Jacob Sterling is an architect who has just returned home from a business trip in Amityville. Jacob lives in Burlwood, California, in a suburban housing development. Jacob's ex-girlfriend, art student Andrea Livingston, is watching Jacob's two teenage kids, naive Lisa and troubled Rusty, while he is gone.
When Jacob returns, he informs them that Amityville wants his company to develop a new neighborhood with a timeless concept. Jacob has also brought home an old mantel clock that he found in the remains of an old house in Amityville. Jacob puts it on the fireplace mantel, stating, "it's what our house has been missing." Once it is on the mantel, things take a turn for the worse. The clock's ticking is incredibly loud; it can be heard upstairs. Unknown to the family, the clock attaches itself to the mantel, preventing it from being moved. But the strangest of all, Rusty goes downstairs in the middle of the night and turns on the living room light switch. Every time he flips the switch, the living room is replaced with an ancient-looking torture chamber. This happens until the lightbulb finally burns out.
The next morning, after Lisa and Rusty leave for school (though we later learn Rusty actually skipped school that day), Jacob decides to go jogging. As he reaches the end of the jog, his digital watch mysteriously stops. He turns around to find his neighbor Mrs. Tetmann and her dog, Peaches, standing there ominously. Mrs. Tetmann lets go of Peaches, and Peaches attacks Jacob, viciously mauling Jacob's leg. Jacob manages to escape by slashing Peaches' face with a broken bottle. The doctor mistakes Andrea for Jacob's wife at the hospital. He tells her that Jacob's wound will have to be cleaned and rebandaged every few hours. Andrea agrees to stay with Jacob for a few more days until he is able to walk. Jacob does not take care of his wounded leg at home and refuses to let Andrea clean it.
Meanwhile, Rusty (skipping school) visits the neighbor, Iris Wheeler. He tells her about what he saw in the living room last night. She assumes that what Rusty saw was an evil force. It was afraid of Rusty and was trying to win him over. She says it would only go to their home because where it used to be is gone: "It must find a new home." When Rusty gets home, Andrea and he go to Mrs. Tetmann's house to ask if Peaches was vaccinated against rabies. Mrs. Tetmann doesn't know what they're talking about and says that she and Peaches never even left the house that day. She even shows them Peaches' face, and there's no trace of a cut. Rusty spends a lot of time thinking about what Iris said.
Jacob, rather than resting, is busy designing a model for a new neighborhood. Andrea asks Rusty to get the phone book from the living room at dinner. Telling a story about a dog as he does so, Rusty fetches the book, but when he gets back a minute later, the kitchen is empty and the table cleared. Andrea enters and asks where he's been and Rusty is astonished to learn that three hours have passed. He doesn't say anything to Andrea, thinking she wouldn't believe him. Lisa lets Andrea have her room for the night, and she sleeps on the couch in the living room. But the loud ticking of the clock keeps Lisa awake all night. Finally, near 3:00a.m., she asks Andrea if she can sleep with her. Andrea says yes and tells Lisa to get her pillow from the living room. But when Lisa gets her pillow, the living room doors slam shut and lock her in. In Lisa's room, Andrea hears the door open, and something gets in bed with her. She finds the other side of the bed drenched in black slime. She turns the light on, but it's not there. Andrea goes downstairs and unlocks the living room doors, letting Lisa out. She suspects that Rusty may have locked them, but he tells her he went for a walk.
The next morning, Andrea learns that Peaches was killed the night before, and a swastika has been drawn in blood on Mrs. Tetmann's house. The police suspect that Rusty may have had something to do with it. That night, Andrea's boyfriend Leonard visits and has a hallucination of Jacob interrogating and shooting him with a gun. The next day, Rusty visits Iris' house and tells her what he had seen in his living room and tells her that it all began the night his father had returned home from Amityville. Iris later realizes that the clock is causing everything to go wrong, but on her way to warn Rusty, she is killed by a stork statue that falls from a truck.
Meanwhile, things start to go terribly wrong at the Sterling residence with Lisa's boyfriend Andy melting into the floor, Leonard encountering goo and a zombie that rises out of the bathtub, and Jacob acting aggressively. Both Lisa and Jacob are now under the clock's complete control, and Rusty is forced to kill Lisa in self-defense. Andrea manages to overcome Jacob's attack but learns that the clock de-aged Rusty into a child as he tried to destroy it. Andrea orders the clock to let Rusty leave, and she begins to smash open the wall. As she does, she sees giant clock gears inside the wall and is unable to destroy the clock. As it begins to age her into an old woman, she ignites an exposed gas pipe, causing an explosion.
