Retro Review: Amityville 1992: It’s About Time (1992)

Recently, after about 4 or 5 years of being an Amazon Prime member, I have finally dipped into their streaming service.  I gotta say, they have a pretty deep horror selection.  I stumbled upon a few, well I wouldn’t call them actual classics.  But, for this kid of video rentals in the early 1990s, these are kind of classics to me.  Back in the early 90s we had a video rental place called Hollywood Video not far from the house and old movies were $1 to rent with a limit of 10!  10!  So, yeah, my younger brother and I would hand pick movie based on cover art and have horror-a-thons any time I had a weekend where I wasn’t playing baseball or hanging with friends.  I was a teen and pre-teen back then.  Sometimes, we would go all out and grab a full series and do a marathon and Amityville was one series we would visit and re-visit, constantly.  This was back when you could find The Amityville Curse, which has never had a DVD/Blu Ray, nor digital release, so lost to the ages.  But, one of my favorites is 1992: It’s About Time.  Overall, the best is the original and the kind of go downhill after that, but this one is a little different.

In Amityville 3D, the house explodes at the end of the movie.  Every movie after that actually takes place in a different location.  The 4th movie, “The Evil Escapes” begins a weird journey with possessed items from the house, like a lamp.  I am a stickler for timeline and continuity, 4 shows the house, so I would almost say part 4 takes place before the events of part 3, also there is blood still on the walls.  The blood looks very similar to the blood from the original movie.  I say, well it doesn’t matter and I am rambling about the wrong movie, but “The Evil Escapes” is underrated and on Amazon Prime streaming.

Synopsis:

Widower Jacob (Stephen Macht) brings an old mantle clock back from a business trip to Amityville, N.Y. However, he and his family are unaware of the clock’s dark history. It’s not long before Jake; his girlfriend, Andrea (Shawn Weatherly) ; and his children, Lisa (Megan Ward) and Rusty (Damon Martin), are faced with horrifying visions, animal attacks and the bending of time. The family must fight the clock’s evil power before they become possessed completely.

Firstly, I was surprised that I never noticed the father from Monster Squad is in this movie.  That was the first think I noticed.  I really think this one could possibly be, well, not meant to be an Amityville movie.  The truth is, it could have been a movie on its own, we only see a flash of the house and Amityville is mentioned once or twice.  But other than that, take the Amityville out and you’ve got a pretty good, early 90s horror film.  It really isn’t anything special, but it is fun to watch.  A clock drills itself into the house and drives nearly everyone into madness.  The father gets attacked by a dog and his leg gets messed up, the good girl daughter turns sexual and evil, good stuff.

1992 is not bad at all, the idea that the house is haunted or possessed by this demonic clock isn’t the worst idea i have ever heard.  It does make for some interesting moments and some fun visuals.  This, is probably the best, post 3D Amityville movie to me, well The Evil Escapes is very good to.  If you can take the movie for what it is and realize it is not a great work of art, you will like it.  Put yourself in the early 90s mind set, you’ll enjoy yourself as I did.  I do remember seeing this on cable before ever renting Amityville 1992.  I do own the DVD release, I am pretty sure I owned the VHS at some point, but who knows.

IMDB.com has a rating of 4.4

I give Amityville 1992: It’s About Time a solid 5.0, that is about where it belongs.  Not great, but fun.  Oh and Andrea says, “It’s About Time” at the end…classic!

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About Ray Marek III 699 Articles
I have been watching horror films since I was 6 years old. The story, one Saturday night, my mom and I were watching movies and she fell asleep on the couch. We had the channel set on HBO and the movie we were watching ended and the next one, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. This was some time in 1986. I watched then entire film, I was sitting on the edge of my seat. When my mom woke, she asked me what just ended and I told her, “Freddy”. That was all I talked about for weeks and finally she broke down and rented more horror films for me. She rented, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre part 2, Re-Animator, Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives and Halloween II. I watched all and fell in love with horror films forever. 5 Horror Films to Watch Inferno (1980) A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) The Beyond (1981) Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives (1986) Horror of Dracula (1958)