Amityville: The Evil Escapes (1989)

Six years after the infamous house blew up in Amityville 3-D, it appears to have rebuilt itself in time for Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes. This was a made for TV movie in 1989, and in my opinion was a lot better than the last two. After some priests exorcise the house, the evil escapes into a lamp which is sold at a yard sale. Fast forward to the story of a recent widow (Patty Duke) and her three children who make a move to live with her mother (Jane Wyatt). The lamp is delivered to the house and soon, the youngest child starts to see her deceased father inside, even communicating with her.Several strange occurrences begin happen (a bird dies, a chainsaw comes "alive", electrical appliances turn hot when touched). A priest who assisted in the exorcism of the house begins to realize the evil escaped into a lamp and tracks down where the family lives. After a few attacks and deaths, the lamp/evil is destroyed by being thrown out a window. Great acting in this one. Jane Wyatt and Patty Duke are very believable as the feuding mother and daughter. Now this sequel sounds really cheesy, and you know what, it is! But I quite enjoyed it for a TV movie. It's a fun and entertaining little unknown sequel with some creepy and unsettling moments. Some disturbing scenes involve a plumber in the basement who dies a "smelly" death, a hand in the garbage disposer, etc.I have the Vidmark VHS tape, but it is out on DVD. I say buy it. It's a much better watch then the dreadful Amityville II: The Possession, and the hilariously bad Amityville 3-D.7/10

Everybody, or at least most people, understand that made-for-television movies are hardly considered classics or works of cinematic art, and Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes is no exception. Also, this being of the horror genre of the 1980s, you would expect to see many clichés, one- dimensional and unbelievable characters, mediocre acting, silly special effects, a cheesy score and loads of boobs. But this does not seem to be the case with this film. In fact, within the 80s television horror flick genre, Amityville 4 is perhaps vastly superior to others.We start out with a group of six priests pulling up to the famous Amityville home, which magically and supernaturally managed to resurrect itself from the dead (remember, it blew up at the end of the last one). Armed to the teeth with crucifixes, aspergillums and Latin, the priests are going to battle with the evil in the house, which has manifested itself in rattling chandeliers, gas stoves turning on by themselves, attacking death chairs, and a lamp. BUT not just any lamp – the most hideous and repugnant lamp you've ever seen! So averted by the sight of this lamp, the priest is blown off his feet and into the wall where he later requires hospitalization. The lamp is pure evil personified - as the satanic force enters it via the cord.The next day, all the contents of the house are being sold in a yard sale. (We wonder whom all this antique junk belongs to anyway?) Helen Royce is rummaging through the items with her neighbor Rhona and catches a glimpse of the LAMP with a $100 price on it. Little did she know, she was getting more than she bargained for? Inside the house, the oldest priest believes the house is cleared of the evil, he can "feel it in his bones." (Maybe evil takes the form of arthritis? It appears to for some.)3000 miles away in the fictitious Oceanside hamlet of Dancott, California, Nancy Evans, a recently widowed woman, along with her three kids Brian (Mr. 80's himself), Amanda (chipmunk cheeks) and Jessica, arrive at Grandma Leacock's house at exactly the same time as the parcel from Amityville. That evening, Nancy has a heart-to-heart with her mother, Alice when they are interrupted by the dimming of the lights and the radio playing a rendition of "Disney Girls" (OH the HORROR!) and poor granny burns her hand on an electric kettle. Later, Nancy sees a vision of her late husband who happens to look astonishingly like Chevy Chase, and his hand reaches out to hug her