Amityville Dollhouse

A family moves into a new home and finds an antique dollhouse in the shed out back. It's restored and presenting to their daughter for a birthday gift and that's when all the weird stuff starts happening.

Amityville: Dollhouse does have some imagination every now and then even if it can't sustain tension for very long. There's some fun, icky vibes between the mother and her teenage stepson that could have gone further if they really wanted to disturb the viewer.

"Amityville Dollhouse" is your average low budget B-horror movie, but it isn't too bad in my opinion. It follows a suburban family who moves into a new house the father built, so it seems that there's no way the house could be haunted. But the Amityville evil finds it's way in there, after they discover a dollhouse replicating the Amityville house. They decide to give the dollhouse to their youngest daughter for her birthday, and that's where it all begins. The dollhouse begins to exert an evil force upon the family.

I tend to have a soft spot for low budget, cheesy type horror films of this type. Even though they may not be top notch quality, I find most of them entertaining, and they still manage to be alright in my book. Most of the cast here are unknowns, I only recognized one actress: Lisa Robin Kelly, who plays Eric's sister, Laurie Forman, on That '70s Show (my favorite television show by the way). The whole dollhouse idea is kind of dumb, I don't know what a dollhouse really has to do with "Amityville", but in the context of the movie it seems to work. There aren't really any scary moments, and when it tries to be scary, it comes off more as campy, but I don't really take this film so seriously.

Granted it is a campy, low-budget horror flick, but "Amityville Dollhouse" still finds a way to entertain you, despite the cheap effects and minimal scares that it provides. Some may think I'm crazy, but I was entertained by this flick. It's nothing special and I wouldn't go too far out of your way to see it, but it's an okay corny horror movie. Like I said, nothing special, but not too bad. 5/10.

Amityville Dollhouse (1997)

The Amityville Dollhouse was an hour and a half of cheeze, horror, gore, terror, etc. The movie had some boring parts, but was for the most part quick moving and entertaining. The whole dollhouse idea was sort a stupid, but hey it works. I recommend this if you haven't seen any of the other Amityville films. 6/10.

A perfect late-night sci-fi channel movie, and far more entertaining (for me) than the original Amityville.

The way the dollhouse creates different demons for each character, and the cheap but effective sfx, reminded me very much of the Creepshow or Graveyard Shift movies. Also, the 'fright' scenes skip along at a respectable pace and frequency, as opposed to other films which often plod through the middle.

Sure, the script contains some appalling lines and characterisation, and there are a few moments where more highly strung viewers would be screaming at the stupidity of the characters. I just smile.

With 15-20 years of further advances in sfx, and the cultural tendency of under 30's to confuse sarcasm with valid criticism, I can see why this film has such a low score on the IMDB. Individually, the elements don't stand up to a whole lot of scrutiny, but taken as a whole on its own merits (compared to similar films of the same period), I really enjoyed it. A few better lines, and better known actors, and there's no reason why people wouldn't look on this with the same sort of affection reserved for Poltergeist.

Don't miss if it's on TV.

My interest was starting to fade with the Amityville franchise, especially after "Curse'… but I wanted to see all the films and "Dollhouse" is probably the best sequel since "The Evil Escapes". Somewhat minor in that regards, but still better. Again it's another cheaply produced TV movie, but this time the cursed object happens to be a replica dollhouse of the Amityville house. Odd choice, but it did create certain creepiness. It affects the household in the usual manner, especially possessing the family and turning them against each other while feeding on the fear and anger it creates. Nothing really surprises here, as again it's a mixture of the previous films with its own slant. However it moves by fast enough, entertains with its twisted shocks, an eerie score effortlessly fits in and the characters for most part are fairly agreeable. Some of the make-up FX (that of our demonic guests) and special effects are well done, especially when the dollhouse becomes the gateway to hell. It gets crazy, but fairly entertaining. The cast give dependable turns with the likes of Robin Thomas, Rachel Duncan and Starr Andreeff. Neat, cosy horror that amuses despite its lack of new tricks.