AMITYVILLE 3-D (1983)

 

(a.k.a. AMITYVILLE III: THE DEMON. Director: Richard Fleischer. Screenwriter: David Ambrose, billed as William Wales.)

Storyline

An investigative magazine reporter going through a divorce moves into the DeFeo murder house with his teenage daughter. Of course, paranormal stuff and deaths follow.

Review

AMITYVILLE 3-D, like THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979) and AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION (1982), is only marginally connected to its namesake flicks. There’s no mention of the Lutzes (a legal stipulation, per a Lutz-instigated lawsuit) or the fictional Monticellis (of AMITYVILLE II), who were cinematic stand-ins for the real-life DeFeos. In AMITYVILLE 3-D, the events of the second film are said to have happened to the DeFeos.

AMITYVILLE 3-D begins with an investigative magazine reporter, John Baxter (Tony Roberts) and his photographer, Melanie (Candy Clark, CAT’S EYE, 1985) busting psychic frauds, Harold and Emma Caswell, who hold seances in the notorious spook house. Helping John and Melanie in their sting operation is Elliot West (Robert Joy, THE HILLS HAVE EYES, 2006), a scientist and paranormal debunker.

John─divorcing his wife, Nancy (Tess Harper) and sharing custody of their adolescent daughter, Susan (Lori Laughlin, THE NEW KIDS, 1985)─is looking for a new place to live. A real estate agent offers John the Amityville house for a low price. John moves in.

Familiar AMITYVILLE things happen: flies constantly buzz around, inside and outside the house; the camera’s Demon POV, less zip-around-the-house than the it was in the first two films, watches people from within the house; new light fuses constantly pop and burn out; water faucets turn on, with nobody around and won’t turn off; then there’s the unsettling, boarded-over well in the basement . .

AMITYVILLE 3-D adds a scientific angle with its investigative characters (e.g., Melanie seeing the demon’s face hidden in a photo)─it’s moderately interesting for a few moments, but it’s mostly for naught: Orion Pictures, which put out AMITYVILLE II, got a lot of viewer complaints about how “tasteless” the dark, disturbing second entry was. The production company overcorrected and made its follow-up almost squeaky clean, aside from a few sly sex jokes made by Lisa (Meg Ryan), Susan’s classmate and best friend, who provides exposition about the house’s troubled history (Indian burial ground, spooky basement well, murders, etc.).

AMITYVILLE 3-D is also by-the-numbers in its execution. Even Howard Blake’s not-quite-histrionic soundtrack─less alarming than Lalo Schifrin’s first-film compositions and more emotionally heightened than Schifrin’s second-film compositions─can’t make the mostly ho-hum proceedings worthwhile. It does not help that some of the film’s scenes, shot for 3-D, are blurry even with the appropriate glasses. The 3-D effects are cheesy, better than the demonic FX Reveal at film’s end that, like AMITYVILLE II’s, are more suitable for an ALIEN (1979) flick.

The film briefly takes on an emotional, viewer-immersive edge when one of its key characters is killed, galvanizing John and others into action against the house. However, that viewer engagement─rendered potent by Tess Harper and Tony Roberts’s performances─ends quickly. 

As with the first two films, AMITYVILLE 3-D is populated by a standout cast and crew despite its studio-mandated, bleached-out tone. Director Richard Fleischer (SOYLENT GREEN, 1973) and screenwriter David Ambrose (THE SURVIVOR, 1981) keep AMITYVILLE 3-D moving along at a steady pace, the actors’ performances range from great to solid (e.g., veteran actors John Beal, DARK SHADOWS, 1970-1, as Harold Caswell, and Leora Dana, SOME CAME RUNNING, 1958, as Emma Caswell, are fun).

Not the worst AMITYVILLE flick, this is one you can skip unless you’re looking for a few instances of Eighties-cheesy FX and a mostly dull flick you can fall asleep to.

While AMITYVILLE 3-D did not bomb, it was not the money-maker Orion Pictures hoped for. Because of that, this was the last theatrically released AMITYVILLE entry until the 2005 remake of THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, which has not resulted in any further theatrical sequels. (Six direct-to-DVD sequels followed AMITYVILLE 3-D between 1989 and 2017.)