The original Amityville Horror is one of the most boring horror movies of all time. The sequel isn't much better. But when I heard Vinegar Syndrome was releasing the later movies in a deluxe set, I champed at the bit, and exposed Paul to the fun.
These are the best, and the greatest surprised us both by being an NBC TV movie. Growing up I called this one "The Lamp Movie," because the evil escapes the house and transfers itself into a gaudy piece of furniture - evil house be damned. The lamp is then sent across the country to possess and torment a grieving family. For made-for-tv some scenes are genuinely graphic and disturbing.
In the end love beats evil, just like it always does. And while the movie manages to remain goofy-free, it has a purrrfect yuk yuk ending fitting to secure this amongst the TV Movie shlock. A-
-Babes
At this very moment there are 45 Amityville sequels. Tomorrow, there will probably be more. But back in 1989 we were only up to Part 4, and despite the house blowing up at the end of Amityville 3D, it still stands pretty at the beginning of this tale. And it's yard sale day! In extremely poor judgement, realtors decide to sell off the contents of the cursed house. Thusly, the evil escapes - conveniently to California, so this production barely had to travel (even the Amityville House that's briefly shown is just a replica). The evil arrives at Grandma's house in the form of a possessed lamp, just in time for her widowed daughter and her three children to come move in with her and experience the wrath of the Amityville Floor Lamp.
The lamp itself doesn't really do much but it does stir up all the usual poltergeist activity throughout its new home, making things like chainsaws and garbage disposals turn on at just the wrong time. Actually there's a small handful of grotesque moments that feel surprisingly too hot for TV, particularly a moment when a plumber basically drowns in a geyser of grey goo - an image that certainly would've scarred me had I see this when I was 6 years old. It's funny, you can tell which parts of the movie aired after 10pm because they amp up the havoc in increasingly gross ways. All three of the first Amityville movies are clumsily "atmospheric" and mostly fail at maintaining their mood. The Evil Escapes is for the Friday Night NBC viewers who have tuned in for some family friendly frights and their attention span only goes so far. With that we get a tight, evenly paced pulp paperback that moves right along and gives us what we want when we need it. B
- Paul
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