Amityville : La Maison de poupées

Eddie Murphy gave the best indictment of the Amityville series' believability when, imitating the new owner of the house, he said, "Oh baby, this place is beautiful. There are trees here and dogs and its a beautiful neighborhood and..."

"Demon: Get out!"

"Too bad we can't stay baby."

Again, in this movie, all of the family's problems would be solved if they did one simple thing. Leave!!! Just leave the house. That's always been my policy when my dead relatives come through the closet and giant mice run under my bed. It's time to go! Why does it take these people so long to figure that out?

Even if they don't want to leave the house, why don't they just destroy the doll house? One sledge hammer blow and all their problems are over.

This is a movie that is so bad that you will call friends to tell them it's on just so they can be in on the badness. The real horror is that they keep making dreck like this, keep employing no-talent actors and writers, and waste valuable plastic that could go into useful items like dildos and replacement parts for George W. Bush's head.

A haunted dollhouse (why is it haunted? Who knows?) is given to a little girl as a birthday present after her father finds it in the shed out back and it starts terrorizing the entire family by making their wildest dreams and nightmares come true.

A stepmother lusts after her stepson, her own son's pet mouse turns into a gigantic Jim Henson-ish creation, the husband keeps getting nosebleeds, and the stepson's girlfriend is caught on fire in their living room. Honestly, Amityville: Dollhouse is probably one of the more fun entries in the Amityville series, but it's hilarious how they're not even trying to link the films together anymore. Sure, the dollhouse looks a lot like the original Amityville house, but it's never explained why or how this dollhouse has such magical powers.

It is nice to see a little thought being put into the visual design of the film and there are some interesting shots every now and then. At least it doesn't feel like a cynical hack job. Someone was trying to achieve something which is more than I can say for most of the other entries in this franchise.

Bill Martin (Robin Thomas) and his new wife Claire (Starr Andreeff) move into the new house he built in the California mountains. In a shed outback he finds a cute little dollhouse designed just like the famous Amityville, NY abode. How this got here or who built it is never explained. This is no Barbie Dream House though as this dollhouse crushes Bill's gift bike for his daughter's birthday and the parents resort to the "this should make a great gift" routine. The eighth and final Amityville flick before they did the remake. After part 3, the producers felt they could circumvent the whole Amityville house thing by having various possessed items from the house be the gateway to terror. So we had a lamp (AMITYVILLE: THE EVIL ESCAPES), a confessional (THE AMITYVILLE CURSE), a clock (AMITYVILLE: IT'S ABOUT TIME) and a mirror (AMITYVILLE: A NEW GENERATION). So I guess a dollhouse isn't that ridiculous. This is actually a two-for-one deal as we get a possessed recycled fireplace too (there is general confusion as the house was built on foundation of an old house that blew up to suggest it was the Amityville house, but this is clearly set in California). I'm just glad they stopped with this one or we would have ended up with the likes of possessed toaster in AMITYVILLE: YOU'RE TOAST. Or an evil stove in AMITYVILLE: YOUR BLOOD BOILS. One thing this sequel does that is surprising is bring back the taboo sex angle from part 2, along they play it a bit safer with the stepmom lusting for the stepson. Other than that, it is pretty routine stuff with the occasional cool effect here and there (like the progressively rotting dad who haunts his young son a la John Landis' werewolf classic).

Bill Martin (Robin Thomas) builds a house to raise a new family of his own with his teenage son Todd (Allen Cutler), his daughter Jessica "Jessie" Martin (Rachel Duncan), and Claire Martin (Starr Adreeff) and her nerd son Jimmy (Jarrett Lennon), an outcast boy that misses his father (Clayton Murray) and has the mouse Max as his only friend. Todd has a girlfriend, Dana (Lisa Robin Kelly), who is frequently with him.

Bill finds a doll house in the garage that is a replica of the infamous Amityville haunted house and he gives it to Jessie on her birthday. Soon the family experiences evil accidents and Bill's sister Marla (Lenore Kasdorf) and her husband Tobias (Franc Ross) discover that the doll house is possessed by demons that are threatening their lives.

"Amityville: Dollhouse" is another story of the franchise "Amityville" with a reasonable plot and terrible conclusion. I saw this movie for the first time on 15 Dec 1999 on VHS and today I have just seen it again. It is unacceptable that Tobias sacrifices his life to save the Martin family and Bill and Claire end the movie laughing, after losing their friend and all possessions in the fire. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "A Casa Maldita" ("The Damned House")

Amityville Dollhouse (1997)

The Amityville Dollhouse was an hour and a half of cheeze, horror, gore, terror, etc. The movie had some boring parts, but was for the most part quick moving and entertaining. The whole dollhouse idea was sort a stupid, but hey it works. I recommend this if you haven't seen any of the other Amityville films. 6/10.