go as far as recommending it.