Review of Amityville Horror: The Evil Escapes

Take one movie with a loyal cult following, steal the premise of "Friday The Thirteenth: The Series" and presto, more cursed objects to drive Ravishing Robey and the talented John D. LeMay nuts! In the third movie, we saw the house destroyed, but what of the objects sold before that movie started. Jane Wyatt receives a cursed lamp that drives everyone around her nuts and possesses her granddaughter in this fanciful if not illogical film. Patty Duke of "Grave Secrets" plays her daughter-in-law trying to make sense of the script and Zoe Trilling (credited as Geri Betzler and looking wonderfully All-American) from "Night of the Demons" learns the art of terror before going on to play Shirley Fenardi. Oh, why couldn't she have been the one to get possessed; she already does it so well. I don't understand why someone as attractive as her didn't get much more work. What bothers me about this movie is that it's links to the original "Amityville Horror" are weak; it's as if someone wrote a really bad horror script then tacked on "Amityville" to it as if that would make people want to see it. This Made-for-TV movie has no real thrills and a lot of hokey special effects as it tries unsuccessfully to be scary, but ends up incredibly preposterous. Almost every "should-be-scary" scene here has been done before and better elsewhere. Nothing new or even creative has been conjured. The ending is not that suspenseful but rather ridiculous. The lamp ends up tossed out the window halfway down the cliff with its cord wrapped around the neck of the priest before it is cut. How LONG is this freaking cord? Truthfully, I really would have preferred this to be an episode of "Friday the 13th: The Series" with Micki and Ryan to coming save the day, and the movie.