Amityville Dollhouse DVD – Jarrett Lennon, Clayton Murray

Too good for cinema, Amityville Dollhouse went direct to video just like the previous three in this series of eight. But unlike any of the other sequels to the classic 1979 Amityville Horror, this one at least has an original idea. It’s a little surreal, but resurrecting the house as a pint-sized plaything has the spark of ingenuity about it. If only something else in the movie did. The Martin family move into a newly built house (nowhere near the original incidentally). Father Bill (Robin Thomas) has warning dreams and nosebleeds, but still happily gives his daughter the dollhouse he finds in their shed of evil. Naturally, spooky things start happening. We guess the toy must be dangerous (without ever learning why) because: it smokes, plays with the lights, alters photographs, blows leaves about, and oozes mustard. All the family get a taste of its badness: little Jimmy finds a tarantula in the piñata, wife Claire gets the hots for son-in-law Todd, whose own girlfriend manages to set her head on fire in the hearth. And so on. At the end of the day, these incredulity-stretching franchise instalments at least have the fun factor of working out who will survive. If not that, then you can root for who you want to see splatted and how. On the DVD: Amityville Dollhouse comes to DVD with … a trailer, stereo sound, 4:3 picture. Come on, what else did you expect?–Paul Tonks