It’s Haunted House Month here at Horror Press! Since a common thread of haunted house movies is exploring the dark past of the dwelling at the center of the story, I thought I’d dig through one of the darkest times in my own movie-watching past to deliver a ranking of the Amityville Horror franchise, loosely based on the real-life-but-almost-definitely-a-hoax story of the Lutz family’s paranormal experience of living in a Long Island home that had recently been the site of a mass murder.
Note: We’re only going to be counting the movies in the “proper” franchise, which generally means anything between the 1979 original and the 2005 remake, as well as whatever came after that which had a budget that could buy you more than a box of Cracker Jacks. Around the early 2010s, filmmakers seemed to discover that you can’t copyright the name of a real town, so infinite low-budget knockoffs began to spring up, and I’m sorry but stuff like Amityville Karen and Amityville Christmas Vacation just doesn’t belong here.
They certainly deserve an article of their own, but that’s an entirely different ballgame, with a drunk umpire.
10. The Amityville Curse (1990)
The Amityville movies frequently have a hard time focusing on the core elements of the franchise, as you’ll soon see, but this installment – the fifth – was where they really lost the plot good and proper. It’s a milquetoast adult drama set in Amityville, but it’s in an entirely different house, and one that is much squatter and uglier and more boring to look at than the iconic Dutch Colonial with the windows that look like glaring, angry eyes. The boring outsides of the house reflect the boring paranormal antics going on within its walls, and the whole thing is predicated on a plot twist that is so obvious I didn’t realize we weren’t supposed to already know it was happening.
9. Amityville: The Awakening (2017)
This is the single “proper” Amityville movie made after 2005, and it took them three years of reshoots and post-production meddling to actually get it released. Maybe they should have taken longer, because the final product is in shambles. It has promising elements (Jennifer Jason Leigh, a meta angle where the Amityville movies exist), but nothing to show for it as it lazily grafts an Insidious-style storyline into the Amityville universe without any of the potent James Wan-style scares.
8. The Amityville Horror (2005)
A shirtless 2005 Ryan Reynolds with an axe certainly gets you somewhere, but even by the standards of a mid-2000s horror remake, The Amityville Horror is pretty weak. The haunted house genre is the one that least benefits from “improved” special effects that involve slopping lots of bad CGI onscreen, but every choice made here delivers the story and themes with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
7. Amityville Dollhouse (1996)
This one is about a new house built on the same lot as the original Amityville house, but there’s a haunted dollhouse in the shape of the original house that is exerting its evil influence? Hell if I know what’s actually going on here, but Amityville Dollhouse is drab more than it is actively bad. And it does have its moments. It’s more exploitative than many of the other installments, so if you’re into scantily clad men or women, there’s a surprising amount of both for what is ostensibly a family drama. Also, because the movie has as little understanding of its own plot as I do, the manifestations of the presence in the house are kooky and constantly changing, which does keep you on your toes.
6. The Amityville Horror (1979)
You might be surprised to find the original movie so low on the list, but for a minted classic, it can get tedious. It’s episodic with no real build-up, needlessly shackling itself to the “real” events of the story, leaving it diffuse and messy and narratively unsatisfying for a great big portion of its run time.
5. Amityville 1992: It’s About Time (1992)
The sixth Amityville movie is part of a run of sequels involving objects from the original house being brought into other homes and wreaking havoc. In this case, it’s a haunted clock that bends time, and the results are cuckoo bananapants. It’s a low-budget direct-to-video movie, so there’s a ceiling to how well things go for it, but it’s full of beautifully conceived post-Elm Street supernatural mayhem and its chaotic energy is kind of a delight.
4. Amityville II: The Possession (1982)
After the release of the original, Italian shlock producer Dino De Laurentiis got his hands on the franchise and gave it a big ol’ shot in the arm. The 1980s were in full swing at this point, and thus the movie is jam-packed with glorious rubbery effects, incest, and mayhem. Unfortunately, it concludes with a boring Exorcist riff, but it’s a pretty fun entry overall.
3. Amityville: The Evil Escapes (1989)
This is the one with the Evil Lamp, and oh what a lamp! You take one look at it and go, “Yeah, that lamp is evil; stay away from that.” Somehow this is an Amityville movie that is also a Patty Duke TV movie, and even more shockingly, it works. It’s very silly, sure, but it’s got one of the most engaging core storylines of the bunch, with three generations of women battling evil in an isolated home. It’s everything the new Halloween trilogy thought it was doing, and more. (“More” is a teenage girl dumping two giant bowls of salad down a garbage disposal.)
2. Amityville 3-D (1983)
Dropping the “based on a true story” conceit immediately allowed the franchise to cut loose and have some fun, combining the deliberate pace of the original and the 1980s grotesquerie of the sequel into a focused slow boil toward a rollicking good time. Plus, Meg Ryan is kicking around and a Frisbee gets thrown directly into your face, so what’s not to like?
1. Amityville: A New Generation (1993)
It’s not often that a direct-to-video seventh installment in a franchise is the best, but The Amityville Horror is one of the more unusual horror franchises on the market. This one, about a haunted mirror tormenting bohemian artists straight from the cast of Rent, features a stacked cast (David Naughton! Terry O’Quinn! Richard Roundtree! Lin Shaye!!), unique visual ideas, and a solid plot. It’s no masterpiece, but it’s a diamond in the rough. Or, at the very least, some cubic zirconia in the rough.