The Age of Commercialism

Nice effects though.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

A reporter named John Baxter (Tony Roberts) moves to Long Island, into the ominous house where many unexplainable, supernatural occurrences have commenced. He and his wife have separated, and Baxter is not a believer, but peculiar things keep happening around him. The people he cares about die, and there seems to be no end to it. I enjoyed the second prequel (I mean sequel, whatever you wanna call it) more than the first movie, but it wasn't exactly clamoring for another installment. But we got one, and 4 more crappy DTV sequels, and even a remake as well. In fact… another movie about Amityville is heading to theaters later on this year. This was filmed in 3D. Naturally, it doesn't have any effect while watching it on DVD, but that was the big selling point back then. This movie never bored me, but it's inexplicably stupid. How much has to commence, for Tony Robert's character to realize that he should get the heck out of there? Everything weird happens when he moved there. It things happened to me like they did in this movie, for example. A haunted elevator, my daughter died, and my partner got burned alive, by being trapped in a car accident. I wouldn't wanna investigate the paranormal activities. I would be long gone! I also didn't have any proper heroes. Almost everybody in this movie is virtually unlikable. Tony Roberts plays a selfish imbecile, who is arrogantly oblivious to everything. I had no sympathy for him. Tess Harper (Nancy Baxter) is quite pretentious and claims Roberts is egotistical in this movie, to her own daughter. The subplot between her and Tony Roberts grated me. I understood that warning her daughter to stay away from the house was needed, but she was just as bad. Lori Loughlin plays it low key. It wasn't a great performance, but she's beautiful to look at. Meg Ryan's cheeky charm was just great. She had a very small part as Loughlin's friend, and she gives the best performance(!) Not much gore here. The burning sequence is harsh and quite disturbing, but the laughable looking skeleton hinders some of the impact. We also get the fly routine from the original, and a hilariously dated looking creature at the end, who spews a fireball. The effects were quite shoddyFinal Thoughts: Never boring, but too stupid to enjoy fully. If you're gonna watch an Amityville movie, I'd pick the second movie, or the remake. 4/10

Some people need a lesson on spooky houses. For John Baxter(Tony Roberts), it's an experience he will never forget! John is a reporter who is out to debunk the myth about the infamous house in Amityville. During the so-called seance in that place once owned by man who would later die after giving it to the reporter. Once he got the place, his partner discovers the horror of it, and would never return. The daughter (Lori Loughlin, before "Full House") gets a room, and have her friends to a seance with a homemade Ouija board. Following that, she would later lose her life in a boating accident. And they did find the source of the evil: A demon! If the house was that evil, why didn't they destroy it in the first place. With all the skeptics running around, that's always the thing. Evil houses especially the one in Long Island, should have blocked off, not used as a tourist attraction. Better yet, not used for settling in. Its history is so bad it should have been condemned. Nice movie there, a little bit on the silly side though. 2 out of 5 stars

Amityville 3-D takes us once again to the infamous haunted house where evil surrounds all who enter. In this one, a journalist played by Tony Roberts buys the house. The minute he does, people around him start dying in mysterious ways. This was the first Amityville to trail away from the "true" stories of the Lutz and DeFeo families. This here is all fiction. Of course, many could argue that parts one and two were fiction as well. I actually enjoyed Amityville 3-D a bit more than part II.The acting in this is pretty bad all around. Meg Ryan debuts, but only has a few lines. Nothing much. The demon in the house looked sort of good (for a 1983 film), but we don't see it until the end. I have to say I would have liked to see it in 3-D years ago. 3-D was the big thing in the early eighties. Jaws and Friday the 13th both used that format around this time.The 3-D objects include 3-D flies, 3-D swordfish, even 3-D spit. The film moves at a very slow pace and I lost interest in it quickly. It didn't do well at the box office, which is why the rest of the sequels were made for TV and straight to video.4/10

A reporter moves into the haunted house and is tormented by the evil within. Boring and stupid , this film might as well have been not made as nothing really happens apart from one or two supernatural occurrences but anyone with half a braincell would predict what would happen in them and this makes the result ineffective and not scary in the least. The only exciting part comes at the very end where a demon pops up out of a well in the basement ( discovered in the first film ) and for some absurd reason leads the house to explode this part is well pulled off but last about a minute and doesn't make up for the garbage that makes up most of the film. Not worth buying or watching.