I think this might be a first for the Tubi Continued… column. The Amityville Curse marks the first time I have reviewed a movie that is a Tubi Original remake of a movie I’ve previously reviewed for the column. It also marks the second time a movie from the original Amityville series has been remade (after the original). The 1990 version of The Amityville Curse was based on a Hanz Holzer book and was the fifth film in the original Amityville franchise. So, I guess that makes this part of the “official” series? Maybe? I don’t’ know. Things get a little murky when you start talking about rip-offs that are remakes of sequels.
The basic story of the 1990 film is the same. A bunch of couples buy a house in Amityville hoping to renovate and flip it. The big difference is that in the original, it was just a house in Amityville. This time, it’s THE house.
When one of the new tenets falls to their death, the house is soon swarmed with morbid curiosity seekers and becomes subject of supernatural speculation on social media. (“We’re trending!”) Hoping to dispel the claims the house is haunted; the friends invite a paranormal podcaster to do a show on the house. He naturally winds up dead too. More people are killed by the house, and eventually, the surviving members of the friend group turn to a professor of parapsychology to save the day.
The Amityville Curse is watchable, but it’s mostly ho-hum and forgettable. The biggest special effect is that the lights flicker on and off. Since the deaths are all “accidental” or suicides, they aren’t exactly creepy or effective. They just sort of happen. It may be a cut below the original Curse, but it’s not bad as far as these modern Amityville rip-offs go.
The oddest thing about the flick is that when it feels like it should be over, a “Two Months Later” title card pops up and it keeps on going. This sequence isn’t exactly bad, but it’s not really a worthy conclusion. If anything, it feels like a sequel that’s been crammed into the last twenty minutes and is further proof the movie should’ve really packed it in two reels ago.
AKA: The Amityville Terror.
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