Amityville 3-D (1983)

What bugs me is they take movies of horror and they are rated R or Unrated. They do very well, and then they go and do exactly what this movie is done. PG horror which really is okay but not even close to the first two. The 3-D does nothing to help it at all.Not real 3-D like the later days. Not even scary at all. I am watching it on television and that is all about as good as it should be for television. I cannot see this getting any praise and as good as Troll 2 movie, which is one of the worst horror movies too but at least a PG-13 rating.That does not say much. Even if the acting, which is great does not save this. If you like terrible horror movies, then this is for you but if you love great horror movies, then stay far away and watch something else. I am stuck with this on television because there is just too much crap on television.So do not recommend unless your like me and bored.

Journalists John Baxter (Tony Roberts) and Melanie (Candy Clark) have a fake séance and expose two con artists in a sting. They happen to be in the Amityville home. The present owner can't get rid of it. Recently separated from his wife Nancy (Tess Harper), John buys it despite the death of the owner. Melanie sees strange things in her photographs which spooks her and then she gets killed. Nancy forbids their daughter Susan (Lori Loughlin) from the house. Susan's friend Lisa (Meg Ryan) gets her and two boys to go out to the house.The 3D visual is nothing but a gimmick to keep this material fresh. It's so gimmicky that it fails miserably. The technology is pretty bad back then. None of it is scary. With all the things thrown at the screen, it's a bit funny which is wrong for this movie. The pipe from the car accident is OK but why throw a Frisbee at the screen? There are some badly executed special effects which looks super campy. It's interesting to see young Lori Loughlin and Meg Ryan in this but it's not like they get the bulk of the screen time.

Magazine writer John Baxter (Tony Roberts) and his partner Melanie (Candy Clark) expose a fake psychic racket operating in the Amityville house. Being recently divorced and needing a new house, John decides to buy the place. He gets a good deal in exchange for keeping the real estate agent, who knew about fake psychics, out of the story. John is a disbeliever and skeptic of supernatural phenomenon so he's not worried about the house's history. Once he moves in, of course, strange things start happening. Amityville 3-D has a bad reputation and most of it is deserved. The plot is tiresome and the scares are often laughable. Still, I can't help but enjoy it on some guilty pleasure level. Tony Roberts is a stiff lead. He reminds me of a less charismatic Ron Perlman. Yet there's something fascinating about watching this guy work. Maybe it's the hair. Or maybe it's that he clearly believes he is above the material. Lori Loughlin makes her film debut as his daughter. She doesn't get a lot to do but she's good enough so that you wouldn't automatically assume this was her first movie. Meg Ryan (!) plays her friend in one of Meg's early film roles. I was a little worried after Amityville II that we'd get some inappropriate sexual action between Tony Roberts and Meg Ryan or, worse yet, Roberts and Lori Loughlin. But thankfully nobody has sex with Tony Roberts. The often awful Candy Clark rounds out the main cast. She's up to her usual scenery chewing so everybody grab a seat. The best performances would come from Tess Harper as the ex-wife and Robert Joy as a paranormal investigator.Perhaps the most amusing change to the Amityville series here comes from the fact the "ghosts" can attack someone even if they are miles away from the house. It's silly but allows for some enjoyable shock scenes. Look, this isn't a great movie. It isn't even a good one, really. But it still entertains in a so-bad-it's-good way. If you're looking for something like that, awesome! Here you go. But if you want something you can seriously be scared by, look elsewhere.

Amityville 3-D takes us once again to the infamous haunted house where evil surrounds all who enter. In this one, a journalist played by Tony Roberts buys the house. The minute he does, people around him start dying in mysterious ways. This was the first Amityville to trail away from the "true" stories of the Lutz and DeFeo families. This here is all fiction. Of course, many could argue that parts one and two were fiction as well. I actually enjoyed Amityville 3-D a bit more than part II.The acting in this is pretty bad all around. Meg Ryan debuts, but only has a few lines. Nothing much. The demon in the house looked sort of good (for a 1983 film), but we don't see it until the end. I have to say I would have liked to see it in 3-D years ago. 3-D was the big thing in the early eighties. Jaws and Friday the 13th both used that format around this time.The 3-D objects include 3-D flies, 3-D swordfish, even 3-D spit. The film moves at a very slow pace and I lost interest in it quickly. It didn't do well at the box office, which is why the rest of the sequels were made for TV and straight to video.4/10