in the middle of the night. For a split second she looks reassured, but soon jumps out of bed gasping. Meanwhile, Jessica is down in the living room having a remarkable Poltergeist-like conversation with Daddy Lamp. The next morning Brian is shocked to find an unexpected breakfast dish in the microwave – granny's pet parrot! And later, in a scene of completely unintentional comedy, Brian retreats to the basement to play with the chainsaw, which mysteriously turns on by itself. The look on Brian's face is superb – almost Elmer Fudd-ish. (Be verwy quiwet, I'm wruining gwamaw's basement.) Peggy, the Alice-from- the-Brady-Bunch-type maid (complete with the blue apron, similar hair and everything) calls an electrician to look over the appliances, which have turned on by themselves.The electrician's son Danny comes instead, gives the bedroom eyes to Amanda (but is apparently too shy or awkward or dense to actually ask her out) and gets his hand cut off in the garbage disposal. Nancy states that the family should not use any electrical appliances, but immediately contradicts herself by answering the phone (can you say hypocrite?) The next day, the electrician senior comes to the house to investigate what has been going on. He seems rather unconcerned that his son just lost his hand in this house, and later says he has no idea why the electronics in the house are malfunctioning. Then the water in all the taps in the house turns to a black substance that "smells like a sewer". A plumber arrives to fix the problem and Peggy (who seems to be about twenty cents short of a quarter) responds to the water problem by doing laundry. The plumber gets trapped under the house and the black goo; followed by Danny's hand, land on his face. (What happens to him? We don't know. For all we know, he could still be down there.) BUT his van mysteriously drives off by itself, with no human behind the wheel. (I like to think the demon will be pulled over for speeding. Imagine that police radio call!)Later the lamp manages to strangle the old maid with its cord. Dr. Brooks, who looks near ready to retire, labels it as a heart attack. Never mind those deep red strangulation marks on her neck, trust me, it was a heart attack! He even tells the detective he'd bet money on it.Yadda….yadda….yadda…..Eventually Father Kibbles-n-Bits (Kibbler for short) arrives at the house. He performs a pretty entertaining and half-assed exorcism on the lamp, which consequently flies out the window with Father Kibbles-n- Bits's arm caught in the cord. Nancy saves his life by chopping the cord with an axe. The next morning, both Alice and Father Kibbler hop in a taxi to the airport. Both are going to Amityville – Alice to her sister Helen's funeral (she died of tetanus two days before, after cutting her finger on the evil lamp when she bought it). Everything is great until………until…………the cat Pepper gets possessed by the three-century-old evil that possessed the lamp! Maybe we'll get another sequel!

Warning, This Comment Contains Spoilers For 2 Other Movies. I have seen all of the Amityville movies and i say this one tops the lot in the most entertaining column. I am very surprised that this movie was based on a book and came out on TV. Lots of interesting features have been added into this movie. For example, the evil escapes through an ugly looking lamp from the power cord and goes into a different house the same way but in reverse. Now the Food Remains Grinder scene is one of the best scenes i have ever seen. It is very good that they show the boys hand getting ground up and spurting blood on everyone instead of having a stupid camera angle that makes everybody get upset. It is also good that it actually ground up his hand. I have seen the grinder scenes in final destination 2 and halloween h2o and the grinding never happened. Very entertaining ending with lots of character commotion but a very ugly cast i must say. All the straight-to-video Amityville films are very rare over here in Australia and this one is the second most rare, so if you see this, hire it or buy it as soon as you can.

