The Amityville Terror is one of the best Amityville rip-offs of all time. (I still think Amityville Witches is my favorite fake Amityville flick though.) I’m not quite sure if it was “good, actually” or if it only looked like a minor masterpiece because I had just got done sitting through Amityville Hex and Mt. Misery Rd. back-to-back. Whatever the case may be, it’s a surprisingly solid little chiller. Heck, it’s even better than most of the “official” films in the Amityville franchise.
This is about as good of a fake Amityville movie as you could hope for. It even feels like an official sequel since it takes place in the same house as Part 4. It also helps that the characters are likeable and resemble actual human beings rather than standard cardboard cutout horror movie cliches.
Todd (Kaiwi Lyman), his wife Jessica (Kim Nielsen), and their daughter Hailey (Nicole Tompkins) move in with his ex-junkie sister Shae (Amanda Barton) shortly after she buys a new house. Once everyone is settled in, Shae starts having massive freak-outs, which makes Hailey suspect Auntie is back on the horse again. Really, the house has possessed her, which explains her increasingly erratic behavior. To make matters worse, the townsfolk are conspiring against the family because they know the only way to keep the evil at bay is to periodically “feed” the house new victims.
The film continues the official Amityville series tradition of having an incest subplot (which goes all the way back to Part 2) as well as using ideas from some of the unofficial entries (like the town conspiracy subplot that is similar to Amityville Theater). What elevates The Amityville Terror above the usual dreck is the concentration of strong female characters. Barton has a great bathroom freakout scene and looks great while walking around in skimpy outfits and/or nude. Tompkins is excellent too as the dirt bike-riding, crossbow-carrying rebellious teenager. Tonya Kay is also a lot of fun as the sexy property manager who likes to come to the house unannounced while wearing a leather dominatrix get-up to collect the rent check. In addition to have a memorable sex scene with a clueless busboy, she also gets the best line of the movie when she says, “It’s like Vegas, baby! Never bet against the house!”
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