The Amityville Curse

THE AMITYVILLE CURSE is a junk addition to the AMITYVILLE HORROR franchise. It's an entirely forgettable production that looks and feels like any old low budget haunted house flick as there's no real connection to the other films in this series. What we have is a very typical horror film in which a group of friends move into a dilapidated old house in order to renovate it but instead find themselves menaced and then possessed by a gang of spooks.

By all accounts this was an early straight-to-video film and that shows in its level of ineptitude. Absolutely nothing happens in this production that we haven't seen done better in other horror films and the various scare scenes are a joke. The direction is probably the worst thing about this, as he chooses to shoot most of his scenes in the dark so that the viewer is straining to see what's going on. The only familiar member of the cast for me was the lead, Kim Coates, who's gone on to appear in the likes of BLACK HAWK DOWN, but like the rest of the actors he gives an entirely undistinguished performance.

"Moviecritique USA" rates this a 10/10 eh? up there with LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, CITIZEN KANE, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, MIDNIGHT COWBOY and LORD OF THE RINGS? Let's pass on that one!

This rates below PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE! It should not be confused with ANY Amityville sequel, or even a professionally made film come to that. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT was the con-job of the last millennium but even IT is classic filmmaking besides this dreck!

The ONLY reason to watch it is the last fifteen minutes. Never have I seen one person take so much laughable punishment....and keep going! Its a hoot!

It starts...nothing sensible happens, then it stops. End of story!

This film essentially begins with a Catholic priest in Amityville, New York taking confession at a local church, when an unknown person in the booth suddenly shoots him to death for no apparent reason. The scene then shifts to 12 years later with a psychologist by the name of "Marvin" (David Stein) buying the house where the priest once lived with the intention of renovating it to resell afterward for a hefty profit. So, after buying the house, he convinces a married couple named "Bill" (Anthony Dean Rubes) and his wife "Abigal" (Cassandra Gava), along with another friend named "Frank" (Kim Coates) to help him and his wife "Debbie" (Dawna Wightman) fix it up. As it so happens, however, Debbie has often had psychic premonitions in the past and upon setting foot inside the house begins to get the feeling that there is something evil lurking within. Not long afterward, all sorts of terrible things begin to happen which disturbs all of Marvin's friends--and things rapidly get worse the longer they remain there. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that, although this movie certainly had potential, most of it was wasted due to bad acting and a couple of completely unlikeable characters--with Marvin probably being the worst. Throw in a rather long and cliched ending, and it's no wonder that the movie has so many negative reviews. That being said, other than the presence of Cassandra Gava, I didn't find much in this film that was even remotely interesting, and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

The Amityville Curse ... oh boy, where to begin.

A priest is shot to death while in his confessional booth by an unknown assailant. That booth is then stored in the basement of his house for some reason. Flash forward 12 years later, we meet two couples (Marvin & Debbie, Frank & Abigail) and a single friend of theirs named Bill who all buy that house formerly owned by the murdered priest. They plan on fixing it up and renting it out I think (the movie never goes into details on that).

Our Amityville 5 heroine Debbie is someone who experiences premonitions in her day to day life, so as soon as she enters the house her senses are triggered by the evil surrounding her. She quickly freaks out at literally everything that happens in the house. We get black cats, a creepy basement, and a ghost hanging from a tree outside the house. None of which connects to anything or makes any kind of sense. Eventually we see an unknown assailant (the same person who killed the priest) knock off a few more people. This leads to the discovery of who that killer is and the knowledge that they are in fact possessed by the curse of Amityville. It comes down to seeing if Debbie will survive the final act against the killer, a final act that manages to be somewhat intense and well done.

The fact is this is an Amityville sequel by name only. It carries the series name, but does not have anything to do with the DeFeo's or Lutz's or even that Baxtor family from the 3-D sequel. It suffers with a bit of an identity crisis as well. It wants to be a haunted house Amityville sequel, but also plays the murder mystery of who killed the priest twelve years ago (by the way, it is extremely obvious who the killer is about 15 minutes in). The movie never takes a direction with a specific plot and sticks to it.

The acting was a particularly weak point. Most are relatively unknown Canadian actors who are clearly out of their element. Even Kim Coates (who I expect a bit more from) looked bored during 90% of his scenes. The characters also aren't fun or interesting at all, which made me feel absolutely nothing when most of them met their demise.

The Amityville Curse is a cheaply made horror movie about ghosts and a murder mystery, nothing to do with Amityville at all other than it is set on Long Island. The final 15 minutes is actually creepy and done well, but to get through over an hour of absolutely no scares and really bad dialogue and no story direction is NOT worth it.

Luckily, the series gets much better after this.

2/10

I had to track this film down for four years in the UK, simply every video store and rental company refused to stock it. But was it worth it?

The Amityville Curse is based around Hans Holtzer's impressive book which is a worthy competitor to Jay Ansons original work. Pretty much nothing in this film related to anything in the book which makes you wonder why they even bothered to use the Amityville name at all. I am quite sure this was for profitable reasons since the series has been so popular, despite some horrendously awful movies. The Amityville Curse is just another of these.

The main focus of this movie centers around a murdered priest in a confession-booth. After getting blown away with a pistol we are taken to the `Amityville house' – which by the way, looks nothing like it. A group of people buy it from the market at next to nothing, with no electricity which makes for some atmospheric lighting - at least they got this right. Marvin (Anthony Dean Rubes), is an Uncle Buck-style goof who has to carry the rest of the incompetent co-stars throughout ninety minutes of the usual Amityville outing, which includes such supernatural events as dogs barking and a wine glass being shattered. So chilling…

As is traditional in an Amityville film a psychic just happens to be among the group to make the rest of the cast paranoid. Debbie (Dawna Wightman) tries way too hard and ends up looking pretentious and embarrassing in the process. I wasn't surprised to hear this was the only film she starred in. The rest of the cast aren't even worth a mention apart from the bum in the bar who looks dead for ten minutes and then spouts; `You know something Mr, you don't know s***'. A lot of this time The Amityville Curse tries to be a comedy and has some really confusing characters. Mrs Moriarty, the freak with the glass eye is a third-rate Tangina from the Poltergeist films who thankfully gets demonised before long. One cannot help but cheer on the demons when it's her time. However in comic-book style she miraculously knocked over a video camera moments before so her death is witnessed and the killer is exposed – as one of the members of the house.

Later it is uncovered that the confession-booth, along with other holy items have been hidden in the basement. Quite how they got there is something which is never explained. I can only assume the demons come packaged with all the religious items, or something – why would they be present in a basement of the supposed Amityville house with crosses, holy water, and a confession booth? Would this not deter them? This and many other events are never explained to us, which gives you an idea of how great the writers are.

So another tradition lives as the possessed confession-booth killer becomes demonised for no other reason but to end the film, and then attempts to devour his former friends. Unfortunately the demons seem to be having an off-day and are exorcised from the house after a few dainty love-taps.

Not a very impressive film and certainly not worth hunting down. Too much talking and unnecessary camera-work makes the ninety minutes drag. Also I would like to know what the BBFC are playing at giving this an 18 certificate since nothing in this film surpassed anything a 12 movie does today. Still we are waiting for the next sequel and whether it is going to require any intelligence to watch. 2/5