(a.k.a. AMITYVILLE 4: THE EVIL ESCAPES. TV/NBC movie, aired on May 12, 1989. Director: Sandor Stern. Teleplay by Sandor Stern, based on an unpublished AMITYVILLE story─not co-producer John G. Jones’s 1988 advertised-as-fiction book, Amityville: The Evil Escapes, whose title Jones allowed the filmmakers to use.)
Storyline
The demon-haunted house is cleansed by six priests and its furniture is sold at a yard sale. One of the items, a lamp within which the demon hid, is shipped to a California home, where the horror begins anew.
Review
This fourth, made-for-television AMITYVILLE entry aired on NBC on May 12,1989. When it was released on video, additional footage was shot, most of it brief instances of bright red blood that wouldn’t have been allowed in the NBC broadcast─director and teleplay writer Sandor Stern has said he doesn’t know who shot the additional footage. An R rating was slapped on the video version though it’s a safe-for-television flick.
EVIL takes place before the events of AMITYVILLE 3-D (1983), opening with six priests going into the Amityville house to cleanse it. One of the priests, Father Kibbler, is attacked by the house’s three-hundred-year-old demon who has transmigrated into a standing, twisted tree-like lamp. Kibbler, unconscious, is brought to hospital while his fellow priests declare the house “clean.”
A few days later, Helen Royce (Peggy McCay) buys the lamp from a yard sale and sends it to her sister, Alice Leacock (Jane Wyatt) in California.
Alice’s widowed daughter, Nancy Evans (Patty Duke, THE SWARM, 1978) shows up at Alice’s house shortly after the lamp. Nancy arrives with three children in tow: adolescent Amanda (Zoe Trilling, NIGHT OF THE DEMONS 2, 1994); tween Brian (Aron Eisenberg, PUPPET MASTER III: TOULON’S REVENGE, 1991); and pre-tween Jessica (Brandy Gold), who talks to her dead, imagined father.
The lamp talks to Jessica, pretending to be her father. She falls under its dark sway and acts uncharacteristically moody. A doctor (Warren Munson, FRIDAY THE 13th PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN, 1989) says she needs rest.
Strange things happen in the brightly lit house─there are few dark shots in EVIL. The lights flicker a lot. Bad things happen to people, including Gabe, a plumber (Gary Davies, SHOCKER, 1989), and Peggy, Alice’s maid (Lou Hancock, EVIL DEAD 2, 1987). When Father Kibbler shows up, Alice and their family realize what’s happening─now, if they can exorcise the lamp. . .
EVIL is not a scary flick. The mounting tension between the characters does not get nasty like the Lutzes’ and the Monticellis’. EVIL is also more entertaining (in a white-washed, silly way) than AMITYVILLE 3-D, especially when certain actors ham it up during their terror scenes. Near the end, there’s a farewell-to-a-priest scene that’s directly lifted from THE EXORCIST (1973).
Film geeks like myself might recognize Robert Allan Browne (PSYCHO II, 1983), who plays Donald McTear, and one of the priests (John DeBello, billed as John Debello, who appears in the 1989 film NIGHT LIFE).
EVIL is a Golden Turkey made-for-television flick, worthwhile if you’re looking for something silly.
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