After the third Amityville bombed at the box office, somehow the name was still apparently valued somewhat enough to be used for this tv movie. Sandro Stern, who helped pen the original movie, was drafted in to the director's chair, with the hope of bringing some chills to the small screen.
We open with a series of priests launching a team exorcism on the Amityville house. In the conflict, young Father Kibbler (Fredric Lehne) sees a demonic face in an antique standing lamp, however he is knocked out in the fracas, and is unconscious in hospital as the home's contents, including the lamp, are sold in a yard sale.
The lamp is shipped off to California as a present for Alice (Jane Wyatt) a wealthy pensioner who has recently had to take in her daughter Nancy (Patty Duke) and her 3 kids; teenager Amanda (Zoe Trilling), preteen Brian (Aron Eisenberg) and youngster Jessica (Brandy Gold) who are reeling from the death of their father. Jessica in particular is struggling, and starts to see the ghost of her father in the house, particularly around the lamp. As devastating accidents befall all who come close to the lamp, will Father Kibbler be able to make it to California in time to save the family?
Now, let's be blunt, the concept of film is complete nonsense, and the tv movie nature of it means it's rather tame in terms of scares, but you know what? This was probably the best Amityville movie to date. While the other 3 have much better production values, this actually has a much tighter, more focused script...even if it is about a haunted standing lamp. The biggest issue it has it when comes to the films climax it's just hard to make a lamp scary. Like I'm not sure how far the budget went, but surely the demon actually manifesting might have been better? For all I'm slagging the plot, the 'Haunted Artifact from the Amityville House goes elsewhere and causes bother' would become a series staple, so clearly someone liked it.
The cast isn't amazing, but they are solid. Duke is a good steady hand, albeit her character is probably the most underused of the whole family. It's unusual seeing the young Lehne NOT play some sort of criminal, and while he's a bit wet around the ears here he's passable.
While it's not by any means great, I actually find this one of the more watchable entries into this, to be honest, largely quite bad, series. If you'd caught it as a tv movie back in the day I actually think this would have hit the spot quite well, but you might have felt short changed if you'd paid for it.
We open with a series of priests launching a team exorcism on the Amityville house. In the conflict, young Father Kibbler (Fredric Lehne) sees a demonic face in an antique standing lamp, however he is knocked out in the fracas, and is unconscious in hospital as the home's contents, including the lamp, are sold in a yard sale.
The lamp is shipped off to California as a present for Alice (Jane Wyatt) a wealthy pensioner who has recently had to take in her daughter Nancy (Patty Duke) and her 3 kids; teenager Amanda (Zoe Trilling), preteen Brian (Aron Eisenberg) and youngster Jessica (Brandy Gold) who are reeling from the death of their father. Jessica in particular is struggling, and starts to see the ghost of her father in the house, particularly around the lamp. As devastating accidents befall all who come close to the lamp, will Father Kibbler be able to make it to California in time to save the family?
Now, let's be blunt, the concept of film is complete nonsense, and the tv movie nature of it means it's rather tame in terms of scares, but you know what? This was probably the best Amityville movie to date. While the other 3 have much better production values, this actually has a much tighter, more focused script...even if it is about a haunted standing lamp. The biggest issue it has it when comes to the films climax it's just hard to make a lamp scary. Like I'm not sure how far the budget went, but surely the demon actually manifesting might have been better? For all I'm slagging the plot, the 'Haunted Artifact from the Amityville House goes elsewhere and causes bother' would become a series staple, so clearly someone liked it.
The cast isn't amazing, but they are solid. Duke is a good steady hand, albeit her character is probably the most underused of the whole family. It's unusual seeing the young Lehne NOT play some sort of criminal, and while he's a bit wet around the ears here he's passable.
While it's not by any means great, I actually find this one of the more watchable entries into this, to be honest, largely quite bad, series. If you'd caught it as a tv movie back in the day I actually think this would have hit the spot quite well, but you might have felt short changed if you'd paid for it.