Making Movie History: The House That Wouldn't Die…But It Should

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Welcome back everyone and here’s to Thanksgiving being behind us now and Christmas on the way. For the second time in my life, I partook in the sales for Black Friday and actually ended up at Wal-Mart for three in the morning with a good friend of mine. I actually went for nothing for myself but she needed my help so along I went. When the day was over, a cheap set of pots and pans did make its way into my apartment but that was all for me. I must admit though that the organization of Wal-Mart and the sale impressed me. As soon as we walked in, a map and sale paper was given to us with the biggest items having lines where tickets were given out. Everything else was closed off until the sale actually began at 5AM.

She waited in line for a big TV as I ran around the store picking up other things we needed or wanted and let me just tell you that two and a half hours spent in Wal-Mart resulted in us getting everything we went for at great prices. Sure it may have been a long night (we didn’t actually go to sleep before going out), but it was not very hectic and went quite smoothly. Contemplating going again next year if it’s worth it because this was damn good and pretty fun as well.

Did anyone else go out on Black Friday? E-mail me your stories, experiences, good buys, and where you got the best deals at merlinwdw@yahoo.com

So we’re into December and usually I’d try and connect my column with some of the films coming out in theatres that current week but something bothered me so I thought I’d touch on that instead. I had gotten word a few days ago and announced it here at IP Movies that Amityville Horror was heading back to theatres again. The problem with this is that it’s not a remake of any other movies in the series but the original from 1979. Yep, the same film that was remade back in 2005 with Ryan Reynolds. Why the HELL would you insist on remaking a movie that was just remade five short years ago? It makes absolutely no sense so I took it upon myself to revisit the entire franchise.

Bet your sweet ass that you didn’t know there were actually nine movies in this series did you? NINE TIMES…err, NINE MOVIES!

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The Amityville Horror – 1979



Our first venture to the haunted house out in Long Island and it’s a damn good one. It is simply the best movie in the entire franchise by far and that isn’t only because it is the opening film in the franchise either. Amityville Horror really is a good movie and it’s quite creepy to boot.

A family moves into their dream house thinking they have finally gotten just what they wanted and it also came to them in a steal. Now they could do everything they’ve ever imagined and have it happen in their great, big, beautiful home. Little did they know about the grisly murders that happened there years ago when a young man killed his entire family because he “heard voices telling him to do it.” Now demonic spirits haunt the home, strange occurrences keep on happening, and the dad of the family is starting to hear the same voices the young man once heard. Not a good sign for the family whatsoever.

Amityville ended up bringing in close to ninety million domestically which is insane for the seventies so it was only a matter of time before a sequel was in the works. No-one really expected the slew of movies though that would come about in the next twenty or thirty years. Lord knows they couldn’t keep up this kind of momentum that long either and it truly shows.


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Amityville II: The Possession



Alright, we all know that sequels are usually never as good as the first movie in a franchise and this is no exception to the rule. But this is a movie that kind of was to be expected because the first Amityville is so damn good. Essentially it’s the same story as a family moves into the home again without knowing much about the haunted past. Only this time it isn’t the dad that gets all demonically possessed and such but the teenaged son who must be saved by the local priest.

Honestly not much to say here as it’s not really a great movie but also not overly bad either. It’s just kind of there. Meh.


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Amityville 3-D



1983 was right in the middle of the huge 3-D boom before it died out and then recently made a comeback. It really only made sense to throw a horror movie into the technological advances and see how people reacted to it. Obviously the story suffered in lieu of the 3-D shtick which made the movie even worse. A reporter moves in the house this time around looking to debunk everything and then he falls victim to the evil. This one sucks.

Maybe it is something about the third movie in a series and it being 1983 that just didn’t mix well with the whole 3-D thing because this movie just sucks. Strangely enough all of these factors are the exact same for another movie that year. So let’s see…what other horror/thriller flick came out in 1983, was the third in a series, and was released in 3-D? Oh yes, Jaws 3-D. Some people really hate it and consider it the worst in the franchise, but I think that distinct quality goes to Jaws: The Revenge. That’s a story for another column though. Really is damn odd though the whole similarities between the 3-D releases of Amityville. and Jaws.


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Amityville: The Evil Escapes



First things first, Patty Duke was in this. Need I say more? Well, I’ll simply use a quote from fellow IP Movies’ writer Robert Saucedo:

I wish they would remake Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes. Nothing’s scarier then a killer lamp.

