MY CALL: Another not-really sequel to chum the bad movie waters. This was not good, even subpar on entertainment value for bad movie connoisseurs. I’d skip it. MORE MOVIES LIKE The Amityville Curse: Uhhhhhh, when it comes to Amityville sequels, I’d stick to Amityville II: The Possession (1982) and otherwise tread carefully into the depths of the extended franchise. Part II has all the dumb fun you’re looking for with great pacing, but Amityville 3-D (1983) and Amityville Horror: The Evil Escapes (1989) are both boring slogs. Amityville Dollhouse (1996) is a solidly fun bad movie, but it truly has nothing to do with Amityville (it is neither sequel nor spin-off, it just has a similar theme and uses “Amityville” in the title for literally no good reason).
There’s a REMAKE?!? Yes. The Amityville Curse (2023) is a Tubi original remake of this 1990 non-sequel! I guess it couldn’t be worse than the original.
After the slaughter of now two different families, a botched paranormal investigation and exorcism, and a cursed yard sale lamp (from the house) shipped to California to raise Hell in another time zone, we now shift to more of a generalized haunted house paradigm as a group of people spend the night in the abandoned and infamous haunted house of Amityville.
Marvin (David Stein) and Debbie (Dawna Wightman) buy the fixer-upper Amityville house and invite their friends and co-investors Abby (Cassandra Gava), Bill (Anthony Dean Rubes) and Frank (Kim Coates; Fantasy Island, Resident Evil: Afterlife, Skinwalkers, Innocent Blood) to help renovate. The house is still fully furnished from its previous unlucky occupants, and our new owners have no idea what happened to them. I feel like their realtor wasn’t fully honest on the details.
Some strange (and unfortunately boring) things start happening during their renovations, including some lame broken mirrors. Nightmares, a bad fall down some stairs, and some eye-rolling tarantula shenanigans follow. PS: tarantulas don’t live in New York outside of pet owners’ terrariums. These effects are quite forgettable, technically awful, and the movie would be better off without them.
Most components of this movie are actually just fine from a filmmaking perspective. The acting, writing, general production value, etc., are more than up to snuff with horror movies of its time. However, the “horror” in this movie is piss poor. It’s like the budget couldn’t spare a single dollar for horror effects, and the director wasn’t even trying when it came to creepy atmosphere. One weird flaw of the film is how Kim Coates is always smoking. And I mean to such extent that it specifically feels awkward.
The effects eventually elevate to a level I’ll designate as “acceptable.” Maggots in a groaty wound, an acid-burned hand with the skin sloughed off, an acid-burned face, a frisbeed buzzsaw blade to the leg… these are the highlights. But they are not long-lasting pleasures. Moreover, as the movie progresses it plays out more like a bad slasher movie than a supernatural haunted house movie… and not in a way that I appreciated. Although, I guess it’s nice that they tried to change things up a bit for this leprosy-rotting franchise that just won’t die. Either that, or they took a haunted house script and slapped “Amityville” on the title with a quick and dirty re-write.
So, yeah, the plot feels rather incongruous. But that is a theme among the Amityville sequels. The cause of everything in the first movie was the angry Native American spirits (angry not evil) whose graves were desecrated by the building of the Amityville house. But the first sequel decided it was instead some Biblical demon of sorts (for no reason at all), the second sequel decided a Gateway to Hell was under the house, and in the third sequel we had a garage sale feisty lamp demon on our hands. Truly, with the Native American burial ground angle, Poltergeist (1982) was as much as sequel to the original as Amityville II: The Possession (1982).
To call this movie terrible is an understatement. I didn’t even enjoy this as a bad movie. It just wasn’t bad in fun ways (at least, not enough); mostly just bad in bad ways.