3D FRENZY - AMITYVILLE 3-D (1983)

DIRECTED by Richard Fleischer.

SCREENPLAY by William Wales.

STARRING  - Tony Roberts as John Baxter,  Tess Harper as Nancy Baxter,  Robert Joy as Dr. Elliott West,  Candy Clark as Melanie,  Lori Loughlin as Susan Baxter,  Meg Ryan as Lisa,  John Harkins as Clifford Sanders.

PLOT  - John Baxter is a journalist noted for debunking fake psychics, his latest assignment takes him to the infamous "Amityville horror house"- 112 Ocean Avenue.

After successfully exposing a pair of fraudulent mediums operating at the house, John decides to buy the property. John and his daughter Susan move in.

Very soon, the age old evil in the house reawakens and starts to claim new victims and this time John's scepticism may not be enough to save him...

TAGLINE - WARNING - In this movie YOU are the victim.

PERFORMANCES  - Tony Roberts (who looks a bit like a cut price Ron Pearlman with a smaller chin) plays John Baxter, the film's central protaganist. 

John makes for quite a frustrating main character as he seems to spend the entire movie in a state of complete denial over the supernatural shenanigans that are blatantly occurring right under his nose. I get the idea that he's supposed to be a sceptic but he's sceptical to the point of stupidity and this really undermines the character to such an extent that you can't take him seriously. As John's estranged wife Nancy (Tess Harper) points out to thier daughter Susan (Lori Loughlin) ''Only somebody as arrogant as your father would even consider buying this house.'' She's not wrong...

Speaking of Nancy and Susan perhaps the most chilling scene in the entire movie involves these two characters. Shortly after messing around with a Ouija board and being told that one of them is going to die, Susan and her friends decide to go for a ride in a boat (which seems like a really REALLY bad idea considering), unsurprisingly Susan falls out of the boat and drowns.

 At the moment of Susan's death Nancy is in the house and see's a dripping wet Susan enter the house. When Nancy asks her why she's soaking wet, Susan just stares at her, smiles, and walks away saying nothing. Moments later she disappears completely. Nancy then learns of her daughter's death and goes into complete denial, her sanity literally snapping on the spot. It's a subtly chilling moment and both actresses sell it perfectly.

Once again we get an appearance from a future Hollywood megastar in a pre-fame role. This time it's Meg Ryan playing Susan's best friend Lisa. She doesn't really do much except wear double denim a lot and constantly pester Susan into having ill advised Ouija board sessions, still, it's always interesting to see someone famous at the start of thier career looking ridiculously young.

Perhaps the best performance belongs to Candy Clark as John's assistant Melanie. She's not in it for very long but she totally sells how utterly freaked out her character is by the creepy events that are going off left right and centre. John, being the bullheaded fool that he is naturally ignores her fears and arrogantly dismisses them. Even when Melanie is later killed in a supernaturally triggered car crash John STILL insists that nothing sinister is afoot...the man's just a knob.

SFX  - The main piece of effects work in this movie is the demon who emerges from the portal to Hell located in the house's basement. He's a pretty cool looking monster and is by far the most memorable thing in the film...

He also shoots hellfire from his mouth (which is a skill I suppose...).

There are also some nicely done prosthetics for the tortured souls of the demon's victims...

The rest of the effects aren't really much to write home about if I'm being honest. Particularly shitty are the "ghost" effects which look like something from a bad 80's pop video...

COMING AT YA  - For a movie that proudly fanfares it's 3D status there aren't really that many moments which take the opportunity to exploit the gimmick to its full potential. I think this is because the film is a ghost story and as such it relies more on mood and atmosphere rather than spectacle to tell it's tale.

You get the standard 3D movie opening where the credits zoom out of the screen at you, this time aided by some creepy looking tree branches being helpfully waved in our faces by an out of shot cameraman.

Eventually, we get a nice 3D swarm of demonic flies who decide to get up close and personal in our faces...

The flies cause hapless estate agent Clifford to have a fatal heart attack (as flies do) and we are treated to the sight of his lifeless hand dangling in our faces...

We get a few gimmick shots like a Frisbee being thrown at the camera...

But where the film REALLY comes into its own is in the final scenes - the demon is unleashed and the Amityville house literally comes apart at the seams. People, furniture and broken glass are hurled into our faces every few seconds until the house explodes in a fiery inferno of hellfire. It's a spectacular ending and really uses the 3D gimmick brilliantly. It was a long time coming but was well worth the wait.

SEX & VIOLENCE  - This movie isn't excessively violent but you do get a few death scenes. There's the aforementioned drowning (which we only see the aftermath of) and also the fly related heart attack but perhaps the best death scene belongs to Melanie.

Melanie is driving home one night when her car is suddenly possessed by evil forces. The car crashes into the back of a pickup truck loaded with scaffolding poles. One the poles flys off the back of the truck (in 3D) and skewers poor Melanie into her drivers seat. Unable to escape Melanie screams in terror as the car bursts into flames (why ? It's only had it's windscreen smashed by a pole ?), the car explodes and Melanie is cooked alive. We are treated to a sight of her skeleton, the flesh literally burned off her bones...

Bye Melanie.

Dr Elliott West gets a decent death scene near the end of the film. He gets a little bit too close to the portal to Hell and gets dragged into Hell whilst the Demon spits hellfire into his face, hideously burning him in the process...

What was he thinking getting so close to a Hellmouth ? He had it coming.

RATING - Amityville 3D is regarded by many to be a fairly bad movie but I quite enjoyed it. It's slow moving in places and the main character can be annoying at times but it has some stand out moments and it's worth seeing for the spectacular 3D climax.

Overall I'm giving this 3 and a half deluded sceptics out of 5. Cheesy 3D fun.

POSTER/VHS/DVD ART  -

This is a terrible cover - a photo of Meg Ryan from a completely different film photoshopped onto a black background. Somebody needs thier computer to be taken away from them and thier hands cut off so that this can never happen again.

And finally here's the cover for the tie-in novelisation (Is the book in 3D too ?)