Yes, there is a killer lamp. A LAMP! I mean shit, they aren’t even in the house anymore so they had the “evil escape” and go elsewhere through a frickin lamp.


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The Amityville Curse



Five random people go and spend the night in the Amityville house where all the murders occurred. Yep, that’s it. Original as hell isn’t it?


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Amityville 1992: It’s About Time



As if it wasn’t bad enough two movies ago that a lamp had taken some of the demonic spirits from the haunted house and brought them elsewhere; now we have a clock doing the same thing.

Get it? A haunted clock…”It’s About Time!” See what they did there? Clever huh?

Batshit retarded is more like it as this is another worthless and pointless movie that did not need to be made. I mean they were really stretching by part four with the lamp and then jumped back to simply having people in the house for part five but that still sucked. Now they went back to a personal belonging from the house carrying evil spirits elsewhere so other locations can feel the terror of Amityville. This was just all way too damn much. I know that things got stretched overly thin with Halloween, Friday The 13th, and A Nightmare On Elm Street but at least there were still the horror icons to enjoy. Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger were the constants in those franchises (except for Halloween III of course) and allowed us to look forward to something. Amityville is taking away the main attraction now, the house, and making it a random movie in a random location with a backstory…SHIT!


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Amityville: A New Generation



Sigh…now it’s a mirror. Nope, not lying.


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Amityville Dollhouse



Yeah, this one is exactly what you would think it is only with a slight twist. The dollhouse the little girl receives doesn’t have anything from the actual house but is merely a replica. So since it is a replica then it has to be haunted.

My God, this is just getting ridiculous and making me pray that those behind the remake (s) of the first movie don’t get any wild hairs on their asses to go through the whole franchise and update it. Hell, we’d have a haunted IPOD because it once played a song from the seventies that the original killer had listened to.


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The Amityville Horror – 2005



This is a remake that I was really looking forward to when word of it first got out back in 2005 and for good reason. The original came out the year I was born and with all the remakes hitting theatres in the horror genre; it was exciting to me that Amityville was going to be updated. When Ryan Reynolds was cast in the lead role though, things took a bit of a turn. The guy is a fun actor who has had some pretty decent roles and ends up being one of the funnier stars in whatever movie he acts in. So when it became evident to me that he was going to be taking over the lead in a horror movie, my doubts began to fester deep inside me about something that once thrilled me.

When all was said and done, the movie wasn’t awful and Reynolds did a pretty decent job. In no way was it nearly as creepy and frightening as the original which took a good bit of wind out of its sails, but it’s still one of those movies that I’ll check out from time to time. But in no way did it live up to what some of the other remakes have done like Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Friday The 13th. You see, both of those films took the story and added some twists to it making them different yet the same. Amityville tried to take virtually the exact same movie from 1979 and just redo it in modern times with new technology. Let’s call it a big “FAIL” if filmmakers think it lived up to what we first saw thirty years ago.



So there were two good movies to start out the franchise and then a decent enough one here at the end with the remake of the original. There is no way in the world that another remake this soon can be justified. Hell, there’s no way that another remake of the original can be justified within the next thirty years at least. Needless to say that the remake wasn’t the best thing either. Get some originality people and let us see something new and improved. Something that has never been done before or at least is being done in a different manner. Give us the next big horror icon ala Victor Crowley in Hatchet. Let us see some death scenes that are over the top unique. Don’t give us what has already been done and probably well enough that you don’t need to go and ruin it by trying to do it better.

Face it, you won’t.

And I’m going to call FOUL on this one because I have already been guilty of condoning it, but it’s gone too far now. When Rob Zombie “reimagined” John Carpenter’s Halloween; I gave him the benefit of the doubt because I love both directors, the original movie, and thought that Zombie would be able to do the film some kind of morbid justice. Then he decided to do another one. Along the way we got another The Hills Have Eyes, Friday The 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and A Nightmare On Elm Street (which is on the way)…I’m done with your damn “reimaginations.” I’ve come to grips now that it isn’t something different and it truly is just a glorified damn way of saying the word remake.

That’s it for me this week ladies and gentlemen so enjoy your weekend as we get ever so closer to Christmas. Please do me a favor and join our fanpage over on Facebook where you can even see pictures of your favorite writers and reviewers from here at Inside Pulse Movies. Just click the link or use the little table thingy here at the bottom of my column. I’ll be back next week with another dissection of some movie history and look out for another Christmas column before the big fat man delivers my gifts. Have a great one everybody.