Amityville: Dollhouse (1997)

I love this movie so much

The greatest movie ever made..!

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Amityville Dollhouse is the 8th installment in this long drawn out series. This one is actually pretty decent. It's about a man who finds a dollhouse which looks exactly like the Amityville house. As soon as he gives the dollhouse to his daughter for her birthday, strange things start to happen. The fireplace turns on and off, windows open and close by themselves, a gigantic mouse hides under a bed, and the man's wife gets the hots for her teenage stepson. Classic signs in Amityville sequels that something just isn't right.What irritates me is that the young girl and her aunt realize there is something evil about the dollhouse, but do not destroy it right away. Instead, they think it's best if the little girl writes down all of the strange things that happen with regards to the dollhouse. There are some cool scares and sequences in the movie. The gigantic mouse scene is well done, the bug in the ear is cringe worthy, and the younger son's deceased father coming back from the dead is pretty creepy.Overall, this is one of the better Amityville sequels. The story goes on at a good pace and is never dull or tedious. The only downfall like many other of the Amityville sequels is that it has almost nothing to do with Amityville - other than the replica dollhouse. It's hard to get on DVD, but if you can, check this one out.6/10

Okay, first of all the movie really doesn't have anything to do with Amityville, just that the doll house resembles the house in Amyityville, they mostly just added it to the series to make money. Anyway, the movie is about a family that pretty much hates each other that moves into this house that was built on top of an old house that burned down, and soon strange things start happening. The acting is okay, the plot was kind of dumb, and the sexuality in this film was a bit gratuitous. However, all and all the movie was okay, certainly not the best in the series, but okay.Rated: R for Violence, Sex, Nudity, and Profanity.Grade: D

"Amityville VIII: Dollhouse" is a better entry than it should be with a few problems.**SPOILERS**Moving into a new house, blended-family Bill Martin, (Robin Thomas) his wife Claire, (Starr Andreeff) and their children Jessica, (Rachel Duncan) Todd, (Allen Cutler) and Jimmy, (Jarrett Lennon) find their familiar differences start immediately when they arrive. Cleaning up around the property, they find a large doll-house tucked away in a gardening shed and decide to fix it up as a special gift. After giving it, they soon start to experience a weird series of events and freak accidents that appear to be accidents but are soon convinced something is wrong. Learning that the doll-house given as a gift resembles a mysterious house from Amityville, New York that housed a Satanist before being engulfed by a fire, and when Uncle Tobias, (Franc Ross) and Aunt Marla, (Lenore Kasdorf) inform them that there was several bits of wood from the house used to build the doll-house, and it's causing the manifestations. With the visions getting worse, they try to stop it before it takes on further stress for the family.The Good News: This one has some really nice moments to it that make it really exciting. The main thing this gets right is that there's a return to the house's look, as the doll-house is the original to a tee. The looming windows that set off a pair of eyes, the distinct chimney, and there's some good parts that come along from the house's appearance. The look is still there, and even there it isn't the centerpiece of the film, it still has enough to get the point and fear across. The film also works well with it's cheese, and there's some great amounts of it in here. The ending half of the film, where the full powers of the house are unleashed and monsters, demonic spirits and more are unleashed, ushering a large, grand series where big spectacle, special effects style scenes make this one really fun and entertaining. The monsters are fun and inspired, the action is good and it's all done with a great sense of fun. The film also manages to spread it through the rest of the film, mainly in the form of a complete gaggle of shock cuts that come along, making it feel like a rather traditional entry of a horror film. It has even more fun in here with a deliciously sleazy subplot where the mother starts having sexual desires after being around the step-son, and in one fantastic scene begins to rip her clothes off and pleasure herself after an encounter, and when interrupted by her husband, switches over and initiates a more intimate encounter to cover her tracks. It's a great scene, and is certainly helped by a sex scene earlier that helps along the sleazy action. There's also a lot of fun to be had from just how it exploits that much fun, and the cheesiness here is something that is just overwhelming and makes it so entertaining. These here all make the film entertaining.The Bad News: This one doesn't have a whole lot of flaws, but there are a few. The sheer ridiculousness of it all manages to be the biggest one here, since it manages to, at once, point out the idiocy of the premise and how it turns it into something that really should've been gone over a little more carefully. Building a house on the site of an accident that tore the first one down is bad enough, then to find a small shack that has survived is merely conspicuous, and then to ignore what's a few inches away that will clearly lead to a bad idea is something that is just confusing. It has a real lack of interest from it's plot because of this difference from the plausibility from the story, and it's too ridiculous, and combined with the cheese, makes it feel like there's a problem to overcome due to the cheese it has. There's also a flaw in here with the story about the dead father. Frankly, it's way too unrealistic to think that a nine-year old kid wouldn't be afraid of a decomposing, rotting corpse shambling into his room in the dead of night, even though it's a familiar sight to them. The request is unnatural, and the acceptance of it from the start is unreasonable. These here are the film's few flaws.The Final Verdict: A little cheesy, but still fun entry in the series that has some fun to it but has a couple of flaws to keep it down. Give it a shot if you've come this far in the series or are in the mood for a simple, harmless film that provides some fun, but if you haven't got much interest in the series give this one a pass.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language, Nudity and a sex scene

Well, I finished Amityville: Dollhouse and actually it wasn't too bad, it's right up there with the second installment, and for sure it's better than that 3-D silliness. Dollhouse had a little more originality, but my complaint is that the story just wasn't that needed. The sequels have been sold out, bought out, and just too much to keep bringing the same house back over and over and over again. But standing on it's own, Dollhouse was a good horror flick.This family has built a house over the where the old Amityville House used to stand. There is a shed in back where the dad has found a doll house that is the exact replica of the Amityville house, and as a gift for his daughter, he gives her Hell House! I guess he didn't realize that the switch has been on Evil... oh, wait... wrong show. Hee hee! But of course, chaos ensues leading to horrible injuries, hot rooms, hot sex, and lots of fire! Like I said, Amityville: Dollhouse was alright on it's own, because this could've been a great horror movie. But why do we need the Amityville title? It's just getting old, thank God I only found one more, the New Generation, oh, man, wish me luck! 4/10