The Amityville Horror - It's About Time (1992)

No it's about Money!!!

Money is the only reason that movies like this, with tenuous links to the sub-par horror series anyway, they slap the "Amityville" name to any "Haunted House" story and we,yes even me, buy or rent them and keep this whole string awful films running. Very poor story! August 8, 2007

It's about relationships (including temporal)

For the sixth installment, the Amityville series is back in California, as in Amityville: The Evil Escapes ("Amityville 4"). This time, Jacob Sterling (Stephen Macht), a single father and an architect, brings the "Amityville Curse" home with him by way of a possessed clock that he picked up on a business trip to Amityville. The fact that the clock is the source of the burgeoning evil our cast of characters encounters is one that they don't really figure out for themselves until near the end of the film, but it's not a spoiler to reveal that to readers, because it's clear from the very first scene that the clock means trouble. So this is one of those films where the audience will be egging characters on to figure out something that the audience already knows, and which it often seems the characters should more easily discern.

Director Tony Randel seems to have chosen the setting of the film to invite associations with the Poltergeist series. The suburban neighborhood of Amityville 1992: It's About Time, or "Amityville 6", looks very similar to the neighborhood in Poltergeist; for all I can remember of Poltergeist at the moment, it may very well be the same location. But it doesn't matter if it isn't, the desire is still there to latch on to same kinds of archetypes, so that evil invades generic U.S. suburbia, with the hope of making the fears more relatable and immediate for the audience. That's not the only film reference that Randel makes. One of the odder and more enjoyable ones, for which I still haven't figured out the symbolism, is a fairly literal quoting of Ed Wood's famous footage of Bela Lugosi in front of Lugosi's home, walking out of the front door with a black cape on (of course), and slowly going over to smell a flower. Wood shot the footage without a specific use in mind. It ended up in Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). Randel recreates the scene (minus the flower in a direct way) with Iris Wheeler (Nita Talbot), one of the more interesting, although a bit underused, elements of Amityville 6. The appropriately named Iris is something of a "seer". She has visions of evil invading the Sterling household almost immediately. Later on, she functions as a plot facilitator in a number of useful ways--she provides a link to a more esoteric, supernatural world while simultaneously anchoring, catalyzing and supporting our more grounded/realistic characters' mounting beliefs, she provides important historical information, and she is the first to be dispatched by the evil presence. Her death scene manages to be amusingly ironic, and maybe even a bit absurd, but without bringing the film into a humorous mode; it veers towards but doesn't quite visit campiness, as do many subsequent events.

The twisted relationship dynamics in the film are particularly interesting. Jacob returns from his trip to Amityville to greet his children and Andrea Livingston (Shawn Weatherly), a former live-in lover who was watching the kids. Jacob quickly reinitiates their physical relationship, but Andrea makes no bones about wanting to get back to her boyfriend, Dr. Leonard Stafford (Jonathan Penner). Jacob suggests that Andrea have Leonard stay at the house, and eventually, this does happen. Meanwhile, Jacob is supernaturally devolving into a George Lutz-styled monster, from the same forces that got to George, but Jacob is also physically transforming--or deteriorating more accurately--in a more literal way. There is complex love triangle material between the three throughout much of the film, and Randel executes most of it so it works on two levels--as a straightforward but twisted soap opera and as horror with a strong psychological edge. This is reflected in Leonard's job--he's a psychiatrist, and appropriate to one of the popular stereotypes about psychiatrists, Leonard is the character who falls apart psychologically in response to the Amityville curse.

The Amityville force has often been about unhinging deeply suppressed "dark" feelings and desires in its victims. That works as a catalyst for the twisted relationship dynamics, including between Jacob's kids, Rusty (Damon Martin) and Lisa (Megan Ward). Lisa is the one with more hedonistic suppressed desires, which might seem surprising given the initial character development of the two kids, but on the other hand, Rusty is more outwardly expressive from the beginning, so maybe it's not so surprising after all.

