After years of silence, Daniel Lutz, Kathy’s oldest son speaks openly about what he experienced in the house on 112 Ocean Avenue. Did he witness the paranormal? Or was he an abused child Writer, director and producer Eric Walter really has the perfect subject here, as Lutz — while gruff and profane — is a fascinating subject.
Consider this a reunion story. Now, the adult Daniel meets the people who came into his life in the media crazy 1970’s — Channel 5 reporter Marvin Scott, as well as various psychologists and parapsychologists, including perhaps one of the most famous of their number, Lorraine Warren.
Despite us doing an entire week on these films, Lutz lived this story and the aftermath as it played out not just in the media, but in pop culture. At one point, he disappeared into the desert, as he says, and left his family and the stories behind.
But childhood pain — much like ghosts — never really go away. Was his father a Satanist, a child abuser or just a man? Is Lutz a reliable narrator? Is the Devil real? I enjoyed how the film leaves all of these questions on the table and allows you to determine your own conclusions.
Look, if you can’t have a house in Amityville, have a theater. And if you can’t shoot in Amityville, shoot your movie in Canada and the UK. After evil monkeys, lamps, lumber and furniture, what else can become part of the dark side and get possessed, you know?
Spencer Banks, who plays Reverend Simon Randall, played a character named Simon Randall on the British 1970 children’s series Timeslip. His co-star on that show, Cheryl Burfield, is his wife in this movie and Lesley Scoble, who plays Karen, was Alpha 17 on that very same programme. Yes, I did spell it the British way.
Following the death of her parents, Fawn Harriman inherits a theatre in Amityville. She takes three victims — I mean friends — to spend the weekend there to check the place out. A homeless girl shows up, as does one of her high school teachers, who wants to warn her of the evil inside the playhouse. You know, every playhouse I’ve ever been in has been said to be haunted.
Director John R. Walker will show up in the upcoming Amityville: Evil Never Dies, which is pretty meta. Even more meta, he’ll be playing the Peter Sommers character he’s also played in Ghoul, Meathook Massacre 4 and another movie he’s directed that has a great title, Ouijageist.
This isn’t the worst Amityville movie I’ve seen. It’s pretty competently made, which is a major step above and beyond a lot of these films. I don’t know if that’s a good review or I have desert island syndrome, where everything looks better than some of these movies.
Inspired by the book Amityville: The Evil Escapes by John G. Jones, this non-cannon sequel is packed with so many genre favorites and has a pretty astounding premise, combining early 90’s performance art and the Amityville mythos.
It’s directed by John Murlowski, who also brought us…Santa With Muscles.
Keyes Terry (Ross Partridge, absentee father Lonnie Byers from Stranger Things) is an art photographer who is given a new objet d’art by a homeless man in the form of a mirror that ends up being possessed by the spirit of his father Franklin Bronner. Oh yeah — and it turns out that his dad killed his whole family on Thanksgiving night back in the original Amityville house. Obviously, this has nothing to do with the Defeo family from reality or the Montellis from Amityville II: The Possession.
This was made under the title Amityville 1993: The Image of Evil, which makes sense, as it’s all about that evil mirror, which is now killing anyone it comes near and threatens to turn Keyes into the same kind of murderer that his father was.
There are some pretty nice practical effects in this, as the filmmakers were going for an old school tone in the midst of all the neon-hued 90’s. That means that none of the visions in the cursed mirror were created with composites or other visual effects, but all created in-camera with the use of half-silvered mirrors placed at an angle in front of the lens. This process is known as Pepper’s Ghost and has been a part of magic stage acts since the mid 1800’s.
Writers Christopher DeFaria and Antonio Toro also wrote Amityville: It’s About Time. Toro has no other credits, but DeFaria has gone on to produce films like Mad Max: Fury Road and Ready Player One.
A mental patient is forced into a fight for world domination after taking part in a weird medical experiment, yet he’s unsure if it’s all really happening or is just the result of his sick imagination in a no-budget effort that combines cosmic horror, B-movie science fiction elements, out there Finnish humor and 80’s action.