The clock rewinds back to the first night Jacob brought the clock home. However, Andrea has retained her memories of the events that took place, and this time, she smashes the clock when Jacob comes home with it. When Jacob asks her, "What the hell was that all about?!" she replies, "It's about time, that's what!" As Andrea departs, Rusty sees Iris standing across the street, and the two exchange smiles, hinting that they have retained their memories of what occurred.
The film was released direct-to-video in the United States on July 16, 1992 by Republic Pictures Home Video and in July 2005 on DVD by Lionsgate, under license from previous rights holder Fremantle. In the Philippines, the film was theatrically released by Jemah Films as Curse of Amityville: The Final Chapter on February 11, 1993.[1] In 2019, Vinegar Syndrome, under license from Multicom Entertainment Group, released the film on Blu Ray in the US which was included in the boxset, ‘Amityville: The Cursed Collection’. In 2022, the film was released on Blu Ray in the UK courtesy of Screenbound Pictures Ltd.
Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregate, the film currently holds an approval rating of 40% based on 10 reviews.[2] The film was ranked no. 10 on Game Rant's list of the "Best Amityville Horror Movies" in 2021.[3]
Related Research Articles
The Amityville Horror is a book by American author Jay Anson, published in September 1977. It is also the basis of a series of films released from 1979 onward. The book is based on the claims of paranormal experiences by the Lutz family, but has led to controversy and lawsuits over its truthfulness.
Ronald Joseph DeFeo Jr. was an American mass murderer who was tried and convicted for the 1974 killings of his father, mother, two brothers, and two sisters in Amityville, New York. Sentenced to six counts of 25 years to life, DeFeo died in prison on March 12, 2021. The case inspired the book and film versions of The Amityville Horror.
The Amityville Horror is a 2005 American supernatural horror film directed by Andrew Douglas, and starring Ryan Reynolds, Melissa George, and Philip Baker Hall. It also featured the debut of actress Chloë Grace Moretz. Written by Scott Kosar, it is based on the novel The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson, which was previously adapted into the 1979 film of the same name, while also serving as the ninth film in the Amityville Horror film series, and was also served as inspiration for The Conjuring 2, which documents the experiences of the Lutz family after they move into a house at 112 Ocean Avenue, Long Island. In 1974, real-life mass murderer Ronald DeFeo Jr. killed six members of his family at the same house in Amityville, New York.
Amityville II: The Possession is a 1982 supernatural horror film directed by Damiano Damiani and starring James Olson, Burt Young, Rutanya Alda, Jack Magner, and Diane Franklin. It’s an international co-production between Mexico and the United States. The screenplay by Tommy Lee Wallace is based on the novel Murder in Amityville by the parapsychologist Hans Holzer. It is the second film in the Amityville Horror film series and a loose prequel to The Amityville Horror (1979), set at 112 Ocean Avenue and featuring the fictional Montelli family, loosely based on the DeFeo family. It follows the Montelli family's decline under apparent demonic forces present in their home.
The Amityville Horror is a 1979 American supernatural horror film directed by Stuart Rosenberg, and starring James Brolin, Margot Kidder, and Rod Steiger. The film follows a young couple who purchase a home haunted by combative supernatural forces. It is based on Jay Anson's 1977 book of the same name, which documented the alleged paranormal experiences of the Lutz family who briefly resided in the Amityville, New York home where Ronald DeFeo Jr. committed the mass murder of his family in 1974. It is the first entry in the long-running Amityville Horror film series, and was remade in 2005.
Bad Ronald is a 1974 American made-for-television horror thriller film directed by Buzz Kulik and starring Scott Jacoby, Pippa Scott, John Larch, Dabney Coleman and Kim Hunter. It is based on the novel of the same title by Jack Vance.
Amityville 3-D is a 1983 supernatural horror film directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Tony Roberts, Tess Harper, Robert Joy, Candy Clark, Lori Loughlin and Meg Ryan. It is the third film based in the Amityville Horror series, it was written by William Wales, a pseudonym for David Ambrose. It was one of a spate of 3-D films released in the early 1980s, and was the only Orion Pictures film filmed in the format. It’s an international co-production between the United States and Mexico.