The more purely supernatural aspects of Amityville 6 are both a bit understated and charming in their own way. As suggested by the subtitle, "It's About Time", time and especially time manipulation provides the theme for much of the supernatural material. This enables characters to be placed in alternate realities and it gives Randel and his writers another way to explore elements of characters' subconscious minds, including their fears, of course. Maybe more could have been done to work the time theme into the film in various surrealistic ways, as when that material occurs, it's certainly one of the films' strengths, but the decision to take a subtler track and stay closer to soap-operatic realism wasn't a bad one. October 30, 2006

Amityville: It's About Time (1992)

In 1992, a Amityville came our way to haunt us all...again. This sixth outing is entitled, AMITYVILLE: IT'S ABOUT TIME. Although, definitely not as scary as the first two Amityville films, AMITYVILLE: IT'S ABOUT TIME is another worthy sequel.

Coming back from a business trip, JACOB STERLING (played by Stephen Mact) has brought a pretty exciting piece of furniture for his home. He is greeted by his beautiful girlfriend, ANDREWA (played by Megan Ward), and his two children, RUSTY (played by Damon Martin) and LISA (played by Shawn Weatherly). The piece of furniture he had bought is an old 18th century mantle clock. He had bought the clock from a house in Amityville, New York...112 Ocean Ave. to be exact. Once he places the clock on the manle, things begin happening. As Rusty gets read to head upstairs to get to bed, he turns the light out in the living room, where as he does so, the room changes into another, looking the living room to the Amityville house. He thinks nothing of it and goes off to bed.

The next morning, Jacob goes out for a run. He passes by his friendly neighbor, MRS. TETMANN (played by Terrie Snell), while she is walking her dog. He runs his endpoint up to a constructionsite and is ready to jog back home, until he finds Mrs. Tetmann behind him. Her dog begins growling at Jacob very viciously. The dog attacks Jacob, where he bits Jacob on the leg very badly, forcing Jacob to scratch the dog on the nose with piece of broken glass. After having found out the Jacob will be fine, where he has to stay in the hospital overnight for observation, Andrea agrees to stay with the Sterling's a little longer, taking care of everything. She runs into Mrs. Tetmann, and asks what happened. Andrea is strangely confused, for wasn't Mrs. Tetmann there when her dog viciously attacked Jacob?

Over the course of the next week in 1/2, Jacob begins violently changing his personality, and he isn't the only one: Lisa's personality is also changing, and it isn't PMS. Both Andrea and Rusty see this. They both come to the conclusion that this the clock doing all of the evil hauntings and chaos. The really conclude this after another one of their neighbors, IRIS WHEELER (played by Nita Talbot) is killed by a delivery truck, while the delivery guy is delivering a package. The clock suddenly moves forward and very fast, aging Lisa. Suddenly, we flash back to the very beginning of the film, where Jacob walks in to his house with the clock, where Andrea smashes the clock, walks out the door, where Jacob runs out to her and says, "What the hell was that about"? Andrea replies, "It's about time".

Another great sequel. This one, as I had already said, was not scary, especially not like the first two films. But this is definitely a worthy sequel. August 19, 2006

Good Story, Awful Overall Film Package

I wonder if Fremantle Media is going for most consistently bad set of DVD Releases.
The basic Story of this film is very loosely associated with the Amityville mythos; it actually dates back to the time of some sadistic "necromancer"( the screenplay got it wrong, what they meant is "Necrophage")... but if you watch the film, you will see. And a Clock that was owned by the Necromancer/Necrophage, moves house from Amityville to a place on the West Coast. The Evil of the Clock then tries to take over.
The first half, or so, of the film is just abysmal, production wise, with the second half getting better, almost as if someone thought half way through shooting, "Oh, maybe we should check the dailies..?".
There are more Boom Sticks visible than EVIL DEAD 3, and More Mikes than Waynes World. The Audio is sort of Stereo/2.1 but not quite. It only uses two channels. Seems like it would have been better to package it on a VCD. Do NOT pay more more than 5 dollars for this DVD. And AVOID Fremantle Media DVD's.
It amazes me that the VHS version is better cropped, and has more visual quality than then the DVD. What on earth was Stephen Macht thinking !!!???!!! May 11, 2006

Not one of the best in the series

I owned the frist 2nd 3rd this one and whatever number the new generation is this one was a bit more comady then horror when the plastic bird rocks off and impales onto the old women really made me and my girlfreind laugh. December 15, 2005

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