Amityville: The Evil Escapes (1989)

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This is the fourth Amtiyville movie. It is scarier then the first three. The first three are very scary. But is still scarier. This movie has a great story line. It also has great acting. It also has a great special effects. The Amityville cures it better. Amityville it's about time. Amiyville the new generation is also better. Amityville dollhouse is also better. The 2005 remake of The Amityville horror is also better. Still this is a very scary movie. 4.2 is underrating it. I give is 9 out of 10. I think only reason people do not like this movie is because it is a sequel. This a great horror film. If you like horror movie you should see this film it is a classic.

Helen Royce goes to get her sister Alice (Jane Wyatt) a hideous looking lamp from Long Island at a garage sale as a joke. She cuts her finger on it and dies shortly after. Meanwhile, Nancy Evans (Patty Duke) is a widower, struggling to make her family into a cohesive unit. Nancy makes the choice to move in with her aloof mother (Jane Wyatt) Things go wrong right from the outset when strange occurrences keep happening from electronic appliances. Nancy's daughter Jessica thinks she is talking to her father, but that's just the beginning. They have no clue of the evil that awaits them from that lamp. Those that like cheesy entertainment are likely to get a few kicks out of this one. This isn't a good movie at all, but it's never boring and it does manage to give you unintentional chuckles. I guess they got bored of the Amityville house and decided to start making inanimate objects threatening. Next time they should make a T.V haunted, or a phone, get my drift? The entire plot setup is way too easy. How is it that Helen Royce's character finds nothing of interest at a garage sale and conveniently gets interested in a hideous looking lamp? I guess we're supposed to believe the lure that Amityville has or something like that. There are some great cheesy moments, Brian with a chainsaw is a blast. The death scenes are extremely weak as well. We get a bird in a toaster, a rubbery phone filled with goo, a nasty finger wound, and blood here and there. It was pretty lame. Speaking of lame, how about that lazy ending? All that struggle for an easy payoff like that? Talk about cheap. The actors try hard. Patty Duke is above this and she knows it. She certainly doesn't phone it in and does what she has to do well as the mother. I can't fault her. Jane Wyatt plays it stone faced half the time. The fact that it takes so much for her to believe something is wrong in the house was ridiculous. It shouldn't take Albert Einstein to make a verdict! Watching her go nuts in the end, throwing a lamp out the window was amusing though. Brandy Gold is annoying as Jessica. What do you expect from a child actor? Oddly enough, she never worked again after this, according to IMDb. Rest of the cast are OKFinal Thoughts: Fun can be had in a corny way at times, but it'll likely take a few beers for the fun factor to kick in. It's a pretty crappy movie and not worth seeking out. What more do you expect from a T.V movie?4.3/10

Given everything that happened in the first three films, you have to question the wisdom of buying anything from a yard sale at the infamous Amityville house, but that's exactly where Helen Royce (Peggy McCay) goes to get a present for her sister Alice (Jane Wyatt). An ugly light stand powered by three centuries of evil, the unlikely gift turns up at Alice's home in California just as her recently widowed daughter Nancy (Patty Duke) and grandchildren Amanda (Zoe Trilling), Brian (Aron Eisenberg) and Jessica (Brandy Gold) arrive to stay.Very few horror series reach a fourth instalment with much dignity intact, and it seems that the Amityville movies are no exception: The Evil Escape is totally dumb and devoid of logic. Thankfully, it is also so daft at times that it becomes one of those 'so bad it's actually quite entertaining' experiences that can be passable fun just so long as one watches it accompanied by several beers and a few mates with equally questionable taste in movies.Much of the film's unintentional hilarity can be attributed to podgy faced actor Eisenberg, whose awkward mannerisms and unconvincing facial expressions are almost as terrible to behold as his nasty 90s hairstyle (Eisenberg's 'best' scene: Brian wrestling with a possessed chainsaw in the cellar), but the film also gets chuckles courtesy of its laughable central prop (the supposedly malevolent lamp that looks like a balloon-headed tree-person with glowing hands), a couple of silly death scenes (plumber drowned in goop, strangulation by lamp cord), and one hell of a crazy climax that sees the evil defeated by elderly Alice, who simply throws the lamp out of the window!Sadly, being a made-for-TV movie, Amityville 4 suffers from minimal gore (the only bloody scene being when a guy gets his hand caught in the garbage disposal) and nudity is non existent despite Zoe Trilling looking more than qualified for a gratuitous shower scene.

Warning, This Comment Contains Spoilers For 2 Other Movies. I have seen all of the Amityville movies and i say this one tops the lot in the most entertaining column. I am very surprised that this movie was based on a book and came out on TV. Lots of interesting features have been added into this movie. For example, the evil escapes through an ugly looking lamp from the power cord and goes into a different house the same way but in reverse. Now the Food Remains Grinder scene is one of the best scenes i have ever seen. It is very good that they show the boys hand getting ground up and spurting blood on everyone instead of having a stupid camera angle that makes everybody get upset. It is also good that it actually ground up his hand. I have seen the grinder scenes in final destination 2 and halloween h2o and the grinding never happened. Very entertaining ending with lots of character commotion but a very ugly cast i must say. All the straight-to-video Amityville films are very rare over here in Australia and this one is the second most rare, so if you see this, hire it or buy it as soon as you can.