Rare Amityville Rules Flix: The Amityville Curse

Alas, this one is even less logical than the last!  Today's film is The Amityville Curse, the only film in the series not available on DVD (to my knowledge).  Granted- I only found the Amityville 4 DVD by pure happenstance, but I do own it.  This is the fifth film in the 'series,' but has pretty much nothing to do with the rest.  Allow me to explain things while also making them more complicated.  You see, there are 9 Amityville books and films (counting the Remake or The Asylum film).  The only correlation comes from a few of the books and films.  Yes, not all of the books even tie together- what with about three Reboots (give or take) in them alone.  For example: the fifth book- The Evil Escapes- is the inspiration for the fourth, sixth & (arguably) the seventh and eighth films. This film is based on the sixth book- of the same name- but the film changes the house to being somewhere else.  Yes, this is a licensed Amityville horror film with no connection to the house or anything within it.  This book, I should mention, is also by Hans Holzer.  Yeah, him again.  To see why this film probably doesn't need a DVD release, read on...

Yeah, screw you, Holzer!  Granted, you're dead, but still.  You're responsible for this movie in some way, so...screw you!

In the opening, a Priest is killed.  What does that have to do with anything?  Well, we'll get to that later.

A new group of people have moved into NOT THE AMITYVILLE HOUSE.  I use all caps to show that I'm angry!  That or I think that it looks cool.  You decide!

I just noticed that the box says 'Ass' on it.  Ha ha.

Here's a confusing bit: there's still a 'room of evil' here.  It's behind a closed wooden door, making it more like the second film, but less like the first.

Maybe it made more sense in the book.

On the plus side, there is some good imagery here.  On the negative side, I give zero shits about these people.  Sorry.

No no no!  You are not going to be a Found Footage Movie!  If I wanted to watch that, I'd see The Amityville Haunting and...then I'd immediately bludgeon my head against a wall until that sensation faded.

As it turns out, the house was built over the Church where the Priest was killed.  Yeah, that's plausible.

In the book, this is a Retcon for why there is an evil spirit there.  Here- it's just another reason for an evil spirit to be in a house.

For no clear reason, the spirit of the guy that killed the Priest takes over one of the people in the house and makes him a vague demon-looking thing.  Joy.

He dies and the survivors just leave.  Wow, that was thrilling.  The End.

Even for this series, Curse is stupid and pointless.  To begin with, they rewrote the story to NOT be in the titular house.  So how does the title make sense?  In the context of the book, it's referring to how prone to ghost possession houses are in the area...or something.  I guess that could be applied here, but it would be less funny to contradict myself, so it's not.  The real curse, it seems, is that people don't ever tell people the back-story on the houses they buy.  Real Estate Agents are the real villains here!  Now, to play Devil's Advocate, this film doesn't make a series Retcon- which is good.  That said, it's a pointless film that is just exploiting the Amityville name...which the book also does.  If you want another silly explanation for the house being cursed, just wait.  The real problem is that this film is just so tedious.  The other films are about a family facing down horror in their own home, be it from a mirror, a clock or the house itself.  In this film, these are just a bunch of barely-likable people who get a house that is cursed.  There's no great connection is this collection of couples, rendering the drama extremely moot.  There are some neat moments buried in this film, but they're not worth the whole experience.  Take us away, comically-small blood splatter for a head wound...

Next up, things come to a close with the Remake that actually led to a defamation suit.  How slanderous can it be?  Read on...