Directed by Tapio Kauma & Ville Väisänen, with digital FX by Ville Väisänen, all of whom also appear in the movie. I kind of love that by writing this site, I get movies like this sent to me, which are labors of love that people but their hearts and lives into.
You can learn more at the official Facebook page or watch the entire movie here:
The hubris to call this Amityville: The Final Chapter when I know that I have four more days of Amityville week left is so galling to me that I wonder if I even have the resolve to finish this film.
Of course I do, gentle reader. A steady diet of modern streaming dreck, Jess Franco films and way too many Bruno Mattei films have given me the kind of iron resolve that once led fifteen year old men to enlist in the war effort and lie about their age. Except instead of punching German soldiers, I’m up in the middle of the night watching what feels like the hundredth Amityville movie I’ve seen.
Sure, there’s a book with the same title by John G. Jones, but this movie was originally entitled Sickle and has next to nothing to do with Amityville. If you’re aghast, you haven’t been watching Amityville films after 2005 or reading our site. For shame.
Geno McGahee directed this. Perhaps you’ve seen his work in movies like Satanic Meat Cleaver Massacre or The Haunting of La Llorona. Maybe you watch Tubi and go to Walmart and look for new horror movies nearly every day. Maybe…you’re me.
Michael Hart was just twelve-years-old when he was convicted of murdering his babysitter. All along, he has claimed that a tall monster with a top hat did it. Now, as he’s released from prison to work in his Uncle Bill’s garage, the murders have started again. Michael needs to clear his name before he gets arrested for the crimes that look to be coming from his hands.
Notice that I never used the words Amityville anywhere here. That’s because Amityville: The Final Chapter is a much more marketable title than Sickle. The truth, as they say, will set you free. And for me, freedom is buying movies that cost $3.74 at America’s superstore.
Andrew Jones is best known for his series of films about Robert the Doll, as well as producing remakes and reimaginings of films, like Night of the Living Dead: Resurrection and Silent Night, Bloody Night: The Homecoming.
Knowing what we know about the direct-to-video and streaming history of the Amityville films post-2005 — and we can also include the Canadian direct-to-video films as they have only minor ties to the original film — it was amazing that it took so long for Jones to make an Amityville-themed movie.
Lisa Templeton has started a new career at High Hopes Hospital — nice tie to the sign in the yard of the DeFeo family — but she soon learns that the issues of the facilities go beyond the paranoid ramblings of the patients and the strange staff that serves them. You know — there’s something supernatural going on, because we’re in Amityville, a town packed with cursed lamps, lumber, furniture and even stuffed monkeys.
Eileen Daly is in this film as well. She started Redemption Films with her then-boyfriend Nigel Wingrove and was even in their logo as Redemption’s Dark Angel.
Despite being set in Amityville, there’s little to no mention of Ronald DeFeo. That’s because the actor set to play him was turned away at immigration due to a screwed up work visa. The other inmates of the asylum are based on real people, such as Sadie Krenwinkel being a mix of Manson Family members Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel as well as Dennis Palmer being based on British criminal Robert Maudsley.
What’s even better than a movie being called The Amityville Asylum being made despite there not being an asylum in the actual town? In Germany, this movie was released as The Nesting 2: Amityville Asylum, as The Nesting had just been successfully re-released in that country.
Director Tony Randel produced New World Pictures reworking of The Return of Godzilla into the U.S. version Godzilla 1985 and directed Def Con 4 before his big break, directing Hellbound: Hellraiser II. He also was behind the live-action Fist of the North Star.
Along with Amityville: The Evil Escapes, this movie is loosely based on a series of short stories titled Amityville: The Evil Escapes by John G. Jones. Producer and co-screenwriter Christopher DeFaria became confused by some of the inconsistencies in Jones’ stories, so he called the writer to get some answers. The answer? Jones told him “Yep, Chris, that’s the way evil is. It’s just unpredictable!”
Unlike many of the films with Amityville in the title, this one at least tries to be in canon, bringing up that the house blew up real good at the end of the abysmal Amityville 3-D.
