Amityville 3-D Movie Review

Yes folks, that's Meg Ryan in one of her first roles ever on film (and in three dimensions, no less), in the stellar 1983 crapfest, Amityville 3-D.

Surprisingly, Ryan proves that she's a real actress here. The rest of the cast (including Tony Roberts and Lori Laughlin) pretty much sleepwalk through this mess of a sequel, sidesteppin the terrible special effects, awful fright sequences (it's rated PG, for God's sake!), and pathetic use of stuff jutting into the camera to create that oh-so-popular 3-D effect. (3-D moments include a fly that gets in your face and a Frisbee flying toward the camera.)

The plot has nothing to do with the original two stories -- which were at least in part based on fact. Here we have an entirely fictional tale of a writer/skeptic (Roberts) who buys the house, in part to debunk its hauntedness. He succeeds in kicking out a couple of charlatans who are holding phony seances there, only to anger the ghosts and demons in the house (here they live in a well in the basement), who torment him by turning on the hot water and killing various visitors.

Fortunately, the film ends with an effects bonanza, which at least fills five interesting minutes with explosions and fire, almost making you forget the "monster" occasionally spotted on camera here looks oddly like a Pac-Man with fangs.

The DVD release of Amityville 3-D (includded as part of The Amityville Horror box set includes the first three films on DVD, plus an extra disc of Amityville-centric documentaries) is presented in standard 2-D format and does not require special glasses to view. However, I don't see how wearing them can possibly hurt.