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Tony Roberts, Tess Harper, Robert Joy, Candy Clark, John Beal ... see more see more... , Leora Dana , John Harkins , Lori Loughlin , Meg Ryan , Neil Barry , Rikke Borge , Pete Kowanko , Carlos Romano , Jorge Zepeda

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 rev... read more read more...ival 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

Flixster Users

30% liked it

10,833 ratings

Critics

0% liked it

15 critics

PG, 1 hr. 38 min.

Directed by: Richard Fleischer

Release Date: November 18, 1983

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DVD Release Date: April 5, 2005

Stats: 267 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (267)


  • September 28, 2011
    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... read more 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?
  • January 16, 2011
    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.
  • August 19, 2007
    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 wa... read moretching 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.
  • June 9, 2007
    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 i... read moren 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.
  • June 14, 2011
    Well, it's the shortest out of the original three, and it has a young Meg Ryan. One of those is a good thing.
  • August 30, 2008
    And you can subtract a star if you don't see it in 3-D.
  • October 17, 2010
    Really bad, really really bad. It's forgivable when you see obvious 3-d shots without 3-d glasses on (E.g. when the photographer friend of the main character is using her flashlight in the basement and the shaft of it looks 3 feet long). However, to take a decent idea and plot... read more (a skeptic in a haunted house!) and develop the last 30 minutes of it into what it was... and the last 10 minutes into whatever the heck it was, it becomes completely silly- I burst out laughing at the basement scene with the paranormal investigator at the well. Not to mention most of the "haunting" has to do with flies and super "suspend belief" deaths that allow one to believe the house can reach all the way across the city.

    The ending of this movie completely ruined it and made it pointless to watch.
  • February 22, 2009
    This movie is your basic 80's horror where most scenes just take long with no dialog just suspicion. And those scenes drag movies for so long to a point where it gets annoying. Though I wish to see this movie at the theter with 3D glasses but i was too young to watch it. The bes... read moret part of the whole movie is house technically commiting sucide. It just exploded by itself. Which is what the orignal family should've done to it.
  • January 24, 2009
    i've never really liked this one.i always thought that it was way to cheesey and easily the worst one in the series.
  • June 12, 2008
    This third installment is much better than the second, but it's still not a good movie. It was great to see people like Meg Ryan and Lori Loughlin in early roles. But the plot was okay, acting was below average, the effects were okay, and there wasn't anything original or excitin... read moreg about it.

Critic Reviews


Variety Staff
March 26, 2009
Variety Staff, Variety

There is hardly anything original about the picture. Full Review

Janet Maslin
August 30, 2004
Janet Maslin, New York Times

The cast is good, but the characters are idiots. Full Review

August 3, 2009
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. Full Review

June 24, 2006
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. Full Review

Stefan Birgir Stefansson
July 8, 2005
Stefan Birgir Stefansson, sbs.is

3-D, the stamp of greatness...

Nick Schager
April 4, 2005
Nick Schager, Slant Magazine

Replaces derivation with gimmicks. Full Review

Christopher Null
April 4, 2005
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. Full Review

David Nusair
March 28, 2005
David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews

...thoroughly bereft of any interesting ideas, as evidenced by the film's absurdly underwhelming climax... Full Review

James Sanford
January 9, 2003
James Sanford, Kalamazoo Gazette

Entirely flat, despite the gimmicky effects

Scott Weinberg
September 8, 2002
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.

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

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  • Which Part III Film did Meg Ryan appear in?  Answer »
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