Amityville Curse

(1989) **

A priest is murdered in his confessional booth.  Twelve years later his house is purchased by Marvin and Debbie with a plan to flip it.  It’s a large house in disrepair so he enlists the help of 3 friends (their names don’t really matter) to help with the renovation (it’s not clear what they get out of it).  As they begin (randomly) tackling various house projects (separately), the trademark Amityville movie franchise stuff starts to happen.  Candles extinguish by themselves, doors close, water faucets stream blood, and there are the requisite spooky sounds.  In one sequence books begin flying off a bookshelf, sailing across the room.  No one suggests leaving, of course.  Eventually the (annoying) former housekeeper of the house shows up to add (way too much) exposition (I was so happy when she died).  We eventually learn [SPOILER] that they house they are renovating used to be a rectory where the priest at the beginning of the story was murdered.

What a strange entry for the Amityville series.  Completely disconnected from the famous house and history, Amityville Curse is set in Amityville but that’s about it.  A throw off line in a bar alludes to the “other” house.  There is nothing remotely scary about this movie and, quite frankly, it’s a bit plodding.  The characters are all unlikable, especially the psychologist, who attributes all the obviously crazy stuff going on in the house to “mass delusion”.  I should add that he has the world’s thickest neck.  I wasn’t sure if I would be able to locate a picture online (turns out I wasn’t) so I snapped one with my phone.

Amityville Curse is the perhaps the weakest sequel to the series which is not saying all that much given the low bar set by the original.  Slow, generic, and scare-less with un-relatable characters makes the target audience unclear. 

Finally, a comment on home renovation; I spent the entire weekend renovating my bedroom.  I replaced a ceiling light fixture, replaced the outlets, sanded the walls, spackled any imperfections, painted an undercoat and painted one coat of my new color (linen white if you must know).  With the aid of my father this took approximately 10 hours across 2 days.  My bedroom is 12’ by 14’.  In Amityville Curse the house is ENORMOUS and the five people renovating it did not appear to have any specific plan on how to tackle the numerous projects a house of this size would warrant. Characters are randomly shown taking on major projects, alone, which would take an army to complete.  Also, no one is dressed for home renovation (as indicated in the picture of fat neck above). Perhaps my frustration with losing my entire weekend to painting caused my irate transference.