Amityville Dollhouse (1996)

 

It was cool to get the chance to revisit the film after decades of not knowing where to find it. I did read it got a DVD release through Lionsgate, but I've never seen it available. It's a weird little film in the minuscule "dollhouse horror" subgenre. This isn't an Amityville film, so its reputation might immediately suffer because of the idea to distribute this as a film tied to the Long Island house of notoriety. But that was the way for many producers and distributors to market films, sort of like how so many of those direct-to-video horror films were shoehorned into the Hellraiser franchise despite not featuring much material even related to the Cenobites or anything Clive Barker. Thanks to Tubi TV, which seems to resemble the old rental stores of my youth, I was able to finally watch Amityville Dollhouse (1996) after quite an absence. It is one of the horror films featuring Starr Andreeff (the wife of contractor, Robin Thomas, primarily known for his many appearances in television) and Lisa Robin Kelly (known for "That 70's Show", tragically dying to drug overdose at only 43) as the love interest of teenage Allen Cutler. 

The film basically has blended family moving into newly built home of Robin Thomas, trying to be the best dad and stepdad with a lot of supernatural setbacks, to say the least. His stepson (Jarrett Lennon) keeps to himself, tending to his pet mouse, sort of isolating since the death of his father has left him somewhat broken. Lennon is that nerdy kid who looks at Thomas as the intruder attempting to take his mom (Andreeff) from him while considering Cutler a jock inferior in intellect. Rachel Duncan is the little daughter of Thomas, recipient of the dollhouse after her father finds it in a locked shed. Thomas built the house off a still-standing fireplace, that fireplace tied to a house burnt down by a deranged father, resulting in a dead family. The dollhouse, unbeknownst to Thomas and Andreeff, contains demonic evil...and the fireplace contains a portal to a trio of demons!

Just a strange congruence of disturbances including the rotted, ever-decaying malevolent corpse of Lennon's father wanting him to kill Thomas, even digging up a grave outback, an insect flying into Cutler's ear while having sex with Kelly, dreams of a child hammering spikes into Thomas' feet, Andreeff becoming hot and bothered for Cutler, the fireplace lighting on its own, Rachel increasingly becoming sicker and sicker as the dollhouse remains in her room, a ritual conducted by Thomas' sister and his sister's biker boyfriend (Kasdorf and Ross) evoking a paranormal outburst by one of the demons (an insect in a doll, taken from the dollhouse), the fireplace setting Kelly's head on fire resulting in a nasty burn wound, and a spider crawling out of a pinata at Rachel's birthday party. The rotted corpse of the dead father is especially noteworthy, while Andreeff growing more and more turned on for her stepson is all kinds of yikes. There was more sex than I remembered in the film...Andreeff is very attractive while Kelly plays the wild child who considers Cutler's family an ideal home as opposed to her domestic strife. The demons in the portal and Ross bringing out the magic protection dust to build a temporary shield does really lay on the hocus pocus quite a bit thick. The demons are basically suits with men in them carrying weapons like scythes. This really plays on the struggles of a blended family trying to figure out how to coexist, while the dollhouse makes all of their work extra complicated. Still, that dollhouse is really well constructed...it is architecturally dynamic with lots of attention to detail, quite a neat little downgraded miniature of what might be considered a close knockoff of the Amityville house in Long Island. 2.5/5