The Amityville Horror Collection (DVD)

With the upcoming release of the Amityville Horror remake it certainly is a good idea for MGM to re-release the original films and why not in a nice big collection?

The Amityville Horror Collection offers up The Amityville Horror, Amityville II: The Possession and Amityville 3-D along with a bonus disc with History Channel features on the famed "haunted" house.

First to the movies, where they slowly decline from great to horrible whereas the first Amityville Horror movie is easily one of the greatest horror flicks of all time with the thrills and tension a great horror should have, but then the films slowly fade into 80s horror garbage.

Amityville II starts off good with a little bit of an Exorcist feel, but once the ending bares its ugly, and I do mean ugly, face it really loses its appeal, but might make for a really good remake if this upcoming Amity remake does well. As for Amityville 3-D, the translation to home video just doesn't work with the 3-D of course, but it doesn't matter as the movie is so bad. 3-D is probably best known as one of Meg Ryan's early works, but I am sure Meg has even forgotten about this one.

The bonus disc, titled "Amityville Confidential," does offer up some goods, but it would have been better if the two History Channel pieces had been worked together since they become a bit tedious after a while, but the two hour long features certainly do give you every incite into the house in Amityville you could ever ask for, and the controversy surrounding its supposed haunting. The features even introduce the Lutz family, which were the ones featured in the original Amityville flick and the "experts" hired to investigate the house's demonic qualities.

You will, however, find the best features on the best disc in the set, the disc for The Amityville Horror, considering the others have no special features whatsoever. Not only is it the best movie of the bunch, but it offers up a great making-of documentary that includes both Margot Kidder and James Brolin as they talk about the feature as well as a couple of those "experts" I mentioned earlier.

On the audio commentary you will find the voice of Dr. Hans Holzer a man who investigated the real Amityville house and holds a Ph D. in parapsychology, but to listen to him you would think he was more of a film buff than a ghost buster. Holzer knows just about every bit of info on the house and the production that you really start to think the whole "real" story may just be a joke and a way for a bunch of people to try to cash in on an elaborate hoax.

Overall, this collection is a toss-up, the first film is great, the second is so-so and the third is just a waste. The special features run down the middle of the road and could be considered good and some bad, but if you are a horror fan and a fan of the original Amityville film then why not buy the whole set? The collection is running for about $30 at Amazon.com, which is only a couple bucks more than what you would pay for one DVD now days.