Plot
Jacob Sterling, an architect from Burlwood, California, has just returned from a business trip to Amityville. During his absence, his ex-girlfriend, art student Andrea Livingston, took care of his two teenagers, Lisa and Rusty.
Excitedly, Jacob announces that Amityville has commissioned his firm to design a new neighborhood. He also brings back an old mantel clock he found in the ruins there, placing it on the fireplace and saying, "This is exactly what our home needed." However, the clock has stuck to the mantel, making it immovable.
Once it is on the mantel, things start to go wrong. The clock ticks loudly, and the sound can be heard upstairs. But the strangest of all is when Rusty goes downstairs in the middle of the night and turns on the living room light 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, Jacob finishes his jog. His digital watch stops, and he turns around to see his neighbor Mrs. Tetmann with her dog, Peaches. She releases Peaches, who attacks Jacob's leg. Jacob defends himself with a bottle. At the hospital, a doctor confuses Andrea for Jacob's wife and advises her to care for his wound. However, Jacob neglects his injury at home and denies her help.
Rusty skips school and goes to his neighbor Iris Wheeler to talk about something he saw. Iris thinks there is an evil force at play. She explains that it came to their home because its old place is gone and it needs a new home. When Rusty and Andrea visit Mrs. Tetmann to ask about Peaches’ rabies vaccine, she doesn’t understand and shows them that Peaches has no cuts. Rusty reflects on Iris's words.
Jacob is busy designing a new neighborhood model. At dinner, Andrea asks Rusty to fetch the phone book, and when he returns after a minute, he finds the kitchen empty and the table cleared. Shocked to learn that three hours have passed, he keeps this to himself.
Lisa lets Andrea sleep in her room while she takes the couch. The ticking clock keeps Lisa awake, and around 3:00 a.m., she asks to sleep with Andrea. After getting permission, Lisa goes to fetch her pillow, but the living room doors slam shut and lock her inside.
Meanwhile, Andrea feels something slimy on her bed and finds it soaked in black slime. She turns on the light but sees nothing. After unlocking the doors for Lisa, she wonders if Rusty locked them, but he claims he was out for a walk.
The next morning, Andrea discovers that Peaches was killed, with a swastika drawn in blood on Mrs. Tetmann's house. The police suspect Rusty. That night, Andrea's boyfriend Leonard hallucinates about Jacob interrogating him.
The next day, Rusty visits Iris, sharing strange occurrences since his father's return from Amityville. Iris discovers the clock is the source of the trouble, but as she tries to warn Rusty, a stork statue falls from a truck and kills her.
At the same time, problems arise at the Sterling house. Lisa's boyfriend, Andy, melts onto the floor, Leonard faces goo a zombie rises from the bathtub, and Jacob behaves aggressively. Now, Lisa and Jacob are fully under the clock's control. Rusty is forced to defend himself and kills Lisa.
Andrea fights off Jacob's attack but discovers that the clock has de-aged Rusty into a child as he tries to destroy it. Andrea tells the clock to let Rusty go and starts breaking open the wall. Inside, she finds giant clock gears and cannot destroy the clock. As the clock ages her into an old woman, she ignites a gas pipe, causing an explosion.
On the first night Jacob brought the clock home, Andrea, recalling everything, broke it in anger. When Jacob questioned her, she left. Meanwhile, Rusty noticed Iris across the street, and they smiled, sharing a moment of mutual remembrance.
