Review

Back in the day a Priest is getting ready to go do the confessional thing, apparently happens on Sunday evening in Amityville, when his housekeeper bursts in with a dead rat. First of a few jumps scenes. Anyways seems the Father isn't as pious as one might hope and he is shot dead while listening to a bizarre confession. The Church realising this is Amityville decide the best thing to do is abandoned the church and weirdly store all of its relics in the basement of an old house that used to be the rectory. Twelve years later Marvin is looking to buy a house in Amityville to make a profit and heads in to inspect a property with his wife Debbie. As they get to the town limits Debbie suddenly demands that they turn right just after a bridge, she then strangely states she knows a house they stop just outside of. Marvin is interested, the place is for sale, and you can almost see the dollar signs in his eyes. It shouldn't come as a shock that the house in question is the very one which was used to store away the relics from the now abandoned Catholic Church just round the corner.

Marvin decides the house if a perfect "handy man dream" and with a bit of hard yakka a tidy profit can be achieved, but he needs some partners. Without apparently too much trouble he entices newlyweds Frank and Abigail and restaurant owner Bill to join in the venture. The whole gang arrives at the house one weekend, we assume the sale went through, planning on getting stuck in and renovating the dilapidated colonial back into its former glory. Naturally spooky things begin to happen, a honking big tarantula is on the loose - say what, isn't this up New York way, and Frank starts acting strangely. Debbie, who is somewhat psychic, starts seeing a young man who isn't there, she also damages her ankle when a floor board gives way in the kitchen, and to Marvin's horror she starts having nightmares. The house isn't finished with the ladies; Abigail cuts her hand badly when the group attempt a toast to the house. Down in the basement Bill discovers a hidden room, which appears to contain an evil entity or the ghost of the Priest, the movie is slight confused, and all hell is unleashed in a pretty tame fashion, though the front door does once again get blown off its hinges. Ready to check out the housing market in Amityville and make a down payment?

With at least two maybe three new Amityville movies arriving in the next few months I thought it high time to dive into the backlog and see if we couldn't make sense of this most insane of horror cottage industries. I have no idea how many movies related to the franchise are kicking around but besides the original three flicks based on the actual house there appears to be a movie about every single item that was in the house. Thankfully no one has decided thus far a movie featuring demonically possessed toilet rolls would be a good idea, guess Lloyd Kaufman hasn't got around to Amityville yet. Today we're looking at The Amityville Curse, which a lot of people consider as the worse of the movies in the franchise, guess they haven't seen The Amityville Dollhouse yet. Right up front I want to state that this movie has nothing to do with 112 Ocean Avenue and is simply another haunted house flick hoping to doss down at that address when no one is looking. As such don't expect any of the mythology from the original movies, though the odd extra does hint at things in the past that Amityville veterans will be well aware of. Gee just when the tourists were starting to come back as well.

The movie makers here had no clue what was happening in the original and simply aimed their movie at brain dead teens

There's a really weird genealogy to the script for this movie that should flash red warning signs that you are not in any way going to be sitting down to a classic. The two script writers are at the end of a long process that can apparently be summed up by a "screenplay based upon a book adapted by". Say what!?! Anyways to cut to the exploding door frame the original book, no idea if that one is claiming to be based on a true story or not, is by the immediately recognisable Hans Holzer. Just so happens this dude is a self proclaimed Parapsychologist who reportedly is sticking by the whole Amityville is true schlock, and is naturally making a quid out of it. So Hans, your reputation shot to pieces yet? The amazing thing is there are still people who believe the Lutz clan and certain other individuals didn't make the whole thing up. But hey stick to your guns, it's not like a major supporter is writing penny dreadful novels or anything, oh wait Hans Holzer wrote this schlock!

While the script is a shocker, it feels like the Amityville veneer has been pasted on badly over what might have emerged as a half decent paranormal movie, I really couldn't get behind the visuals either as Director Tom Berry pulls out everything he's learnt about weird camera angles, strange POV, and the usual assortment of oddities that B grader movie makers bring out if they are pretending to have pretensions of making an A grade movie. Berry should have just thrown his hands in the air; Hitchcock couldn't have made a silk purse out of this particular sow's ear. I kept waiting for something "Amityville-ish" to happen and it just never really did until right at the end when a door inexplicable blew off its hinges.

What we do get in the scare category, and this is a real stretch, is a dog that seems obsessed with attacking the group, an errant tarantula that I assume is on vacation from its normal environment - which from memory isn't long Island, and the usual haunted house shenanigans that make you wonder if your grandparents were scared of those depictions in the old black and white movies. What you don't get is anything remotely like a demonic influence going down, so this is like Amityville Lite, the Piss Week World version. They could have really played up Debbie's psycho gifts, or perhaps a certain person's hidden past, about the only scare they are sending our way is how flat the beer is in the local drinking spot. No wonder the locals think the place is haunted, they're all under the influence of out of date brew!

Perhaps the biggest problem with the movie however is you never really get behind any of the characters, they are all pretty much unlikeable. For mine Marvin takes the cake however, he is so smugly superior to everyone that I was really hoping the house would come alive and gobble him up as soon as possible. The rest of our potential victims aren't much better, to the extent when one of them dies off camera it was of only passing interest. On the bright side we finally get to see a girl take on a psycho possessed person, give more than she gets, and she ain't putting her weapons down when the psycho seems to be dead. You go girl! Finally someone that knows their shite when it comes to a horror situation, man got to get me one of those nail guns.

Out of words, gorehounds aren't going to be happy, there ain't anything to see here children of the night, you'll need to sniff out another movie. T&A is restricted to Cassandra Gava showing off her black lingerie and tantalising with a bath scene. Girls may or may not get a look in, sorry wasn't taking that much attention.

Got to say I'm one of those completionists that just has to see every movie in a franchise, so naturally I wanted to run this movie down, get it on the player, and subject myself to the terror. While part of that happened at least, I got the movie and played it, can't say I had heart palpitations at any stage, or cold fingers running down my spine, or really gave a toss about what I was watching. It's a pretty bad haunted house flick masquerading as an Amityville movie, that was just never going to work. No recommendation, catch one of the other movies in the franchise, this is one hell of a weak attempt at hanging on the coat tails of the other flicks in the series.