Jacob Sterling (Stephen Macht, The Monster Squad) is an architect who has just returned home from a business trip in Amityville and he’s brought back a cursed clock that once belonged to that evil house that was once there. There you go — there’s the connection.
Meanwhile, his ex-girlfriend Andrea Livingston (Shawn Weatherly, Baywatch) is watching Jacob’s two teenage kids, Lisa (Megan Ward, Trancers 2 and 3) and Rusty (Damon Martin, Ghoulies II). Well, that clock kicks in pretty much right away, randomly transforming the living room into a torture chamber and influencing a neighborhood dog named Peaches into mauling Jacob’s leg. There’s also an incredibly sweaty sex scene between Jacob and Andrea, because hey, you have Shawn Weatherly in a movie and it’s the 90’s and foreign investors and you know how direct to video horror goes.
Nita Talbot, who was Marya on Hogan’s Heroes, shows up as a neighbor. She was in a wealth of horror films, like Island Claws, Frightmare (the Norman Thaddeus Vaine movie, not the Peter Walker version, and yes I realize that the director of that movie is also the main character in the fictional movie within a movie within that movie and yes, that’s very confusing), Chained Heat and Puppet Master II.
All hell breaks loose, with Peaches the dog being killed and her blood being used to smear anti-Jewish symbols all over her owner’s house, Lisa and Jacob being possessed by the clock, Rusty and Andrea actually being the heroes in a film that seems to not know who the protagonists should be and a trick ending that allows a character to scream the title of the movie, delighting me to no end. Top it all off with a Dick Miller cameo and you have an incredibly perfect waste of your time.
I mean, you have to love any movie that has a black box over 1992 in its opening titles. Yes, the movie was originally called Amityville 1992: It’s About Time back when it was all the rage to put the year in the title of movies.
After covering the opening exhibit of a priceless art collection, professional photographer Allie Adams (Alexa Vega from the early 2000’s Spy Kids franchise, all grown up and married as PenaVega) finds herself thrust into the mystery surrounding the theft of a priceless necklace. As with all of the spunky amateur sleuths of the Hallmark variety, her unorthodox detective work uncovers a murder. Romance—of course—blossoms when she starts to work the case with the Willow Haven police department’s newest detective, Sam Acosta (her real life husband Carlos PenaVega from the boyband/TV series Big Time Rush). Helping out on the case is Sam’s Uncle Luis, himself a retired detective.
“Hey, wait a minute. What the hell, dude. Why is B&S About Movies going lame and reviewing Hallmark chick flicks?!?”
Hey . . . Dude. This one stars Ponch. So, chill, bro. He’s Uncle Luis in this one.
“Frank Poncherello? I thought he was dead. You know, like Snake Plissken?”
Nope. Ponch is still very much alive and still thespin’ for the cameras.
An actor’s gotta eat: Ponch goes Hallmark.
Since this is B&S About Movies, we should probably be reviewing Erik Estrada’s acting debut as a New York street gang member in actor Don Murray’s (Governor Breck in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Scorpion) writing and directing debut, The Cross and the Switchblade, the starring ‘50s crooner Pat Boone.
In fact, what we really need to do at B&S About Movies is to seriously dig in our heels and show Erik the love—beyond his work in Andy Sidaris’s Do or Die and Guns. Erik, like our beloved Eric Roberts and Nicolas Cage, reached incredible career highs—in Erik’s case, his six season run from 1977 to 1983 on CHIPs—and has settled into a successful niche career working on a plethora of direct-to-video films in the sci-fi, horror, and action . . . and now, romance genres.
Director Ron Oliver’s prolific, 80-plus films resume includes about a half dozen Christmas movies. So you know what that means: we want an Erik Estrada Christmas movie in 2020, Ron. Make it happen!
Dead Over Diamonds, this second installment in the Hallmark Network’s new “Picture Perfect Mystery” franchise—the first was 2019’s Newlywed and Dead—debuts on Sunday, February 16 at 9 p.m EST. You can learn more about the movie at Hallmark Movies and Mysteries and watch the trailer.
