Amityville: Dollhouse

"Amityville Dollhouse" is your average low budget B-horror movie, but it isn't too bad in my opinion. It follows a suburban family who moves into a new house the father built, so it seems that there's no way the house could be haunted. But the Amityville evil finds it's way in there, after they discover a dollhouse replicating the Amityville house. They decide to give the dollhouse to their youngest daughter for her birthday, and that's where it all begins. The dollhouse begins to exert an evil force upon the family.

I tend to have a soft spot for low budget, cheesy type horror films of this type. Even though they may not be top notch quality, I find most of them entertaining, and they still manage to be alright in my book. Most of the cast here are unknowns, I only recognized one actress: Lisa Robin Kelly, who plays Eric's sister, Laurie Forman, on That '70s Show (my favorite television show by the way). The whole dollhouse idea is kind of dumb, I don't know what a dollhouse really has to do with "Amityville", but in the context of the movie it seems to work. There aren't really any scary moments, and when it tries to be scary, it comes off more as campy, but I don't really take this film so seriously.

Granted it is a campy, low-budget horror flick, but "Amityville Dollhouse" still finds a way to entertain you, despite the cheap effects and minimal scares that it provides. Some may think I'm crazy, but I was entertained by this flick. It's nothing special and I wouldn't go too far out of your way to see it, but it's an okay corny horror movie. Like I said, nothing special, but not too bad. 5/10.

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.

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).

A perfect late-night sci-fi channel movie, and far more entertaining (for me) than the original Amityville.

The way the dollhouse creates different demons for each character, and the cheap but effective sfx, reminded me very much of the Creepshow or Graveyard Shift movies. Also, the 'fright' scenes skip along at a respectable pace and frequency, as opposed to other films which often plod through the middle.

Sure, the script contains some appalling lines and characterisation, and there are a few moments where more highly strung viewers would be screaming at the stupidity of the characters. I just smile.

With 15-20 years of further advances in sfx, and the cultural tendency of under 30's to confuse sarcasm with valid criticism, I can see why this film has such a low score on the IMDB. Individually, the elements don't stand up to a whole lot of scrutiny, but taken as a whole on its own merits (compared to similar films of the same period), I really enjoyed it. A few better lines, and better known actors, and there's no reason why people wouldn't look on this with the same sort of affection reserved for Poltergeist.

Don't miss if it's on TV.