I thought I was in trouble during the chaotic opening scene. It involved a bunch of people trying to burn a book of spells and a witch that turned into a crab-walking spider-woman. I thought this was going to be another case where I got suckered into watching a sequel to something I hadn’t seen yet. As it turns out, it’s only one of those “Start at the end and then rewind back to the beginning” openings. That didn’t necessarily make it BETTER, but at least everything made sense eventually.
Amityville Death House was brought to us by a team of heavy hitters. And by “heavy hitters”, I mean it’s directed by Mark (Amityville in Space) Polonia, executive produced by Fred Olen (Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers) Ray, has special effects by Brett (They Bite) Piper, and “stars” Eric Roberts. I put stars in quotations because although his voice is heard coming out of a warlock with an iron mask on his face, I don’t think it’s actually him behind the mask. I think he did another one of those “literally” phoned-in performances a la A Talking Cat!?! where his dialogue was recorded off a speaker phone.
Roberts plays “The Dark One”, the seemingly omnipotent villain who narrates and relates flashbacks. Sometimes, he hams it up using a vaguely British accent. Other times, he sounds like… you know… Eric Roberts.
Anyway, a group of friends returning home from delivering hurricane relief decides to make a pit stop and check in on their grandmother in Amityville. No one in the group realizes she’s a direct descendent of the witch who put a curse on the town centuries ago. (Although the townsfolk all seem to know what the score is.) The kids find an old diary containing a bunch of spells and they stupidly read one out loud, and it doesn’t take long before the witch starts possessing and killing everyone.
Amityville Death House isn’t great, but it isn’t boring either, which is about all you can hope for from a fake Amityville flick. At least there’s a lot of fishermen, hunters, stranded motorists, and moonshiners hanging around the outskirts of the plot to help the body count stack higher and higher. The finale (which is essentially the beginning, but you know what I mean) is decent, and there’s at least one memorable moment involving “a witch’s teats”. If it had one or two more nutty scenes like this, it might’ve been a winner.
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