After exposing a pair of con artists with his partner Melanie (Candy Clark) in the infamous 112 Ocean Avenue house in Amityville recently divorced Revealed magazine employee John Baxter (Tony Roberts) purchases the house after being persuaded to by real estate agent Clifford Sanders (John Harkins). While preparing the house for John, Clifford goes into it alone and, hearing footsteps in the attic, goes upstairs to investigate and is locked in the room, where he is swarmed by flies and is found dead of a presumed heart attack or stroke by John. Thinking nothing of Clifford’s death, even after Melanie shows him some photos she took of the real estate agent before his death which depict him as a rotting corpse, John moves into the house and lives there, adamant that the house is normal and telling Melanie to later meet him there.
While John works (and experiences elevator trouble presumably caused by the house from afar) Melanie goes to the house and is let in by the maid, who leaves shortly afterward. Left alone, Melanie goes down into the basement to check the fuse box when she is assailed by an unseen force and is found cowering and hysterical by John later on. Her attempts to convince John that something is inside the house falling on deaf ears, Melanie, while looking over the photos of Clifford, discovers a demonic-looking face in the pictures and rushes to reach John, but crashes her car and dies when the photographs burst into flames and burn her to a charred skeleton, the car going up in flames shortly afterward. Melanie’s death is ruled accidental by everyone, including John, who remains oblivious to the evil in his home.
While John is away one day his daughter Susan (Lori Loughlin) and her friend Lisa (Meg Ryan) (who is obsessed with the history of the house, claiming it was built on an Indian burial ground) take some boys to the house and use a Ouija board in the attic, but stop the game when the board tells them Susan is in danger before the glass they were using smashes itself against the wall (Susan’s friends assume she was playing a prank). Growing bored Susan and the others go out in John’s motorboat while Susan’s mother Nancy (Tess Harper) searches the house for her daughter, who walks in the door drenched moments later, ignoring Nancy and locking herself in her room. Outside John arrives with groceries and, seeing a commotion on the docks, goes to see what is wrong and finds Susan being tended to by paramedics, her friends telling him she fell out of the boat. When Nancy arrives at the scene John tells her what happened, causing Nancy to go into hysterics and tell him she saw Susan in the house moments ago before rushing back inside, convinced Susan is either still there or will be shortly, refusing to leave, even for Susan’s funeral.
After having nightmares about the old well in the basement (a supposed gateway to Hell) John, unable to deal with Nancy’s delusions that Susan is still alive, consults his friend Doctor Elliot West (Robert Joy) about what he should do. West suggests that John allow him and a team of paranormal investigators to set up in the house, to help prove if Nancy actually saw something or not, which John agrees to. As Elliot, John and the team wait Nancy sits by Susan’s bed and is soon confronted by a spectral being speaking in Susan’s voice, which goads her into following it into the basement, where the old well has filled with liquid. Following Nancy and the being, John and Elliot begin trying to goad whatever is in the well to reveal itself and let Susan (who they believe can come back) go. While near the well Elliot is burned and dragged into the depths by a demon and the specter disappears as John and Nancy flee upstairs, telling Elliot’s team to run. As the house quakes and starts coming apart and freezing on the inside most of Elliot’s team is killed by flying and exploding objects while John and Nancy escape out a window with a few others just before the house blows up. While the remaining paranormal investigators take off, John and Nancy watch as the rubble of the house burns to the ground as the old well bubbles ominously.
Starring :
Tony Roberts … John Baxter
Tess Harper … Nancy Baxter
Robert Joy … Elliot West
Candy Clark … Melanie
John Beal … Harold Caswell
Peter Kowanko … Roger (as Pete Kowanko)
Frederikke Borge … Elliot’s Assistant (as Rikke Borge)
Carlos Romano … David Cohler
Josefina Echánove … Dolores (as Josephina Echanove)
Jorge Zepeda … Van Driver
Director :
Richard Fleischer
