Amityville 3-D (1983)

0% of critics liked it
(15 reviews)
30% of users liked it
(10,836 ratings)

The third installment in the haunted-house saga discards any pretense of being based on actual events in order to provide the requisite cheap thrills sought by audiences during the short-lived 3-D revival of the early '80s. When a skeptical reporter (Tony Roberts) with a penchant for debunking phony… More The third installment in the haunted-house saga discards any pretense of being based on actual events in order to provide the requisite cheap thrills sought by audiences during the short-lived 3-D revival of the early '80s. When a skeptical reporter (Tony Roberts) with a penchant for debunking phony psychic hoaxes moves into the Long Island house to disprove its nightmarish legend, he and his family are set upon by all manner of supernatural beasties. Many such manifestations leap wildly out at the screen to fully exploit the 3-D effect, making the cheap gags all too obvious in the "flattened" video and cable prints (often released under the title Amityville 3: The Demon). Remarkably violent for a PG-rated film (those with an intense fear of fire might want to fast-forward through Candy Clark's death scene), Amityville 3-D has a certain cheesy appeal for anyone who likes touring Halloween spook-houses. Look closely to spot a young Meg Ryan in a small doomed-teen role. This 3-D version was followed by even more sequels, including Amityville: The Evil Escapes, Amityville 1992: It's About Time, The Amityville Curse, and Amityville: A New Generation. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: PG, 1 hr. 38 min.
Directed By: Richard Fleischer
Genres: Horror

In Theaters: Nov 18, 1983 Wide
On DVD: Apr 5, 2005

Critic Reviews

Variety Staff, Variety
There is hardly anything original about the picture.
Janet Maslin, New York Times
The cast is good, but the characters are idiots.
, TV Guide's Movie Guide
Veteran director Richard Fleischer demonstrates a keen understanding of the potentials of the 3-D gimmick here, but there is little else to recommend this dull retread.
, Time Out
To pad things out characters argue over story-lines from previous Amityville movies, while for 3-D purposes, wasps, furniture and minor players are hurled in our direction at varying intervals.
Stefan Birgir Stefansson, sbs.is
3-D, the stamp of greatness...
Nick Schager, Slant Magazine
Replaces derivation with gimmicks.
Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com
...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.
David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews
...thoroughly bereft of any interesting ideas, as evidenced by the film's absurdly underwhelming climax...
James Sanford, Kalamazoo Gazette
Entirely flat, despite the gimmicky effects
Scott Weinberg, eFilmCritic.com
Works as well as a 3-D sequel of a sequel (starring Tony Roberts in the lead role) can posibly work. And that ain't well.
Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
Better than the first two, but apart from the 3-D novelty not much

Read all 11 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Anthony L

Amityville is much like all the other third in series/3D outings in modern horror franchises. It's not all horrible, there is a good scene in a burning car and the last 10 minutes is great, albeit,so bad it's great territory, but entertaining all the same. Unfortunately the… More
Amityville is much like all the other third in series/3D outings in modern horror franchises. It's not all horrible, there is a good scene in a burning car and the last 10 minutes is great, albeit,so bad it's great territory, but entertaining all the same. Unfortunately the first 80 minutes are pretty awful. I would have liked to have seen it in 3D, just to get a closer look at the fly with the human face, I wonder if there were screams of horror or screams of laughter back in 1983?
AJ V

A low point in the Amityville series, this one is below average. It has hardly any good actors, a bad story, it's predictable, and I just didn't like it.
Dr Blood

I'm sure the only reason this film is stil in existence is because Meg Ryan has one of her early roles in it. It is even more mean-spirited than the previous instalments and the death scenes really stretch credibility too far. The 3D effects were good at the time but they make… More
I'm sure the only reason this film is stil in existence is because Meg Ryan has one of her early roles in it. It is even more mean-spirited than the previous instalments and the death scenes really stretch credibility too far. The 3D effects were good at the time but they make watching it on TV now a bit of a mess. You end up just sitting there thinking, "I bet that bit looked good in 3D!". The rest of the effects are very lacklustre though as is the story itself.
Lafe F

Poorly made Amityville sequel; it just doesn't feel like the house we've all grown to fear. Hollywood greatness has somewhat taken over the low-budget story and made it an effects-driven bore-fest, lessening the scare-factor the other two had. It would've been neato to… More
Poorly made Amityville sequel; it just doesn't feel like the house we've all grown to fear. Hollywood greatness has somewhat taken over the low-budget story and made it an effects-driven bore-fest, lessening the scare-factor the other two had. It would've been neato to see this in 3-D. I didn't think Tony Roberts was entirely suitable as the new owner of the Amityville house; he seemed too ordinary and uninteresting. Evil and death seemed to follow characters out of the Amityville house; the sequences I enjoyed were the elevator drop and the car-fire. The movie was originally sub-titled "The Demon" with a big demon claw on the poster. In this film, there is a hell-pit of slime under the basement floor, where the cheesy effect demon emerges. The overall film felt artificial with lack of anything scary.
Quinto W

Well, it's the shortest out of the original three, and it has a young Meg Ryan. One of those is a good thing.
Anthony V

And you can subtract a star if you don't see it in 3-D.