Amityville 1992: It's About Time

08/17/2015 20:15

Film: Amityville 1992: It’s About Time

Year: 1992

Director: Tony Randel

Writer: Christopher DeFaria and Antonio Toro

Starring: Stephen Macht, Shawn Weatherly and Megan Ward

 

Review:

This was a horror sequel I had heard about from a trailer before the next film in the Amityville series. I hadn’t seen this one until a few years ago and then got another chance when it was being shown in my local theater as a double feature. The official synopsis for this film is Jacob Sterling (Stephen Macht) brings home a mysterious clock from the infamous Amityville house, not knowing that it’s haunted by a demonic spirit.

I will give it to this film credit; it goes back to back to what some of the previous sequels did in that an object is taken from the Amityville house and it carries in it the evil. When the father, Jacob brings the clock home no one is really thrilled except for Rusty (Damon Martin). It has a medieval look to it and we learn why that is later. Before he enters the house, there is a decent parallel of the two lights outside of this new house to the original Amityville house. The film does slap you in the face a bit by showing that house. This is done somewhat interesting though since Mrs. Wheeler (Nita Talbot) is into the occult and they let on that she might be psychic.

Things get weird from the beginning. Rusty checks on the room with the clock and when he flips the switch, it changes to what looks to be a medieval torture room. He turns the light off and back on, nothing. He does it again and gets that room again. The problem this raises for me is that it is introducing new mythology that wasn’t there previously. I almost think it was a bad move to handcuff itself to the Amityville franchise and just be a film on its own. This is a problem you get when you keep making sequels that weren’t planned. The item coming from there is good, but this new mythology isn’t. It doesn’t really get fleshed out either, it just tells us that this clock was in an evil room. I will say that I like what Jacob’s plan for the new development becomes after he is becoming possessed. It was creative.

The use of the clock does come into play with manipulating time. I really hated this the first time I saw it, but this time around some of it didn’t bother me. It doesn’t really add too much value to the story or what they were trying to build in my opinion. I also thought it was weird the clock coming to life to secure itself to the mantle. It changes how it is sitting and I thought it wasn’t really needed.

Pacing for this film was a little bit off for me too. It is odd, because it gets right into it. There are just so many jumble things that don’t make sense to me. I like what they did with the dog attacking Jacob, but it happens well away from his house and I don’t see why that would happen. There are a lot of things that don’t happen in the house and it doesn’t fit for me since the evil is contained there. I just feel that there are a collection of scary scenes, but they are pieced together well enough. I did like how it comes full circle in the end though.

This film’s acting was decent as well. Macht seems kind of like a scumbag, which I thought he played very well. I do like how after his attack, we are told that the pain medication can make him have side-effects. That is a good cover for the presence turning personalities and it makes our heroine think it isn’t supernatural. Speaking of which is Andrea (Shawn Weatherly). I thought she was fine in the film, but I think her character was poorly written. She sleeps with her former lover Jacob, but then has her new boyfriend coming over to his house. That is just too unrealistic for me. Megan Ward as Lisa I liked. She is so cute and innocent. Her turn in the film wasn’t that believable though. Martin was pretty good as the odd son who is into dark things. I also liked Talbot’s character as well.

Something really strong for this film were the effects. I wasn’t surprised though at the end when I saw Nicotero’s name. The dog bite on Jacob’s leg looks nasty and seeing how it gets worse was good. The blood in the film was used well and they made these things look pretty realistic. This might be the best part of the film for me.

As for the score of the film, I don’t really recall much of it. It never took me out of the film in any scenes so that is good. It just really didn’t stick out so I don’t have anything negative to say about it.

The last thing I wanted to say is that I love the title actually. It's about time has a couple different ways it can be interrupted. Literally it is telling you what the film is about. It could also be stating that it is about time they went this direction or this subject matter. 

Now with said, I wouldn’t recommend seeing this film, unless you are a big fan of the Amityville series of films and you are trying to watch them all. The acting is decent; the story has some good aspects to it. I almost feel like this film would have been better if it wasn’t attached to Amityville. There were a lot of things introduced that were not fleshed out. I did like the ending and how it ties everything back in. This film had a lot of issues that were just a little too glaring to be glossed over. I would say that this film is not worth your time to see unless you really like bad demonic/possession type film.

 

My Rating: 4 out of 10