Mansión maldita

I usually reserve the month of October for scary or horror movies to celebrate Halloween, and I thought this movie might serve as a nice attention-grabbing creepy thriller. Under than a few mildly moments that jump at you, this movie is basically an all-talk flick with no suspense, a weak plot, bad dialog, and horrible acting.

From IMDB's summary, five people spend the night in an abandoned house dubbed the Amityville house, but it has nothing to do with the infamous Amityville horror house or story. The people find themselves terrorized by ghosts (which hardly shows up in the film), venomous insects (which is just one single spider that crept up on a couple of people), and apparitions (which hardly shows up).

The Debbie character played by Dawna Wightman can't act to save her life. She over-exerts herself during distress or emotional scenes. The Marvin character played by David Stein tries to act professional or dramatic, but fails miserably. And, the Abigail character played by Cassandra Gava tries to be the sexy one, and tries to be the one with reason, but the acting just isn't up to par.

Go ahead and pass on this one for a Halloween scare.

Grade D---

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

"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!

First of all, this wasn't meant to be an "Amityville" sequel, it just tried to draw its audience by using that word in the title, but otherwise has little to do with what has happened before it in the series. That would be OK if they had come up with a good flick anyway - but they didn't. Do you find it a good idea for a horror movie to give away its own surprises halfway through? If not, then avoid this one. (*1/2)

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