Last month, Amazon MGM announced a new Amityville film to be helmed by David F. Sandberg (Lights Out, Shazam, Until Dawn) and written by Ian Goldberg and Richard Naing, who wrote The Conjuring: Last Rites. The film is said to be a reimagining of the original 1979 film and I can’t help but wonder if this is a desperate attempt for Amazon to have their own Conjuring series. I say “desperate” because the Amityville name has been dragged through the muck by so many indie releases and spinoffs it’s lost all meaning to horror fans.
I’ve mentioned this on the blog before that the issue with the Amityville series is you can’t copyright the name, “Amityville”, because it’s a town in New York. Thus, countless “sequels” have been cranked out by hack filmmakers over the past several decades. I’m talking about immortal classics like; Amityville Bigfoot, Amityville Vibrator, Amityville Gas Chamber, Amityville Karen, Amityville Ride-Share, Amityville Death Toilet, Amityville Job Interview, Amityville Elevator, Amityville Shark House, Amityville Webcam, and Amityville Backpack. And there’s more!
I think Amazon and producer Peter Safran’s thought process is where most of us horror fans are sick of “Amityville BLANK”, your average moviegoer doesn’t know much of the series outside the original and maybe the 2005 remake starring Ryan Reynolds. Also, it makes sense to follow the success of The Conjuring with a new Amityville film because the Warren’s did “investigate” Amityville. Maybe they can work out a deal with Warner Brothers to bring back Patrick Wilson or Vera Farmiga, or have new actors don the roles of those two paranormal hacks. What’s Chris Pratt up to?
So why am I doing Amityville 3-D? Am I going down the cinematic toilet that is the expanded Amityville franchise? Ha, nah, but I do think it’s worth doing the first few sequels (I did Amityville II: The Possession for Shocktober 2023) because you have to remember, Amitvyille was a phenomenon
Jay Anson’s 1977 book, The Amityville Horror: A True Story sold over 6 million copies in its first few years. It was a #1 New York Times Bestseller and the second best-selling nonfiction book of 1977 after Roots. Stuart Rosenberg’s 1979 adaptation made $86 million dollars and was the second-highest grossing film of 1979 above Rocky II and below Kramer vs. Kramer. People couldn’t get enough of this “True” ghost story. What’s crazy is how fast the franchise fell off a cliff.
Much like The Exorcist both series were victims of their own “based on true events” branding. Without the promise of truth, what’s left of these franchises? Rubber demons and mortgage jokes? It doesn’t help that Amitvyille fell into the hands of Dino de Laurentiis. Don’t get me wrong, I love plenty of schlocky de Laurentiis pictures; Conan the Barbarian, Barbarella, Death Wish, but de Laurentiis was never precious about prestige. He liked spectacle. He liked marketability. And he was gonna market every last drop out of this rotting orange.
After the moderate success of Amityville II: The Possession (A film I like okay), de Laurentiis hired Hollywood veteran Richard Fleischer for the series’ next installment. Fleischer, who was 67, had been directing films since the late 1940s. His father was the legendary Max Fleischer, famous for his iconic Superman, Betty Boop, and Popeye cartoons, and Max had directed a plethora of genre pictures including; 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Fantastic Voyage, Doctor Dolittle, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Soylent Green, Mr. Majestyk, and Conan the Destroyer (there’s that de Laurentiis connection).
So we got a seasoned journeyman behind the camera, on camera we have Woody Allen’s friend Tony Roberts in the lead as journalist John Baxter, Tess Harper as his ex-wife Nancy, Lori “college bribery scandal” Loughlin as their daughter Susan and Meg Ryan as Nancy’s best friend Lisa. A solid cast.
For twenty minutes, Amityville 3-D had my respect. The film is slow and methodical to start. Which is strange considering the whole “IN 3-D!!!” aspect of it. You know di Laurentiis loves his trends. We don’t open with a scare, rather its “Reveal Magazine” journalist John Baxter exposing a pair of con artists scamming a grieving couple by staging a fake seance in the Amityville house.
My first thought was, “Is this a shot at the Warrens?” Sure, we all love them now for being the heroes of the Conjuring franchise but much like Long Island Medium or John “Crossing Over” Edwards, the Warrens exploited people’s trauma and belief in the supernatural for fame and money. I don’t think this was what Amityville 3-D was going for but you have to admit it’s an odd coincidence.
What does John do after exposing the Warrens–I mean, these scammers? He buys the Amityville house. Sure, why not? Now for all the creepy shit! And if by creepy shit you were hoping for lots of flies and malfunctioning elevators, hey, I’ve got news for you! I respect that the film is low-key with its scares until the finale but for a movie called “Amityville 3-D” with a poster of a demon hand reaching out at you, I was expecting a lot more.
Amityville 3-D is your standard, “Wait, did that inanimate object move? Am I crazy?” kind of horror movie for far too much of its runtime. The film never gets going. We get a bunch of flying furniture, a blink and you’ll miss it cheap-looking monster, and scrambling paranormal investigators in the climax but it’s too little too late.
Whereas Amityville II borrowed from The Exoricst, Amityville 3-D borrows from Poltergeist, but without the magic of Spielberg and Hooper it feels inert. I’m not a big sequel guy but I do believe sequels should be bigger and more ambitious than their predecessors. Otherwise, what’s the point?
And oh man, there are not enough 3-D jump scares. Want to see a movie that milks 3-D? Watch Friday the 13th Part III. That movie has a guy’s eye popping out at the screen. Those are the kinds of scares I want to see. Not a single glowing fly heading straight to camera (I couldn’t tell what it was at the moment) or possessed furniture.
After Amityville 3-D, the Amityville franchise was relegated to made-for-TV or straight to VHS/DVD. I’m not surprised. There’s not enough lore to expand the franchise. It’s all a lie concocted by the Lutz family in 1975 because they were scared of their house because a year earlier, Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered his family in the same house. Hard to expand on hogwash. I’m curious to see where they can take the Amityville franchise with a fresh start, well not that curious, but we’ll see what happens.