amityville set

As decades go, the 1970s was the devil’s playground. At least…on movie screens. Beginning with Rosemary’s Baby in 1968 and continuing with The Exorcist, The Omen and dozens of pea-soup spewing imitators, ‘Ol Scratch was a busy guy right up through the Reagan era, which kicked off with his appearance in The Amityville Horror (1979) and its two sequels, Amityville 2: The Possession (1982) and Amityville 3D (1983). The latter two now premiere on blu-ray for the first time, along with the original, as part of Scream Factory’s The Amityville Horror Trilogy box set.

There aren’t many defenders left to stand up for the James Brolin / Margot Kidder adaptation that caused such fuss at the time of its release. Much of the attention the film garnered was due to the “true story” angle posited by Jay Anson’s book which detailed the events that befell the Lutz family after purchasing their dream home…which just happened to be built directly on an Indian burial ground. After suffering through months of poltergeist activity, including bleeding walls, insect swarms and red-eyed oinking ghost pigs, they left the house with only the shirts on the backs.

Supposedly.

While the controversy continues, there’s no doubt that director Stuart Rosenberg’s film hit at just the right time in film history. Even if much of the spooky shenanigans seem tame by today’s standards, the iconic image of the Amityville house itself – with two pumpkin-pie shaped windows lit up like a pair of evil eyes – became a marketers dream come true. Some creative editing and a brilliant score by Lalo Schifrin are able to overcome most of the bad hairstyles and hammy acting that have otherwise aged the film poorly.

On the flip side, Amityville 2, once ridiculed as an inept cash-in, is more of a cult item than ever, appreciated by fans for the very same reasons mainstream critics found it distasteful; namely a creepy subplot involving incest and a plethora of gore and monster effects. In actuality, the film is a prequel that follows the events of the Montelli family (changed from the real-life DeFeo family) who owned the house originally and wound up murdered in their beds, victims of a shotgun attack by their oldest son who claimed to be possessed.

Producer Dino De Laurentiis puts an Italian spin on things by bringing in director Damiano Damiani to turn up the volume. The first half of the film is a real hoot, with a disheveled Burt Young (Rocky) slapping around family members and insulting the clergy like a more mobile Archie Bunker. But it’s the awkward and unintentionally humorous incestual exchange between Jack Magner and Diane Franklin (Better Off Dead) that gives the movie its memorable exploitation edge. Things slide into pure Exorcist rip-off territory in the last act, but not before providing some wonderfully atrocious dialogue and more than a few genuinely amazing trick camera shots from Damiani.

Recycling the same sets just a year later, De Laurentiis tried to capitalize on the ‘80s 3D craze with the next sequel, Amityville 3D, the first chapter in the franchise to branch out into a completely fictitious direction. After a journalist (John Baxter) buys the place out of curiosity, strange and tragic events befall his co-workers and family. Lori Laughlin (Full House) and Meg Ryan (yep, that Meg Ryan) have small parts in what amounts to an almost completely “scare-free” installment. Other than some drastic drops in temperature and a few flying objects (including a stuffed swordfish), there’s not much ghostly activity on display until the finale where an animatronic demon spits fire from a bottomless pit in the basement.

Including Amityville 3D in the set at all might seem a waste…except for the fact that that the new transfer is an upgrade to actual blu-ray 3D, meaning you can watch the same corny “poke-in-the-eye” effects you enjoyed in theaters without the red / green glasses. It’s just one of the many perks Scream Factory has piled on as extras, including audio commentaries, documentaries, interviews, trailers and more. As box sets go, this is one heck of a remodel!