When I have my mind set on something, you can be damn sure I'll make it happen. As of lately, I had my mind set on knowing the truth about the AMITYVILLE series. I had developed a curiosity towards the whole franchise (yes, all of the 9! Movies). If only, it was for trying to understand how such a mediocre haunted house movie from 1979 could spawn no less than 8 sequels/prequels/instalments/re-incarnations/and a re-make. And frankly, I still don't understand it. Even though I must admit I've developed a certain liking towards the iconic Amityville-based house of hauntings (which is only the main place of horrifying events in the first three movies and re-make) and I did have a bit of fun with the straight-to-video sequels from the 90's, sitting through the complete series wasn't all that of an enjoyable experience, I'm afraid… Well, my negative feelings towards AMITYVILLE might have been influenced by the last one I could check off my list, being... ...AMITYVILLE IV: THE EVIL ESCAPES. I've now seen them all. And boy, oh, boy, this 4th instalment undoubtedly is the worst, in my humble opinion. You can already guess it could suck bigtime when you know that after part 3 (a theatrical release from 1983), they suddenly came up with this made-for-TV movie in 1989. I don't really know what happened to the continuity of the AMITYVILLE time-line, because THE EVIL ESCAPES opens with a scene where we can see some priests trying to cleanse the notorious house. The next sequence shows us a yard-sale in front of the house, where people are selling all the furniture and stuff from the house. Now, because of the house having been destroyed at the end of part 3, I can only assume that part 4 takes place somewhere between the second and the third movie. Well, no problem with that, really. The real problem lies with the fact that THE EVIL ESCAPES remains made-for-TV rubbish from the beginning 'til the end. So this goofy looking stand-up lamp (about the size of a human, and even equipped with two arm-shaped tentacles with light-bulbs as hands) gets bought at the yard-sale and shipped to some other house where an elderly lady lives (her being the sister of the person who purchased it). Around that same time, her daughter with her three kids moves into the house with her (because of her husband having died). And then this movie becomes more like a family drama than a horror movie, really. There's some arguing, disputing, etc… The only horror in this movie is supposed to be coming from the lamp, and all it does (on numerous occasions) is starting to light up and turn itself off again without being plugged in. Well, its electrical cord does strangle somebody in one scene. Pretty predictable, of course. But at not one point it does something else. I was so hoping for the damn thing to come alive or something, but alas… But it does seem to attract flies. And on two occasions it shows us the image of some devil-dude's face projected in the big light-bulb at the top. Pretty cheesy.One hilarious scene in the basement has the son (who's got an incredible silly hair-cut, looking way too old for his age, and also over-acts just a tad bit too much) loosing control over a possessed chainsaw. Of course nobody gets hurt (hey, it's a made-for-TV movie, remember?), but it was one of the most funny scenes of the whole movie (seeing the little dude pull silly faces and all trying to control the chainsaw). Well, the ending is a hoot too. It's the Priest vs. the very static Haunted Lamp. Very funny. And then grandma (of all people!) just picks the darn thing up and throws it out of the window! Between all the family-drama, the youngest daughter gets possessed by the evil spirit too and seems to be able to talk to her dead dad (who we don't see throughout the movie, of course). The other tedious events in THE EVIL ESCAPES include one plumber getting killed by some Black Gooey Substance of Death and a teenager getting his hand cut off in the garbage disposal sink device thing (how imaginative!). Oh, and the lady who initially bought the ugly lamp, dies (after cutting her finger on it) from tetanus in the hospital. There, now you know it and you don't have any reason to watch this rubbish. Or wait a minute. You might still want to get a copy of this movie for free and fast forward to the end of it. It features a frozen frame shock ending of a… possessed cat! Complete with cheesy red-glowing eyes and all! Aside from that end-shot, seeing Zoe Trilling's cute face again as the teenage daughter Amanda, was the only joy I got out of this movie (she's credited as Geri Betzler, by the way, in this movie). Oh and yes, I almost forgot: A pet-bird also ends up in a toaster-oven. Haha. All the rest is boring, bad and silly crap. But since it was a made-for-TV thing from the late 80's, I'll try to be generous in my final rating.Aside from elderly ladies who have done nothing else with their lives other than being a housewife (and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, okay?), I can not recommend this movie to anybody. THE EVIL ESCAPES simply is the worst (and most un-eventful) movie of the whole series (at least in book). You want to know what I thought was the best one? Guess what…? It's the re-make (from the original) made in 2005. And the one I had the most fun with? Probably part 2 THE POSSESSION (very loosely based on the real Defeo murders). That one goes so much over-the-top and then suddenly turns into a shameless EXORCIST rip-off. Recommended for those facts alone even.