For those of you who, even for Erik Estrada, are not going to do a “chick flick,” you can watch Light Blast and Hour of the Assassin on You Tube. Amazon had Spirits, but stopped streaming it and there are no online uploads.
Update: I’m not a Hallmark Channel kind of guy, but of course I watched this . . . so casting Erik Estrada* worked on me. It was great to see him on the screen again, especially beyond the sci-fi and horror films he usually does. I would have liked for Erik to have been it in more, and he doesn’t do much here, but the film, overall, is a well-shot, affable effort from Ron Oliver and writer Marcy Holland (of the SyFy Channel’s retro-fun, nature-run-amok romps Mississippi River Sharks, Ozark Sharks, and Trailer Park Shark). It’s also cool to see Alexa and Carlos beat the kid-actor-singer curse and transition into adult roles.
I’ve since found three of Ron Oliver’s older flicks for free on TubiTv—Chasing Christmas (with Tom Arnold, who’s pretty cool in the stuff he does, so I’ll check it out), Dark Skies (aka Black Rain, with Leslie Hope, again, a solid TV actress herself), and Something Evil Comes.
I just finished watching Something Evil; it’s a pretty decent Lifetime channel-styled killer-home invasion-during-a-thunderstorm thriller and Margot “Lois Lane” Kidder (Black Christmas, Amityville Horror) is really good in it. And I also watched Dark Skies, a sci-fi thriller about a scientist unleashing a biological agent—in the form of a toxic rain storm—and ransoming a city for profit. For a low-budget cable TV movie, it’s has a nice ’70s Drive-In B-Movie vibe.
*We’ve recently posted a review of the never-released Spring Break ’83 starring Erik Estrada as part of our “Box Office Failures Week” at B&S About Movies.
About the Author: You can read the music and film criticisms of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook.
“The Church won’t allow you to exorcise that house.”
“God will!”
Oh no. Mark Polonia is back in Amityville and this time, the culprit is cursed wood from the 112 Ocean Avenue house being used to make another domicile. That’s right. The lumber itself is evil.
Look — it’s 7:30 AM on a Saturday and life seems bleak and meaningless, so I’m going to metaphorically kick myself in the soul and force watch this.
Polonia has added a new directing tick in this one: random bursts of footage that have nothing to do with the scene he’s filming, as well as screaming and quick Fulci zooms.
This one has it all, if by all you mean drunk dads, a demon who bought his The Masque of the Red Death outfit at the Spirit Store on November 1 so that he got the 50% discount, night for day, day for night, Jeff Kirkendall as a priest, a demon stalking a girl who just wants to go swimming in the middle of the day, said demon attack in the pool intercut with drunk dad weenie roasting, shots that go on way too long, shots that don’t stay on the screen long enough to inform us what is going on within them, conversations that never happen with both actors on screen at the same time and lighting that’s as consistent as the work history of my ex-girlfriends.
Great tagline: The family did not survive. But the recordings did.
Good premise: The movie is based on actual found footage that documents the horrifying experiences of a family that moved into the infamous haunted house.
Bad news: It’s made by The Asylum.
Found footage, meet Amityville. Amityville, meet found footage.
You two place nice.
The Benson family decides to move into 112 Ocean Avenue, no matter what the rest of the known world knows. As soon as they decide to close on the house, their realtor drops dead in the driveway. The next week, a mover falls down the steps and dies. But hey — once you’re all moved in, who cares about little things like that?
Even when their daughter Melanie begins to speak to John Matthew DeFeo, no one thinks, “Maybe we should just rent a townhouse instead.”
Lead actor Jason Odell Williams graduated from the Actor’s Studio in New York and has written and produced several of his own plays. And yet, here he is, stuck in a found footage Amityville movie, a prospect that seems more dire than bugs attacking priests and blood dripping down the wall.
In the original Amityville film, an entire room would mysteriously appear. In The Amityville Haunting, it’s a mysterious landline telephone. There’s some message in that, I figure.
B&S About Movies 
You must be logged in to post a comment.