The Amityville Curse is a 1990 Canadian supernatural horror film directed by Tom Berry and starring Kim Coates, Cassandra Gava and Jan Rubeš. It is loosely based on the novel of the same name by Hans Holzer. It is the fifth film in the Amityville Horror film series.
That Cold Day in the Park is a 1969 psychological drama thriller film directed by Robert Altman and starring Sandy Dennis. Based on the novel of the same name by Richard Miles and adapted for the screen by Gillian Freeman, it was filmed on location in Vancouver, British Columbia, where the events occur. The supporting cast includes Michael Burns, Luana Anders, John Garfield Jr., and Michael Murphy.
The Amityville haunting is a modern folk story based on the true crimes of Ronald DeFeo Jr. On November 13, 1974, DeFeo shot and killed six members of his family at 112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville, on the south shore of Long Island. He was convicted of second-degree murder in November 1975. In December 1975, George and Kathy Lutz and their three children moved into the house. After 28 days, the Lutzes left the house, claiming to have been terrorized by paranormal phenomena while living there. The house became the subject of numerous investigations by paranormal researchers, journalists, and skeptics, including Ed and Lorraine Warren. These events served as the historical basis for Jay Anson's 1977 novel The Amityville Horror, which was followed by a number of sequels and was adapted into a film of the same name in 1979. Since then, many films have been produced that draw explicitly, to a greater or lesser extent, from these historical and literary sources. As Amityville is a real town and the stories of DeFeo and the Lutzes are historical, there can be no proprietary relationship to the underlying story elements associated with the Amityville haunting. As a result of this, there has been no restriction on the exploitation of the story by film producers, which is the reason that most of these films share no continuity, were produced by different companies, and tell widely varying stories.
The Prince of Mist is a 1993 mystery and horror young adult novel by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. It was initially published in Spanish by Editorial Planeta and later in an English translation by Lucia Graves by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers in 2010. The Prince of Mist was Zafón's first novel.
Saturday Night is a 1922 American silent romantic comedy film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Leatrice Joy, Conrad Nagel, and Edith Roberts. It was Leatrice Joy's first film with DeMille.
The Paperboy is a 1994 Canadian horror film starring Alexandra Paul, Marc Marut and William Katt.
Amityville: The Horror Returns is a 1989 horror novel and the fifth installment in Amityville book series written by John G. Jones. It is the final book to be about the Lutzes as they are stalked by the presence they fled from in Amityville.
The Flesh and Blood Show is a 1972 British horror slasher film directed and produced by Pete Walker, and starring Ray Brooks, Jenny Hanley, and Luan Peters. The screenplay was by Alfred Shaughnessy. It follows a group of actors being stalked and murdered by an unseen assailant while rehearsing a play at a derelict seaside theatre.
Amityville: The Awakening is a 2017 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Franck Khalfoun and starring Bella Thorne, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Cameron Monaghan, Mckenna Grace, Thomas Mann, Taylor Spreitler, Jennifer Morrison, and Kurtwood Smith. It is the tenth installment of the Amityville film series and a direct sequel/metafilm taking place in the "real world" outside of the continuity of the series which establishes The Amityville Horror (1979), the sequels from 1982 to 1996, and the 2005 remake of the original film as fiction. Its plot follows a teenager who moves into 112 Ocean Avenue with her family, who shortly find themselves haunted by a demonic entity using her brain-dead twin brother's body as a vessel.
The Amityville Asylum is a 2013 British horror film written and directed by Andrew Jones. It is the eleventh film to be inspired by Jay Anson's 1977 novel The Amityville Horror. Sophia Del Pizzo stars as Lisa Templeton, a young woman who is hired to work as a custodian at High Hopes Psychiatric Hospital, an asylum that was built on the site of a haunted house in Amityville, New York.
The Foster Boy is a 2011 Swiss drama film directed by Markus Imboden. It dramatizes the fate of two Verdingkinder in Emmental.
The Final Wish is a 2018 mystery-horror film directed by Timothy Woodward Jr., written by Jeffrey Reddick, William Halfon and Jonathan Doyle, and starring Lin Shaye and Michael Welch. Distributed by Cinedigm Entertainment Group, The Final Wish was released on October 17, 2018 at the Screamfest Horror Film Festival.
References
↑ "Grand Opening Today". Manila Standard. Kamahalan Publishing Corp. February 11, 1993. p.24. Retrieved March 11, 2020. A Horror Valentine Treat for Lovers Beyond Time, Beyond Place, Beyond Evil!
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
