Bill Martin (Robin Thomas) has built a new house for his new family out of the ashes of the burnt remains of the domicile that used to reside on that plot of land. He brings them “home” for the first time and this fractured family tries to pull together to make the best of this new life they have. His wife Claire (Starr Andreef) has a young, nerdy son from her previous marriage and Bill has two kids from his former marriage. Bill’s kids try to get along with Claire’s son, but tension is in the air, and strange things begin to happen in the “new” home. Turns out, there’s a replica of the infamous Long Island house sitting in a locked shed. That’s right, it’s a dollhouse designed just like the Amityville house. And when it gets let loose from the shed, and given to the youngest daughter as a birthday gift, life takes a turn for the worse. Bad stuff happens and a family already on the rocks gets even more fractured. Enter Bill’s sister and brother in law, two folks really into metaphysics and psychic phenomenon, and they are able to figure out what’s going on and enact a ceremony to vanquish the demons that lurk in the dollhouse. Does this work out? You bet your ass it doesn’t. Now the demons are on the loose, and Bill’s family has to find a way to overcome them.
And so we come to the end of the road, the last Amityville film of the 20th Century and the finale of the “cursed objects” sub-story that has run through four of the last five movies. So how is it? Meh. There’s some good stuff in there, some gooey practical effects and some cool demon puppets, but that’s mostly reserved for the ending. The family dynamics are interesting but not enough to capably carry the first half of the movie on their own. Part of that is due to the fact that Claire’s nerdy son is such a little dick that I had very little sympathy for him. The nerds are the ones I almost always root for, but not in this case; he was a real turd. They keep things interesting by sort-of bringing the kid’s dead father back to life (really he’s just a manifestation of the dollhouse’s evil entity) and that’s fun, but I could have used more if that. And is this dollhouse from the Amityville house, or is it just evil because it’s a scale-model version of the infamous house of death? I don’t think that every gets adequately explained, or if it does, I missed it. In the end, it doesn’t matter. It is what it is: evil!
Amityville: Dollhouse is a solid little late 90s flick that doesn’t overstay it’s welcome but it also doesn’t blow the doors off, either. The film is a lovely guest in your house that raises a little ruckus towards the end of the party but never gets out of line, and while that may be perfect for an actual gathering, in the horror world, we prefer out guests to be very rude and obnoxious. Being well-mannered and just slightly drunk does not a great horror film make. This would be the last “original” Amityville movie until the remake in 2005 and after that there would be a few films trading in on the name but honestly I don’t know how connected they really are. That’s a series for another time.
★★☆☆