Amityville 1993 - Votre heure a sonné

This movie is about a clock that is haunted and evil. It messes with reality and time, cursing the people in a house.

A great soundtrack and some really memorable scenes. The actors and story keep the film from dragging. Shawn Weatherly is attractive and a good leading lady.

If the film had been a little darker and scarier that could have made it even better, but certainly a good one to grab up and add to your vhs collection.

I'm binge watching the Amityville titles I haven't seen before and am being reminded that all in all this is a poor franchise.

It's About Time otherwise known as Amityville 1992 begs the question what would happen if an item from the infamous house was relocated to another? The answer is a pretty bad movie will happen.

A man buys an antique clock that came from the Amityville house, before you know it strange things are happening and himself and other family members seem to have been possessed by something evil.

This did at least feel like an Amityville movie and reminded me a lot of Amityville: Dollhouse (1996) A passable watch for fans but as a standalone movie it's really not great.

The Good:

Amityville vibe

The Bad:

Another cheating antagonist

Pets getting killed in every damn horror film is overkill

Flawed confusing story

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Amityville is a major contender for the most butchered franchise in movie history

'It's About Time' rehashes a concept last seen in 'Amityville IV: The Evil Escapes', in that an artifact from the infamous Long Island house is relocated into the home of another family, where it soon begins to take over their lives with its demonic intentions. Hardly surprising, given that John G. Jones was the scribe for both installments.

This, I have to say, is the better attempt, and it goes a long way towards rebuilding the damage done by the painful and indeed execrable 5th film, 'The Amityville Curse'. This time around, the artifact is a clock, and its hellish influence not only possesses both the house and its occupants (naturally), but plays around with time itself, breathing at long last some new ideas into the franchise. The tension is reasonably well-paced, allowing for a gradual build until all hell breaks loose.

At the same time however, 'Amityville 1992' still suffers from a fairly silly and uneven storyline, aggravated by sloppy editing choices that prevent the overall effort from meshing together seamlessly. Add to this some rather hammy acting from veteran performers Steven Macht and Nita Talbot, along with some just plain bloody awful acting from Jonathan Penner, and it becomes difficult to take the film seriously. Thankfully the principal lead is Shawn Weatherly, who avoids the obvious temptation the script offers to go over-the-top and gives a creditable performance under the circumstances, as does Damon Martin, in what looks to be his final film.

Nonetheless, 'It's About Time' makes a far better effort to remember its roots than its two predecessors. With minimal rewrites, IV and V could very easily just be standalone horror flicks, but the plot of VI rests upon the apparently again-destroyed Amityville house's past history. On the one hand, it has no conscious ties to the DeFeo murders, but in the universe of the film franchise, these were supposed to be influenced by the house's long-present demonic incumbents, and it is here where 'It's About Time' builds its story. In the process, it grafts yet another unnecessary centuries-old European explanation for its dark history which I didn't really buy into, but I can let it slide since new ground is being explored. After all, I also have to put aside the obvious fact that if this clock has been in the house all along, why does it only manifest its powers now? Yet this is the most interesting aspect of the film, and if anything, Jones should have really let fly with the time distortion element and tried harder to pull it together into what could have been an even better and possibly mind-bending tale.

At any rate, 'It's About Time' pulls the franchise out of the mire that the previous installment dumped it into. It's still fairly silly, but a great improvement nonetheless.

I love B-horror movies. Ones that are not too gory, slightly campy. Amityville 3-D is one of my favorite all time movies.

So when I saw this out on DVD, I scooped it up. I wasn't sure what to expect.

It's actually quite decent.

This guy, the father of a family, brings home this clock. Which came from the Amityville house, but has an older history than that.

The family is a bit odd - you have the father and two children (both teenagers, one a metal-head guy and the other sort of a goody girl) and an ex-girlfriend of his, living with them. She apparently helps take care of the kids while he is a away. And she has a boyfriend, a stereotypical loafer wearing psychiatrist.

Anyway, various haunting type stuff happens. Much of it is time based, since it's focused around the clock. Most of this is pretty cool, actually. Also some stuff from the original movie, the black goo coming out of the ground/pipes stuff. And some stuff seems borrowed from the Omen series. And meanwhile, the father gets possessed. Sort of. But he's not really the focus of the movie. Basically each character gets equal time, with the main focus being the ex-girlfriend.

I really enjoyed it a lot. Not scary, but lots of stuff is different than you'd expect, or think what will happen. Surprisingly intelligent. Much better than the original movie.

This one is probably one of the better sequels, and though it doesn't really live up to the classic standards, it sure packs a punch.

Unlike the fourth and seventh and eighth sequels, this one delivers far more suspense, though a lot of it is typical and expected, such as the declining sanity of the buyer of anything related to Amityville. But it's well-done/well-put-together, and the idea of an Amityville-possessed clock is far more ominous than a stupid lamp, mirror, or a doll-house, you've got to admit.

It even has some real gore thrown in there... what a surprise... Also, this is the first Amityville that really relies on lies, cons and deceits of people and how things like that can tear families and attachments into shreds.

It's a decent sequel, I suppose.