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Kill of the Week: Sucked Down the Drain in ‘Amityville: It’s About Time’
Every week, we spotlight a kill that we just can’t get enough of. This is Kill of the Week.
There’s no denying that the Amityville Horror franchise isn’t exactly home to the best horror films. Aside from the original classic, the first sequel, and maybe the 2005 remake, most horror fans don’t even pay any attention to the series. There were eight (official) installments from 1979 to 1996. And not even half of them are worth watching.
Believe me. I’ve sat through them all.
By the time the ’90s came around, the Amityville Horror franchise was very much dead in the water, with seemingly no chance of ever redeeming itself. The villainous house was destroyed in part 3 (WHAT? WHY?!), and the franchise was at an all-time low, requiring nothing short of a miracle to keep it going.
Shockingly, however, sixth installment Amityville: It’s About Time, released in 1992 and directed by Tony Randel (Hellraiser 2), is something of an undiscovered franchise gem.
The ambitious plot centers on Jake Sterling (Stephen Macht), an architect who returns home from a trip to Amityville with an antique clock. As it turns out, this clock, taken from the rubble of the infamous Ocean Avenue house, was the true source of evil in that home… just as it becomes a source of horrifying evil in the Sterling home.
Yes, the movie is literally ABOUT TIME. Get it?!
Not only does It’s About Time build upon the franchise’s mythology, tying all the horror to a 15th century French necromancer, but it’s also just plain fun. The gory slice of ’90s horror delivers some truly unforgettable scenes brought to life with incredible practical effects, notably the death of a horny young man who literally gets sucked down a storm drain.
The man’s girlfriend, possessed by the evil of the Amityville clock, seduces him with the promise of sex, but some nasty black goo comes up from a drain in the floor and crashes the party. Just as he’s seemingly about to get what he desires most, the unlucky dude is sucked down into the drain by the evil goo, which twists and contorts him into a body-horror nightmare – his head is gruesomely sucked down last.
This movie is just begging for a cult fanbase.
Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor best known for his role in 1993’s Jurassic Park, has passed away this week at 78 years old. In a statement shared on Neill’s Instagram page this morning, the actor’s family said that his passing was “sudden and unexpected.”
Neill had been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer in 2022, but stated the following year that he was in remission. The family notes that he “remained cancer free” at the time of his passing.
The family statement reads, “It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney Australia. Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life. The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free.
“They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care. More details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they navigate this immeasurable loss.”
In addition to his iconic role as Dr. Alan Grant in the original Jurassic Park and the sequels Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World: Dominion, Sam Neill left an indelible mark on the horror genre with memorable roles in Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession, The Omen: The Final Conflict, John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, and sci-fi horror favorite Event Horizon.
Sam Neill’s vast resume in film and television began in the early 1970s and also includes the films Sleeping Dogs, Enigma, The Good Wife, A Cry in the Dark, Dead Calm, The Hunt for Red October, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Hostage, The Jungle Book, Snow White: A Tale of Terror, The Horse Whisperer, Bicentennial Man, Daybreakers, Escape Plan, and Thor: Ragnarok.
Sam Neill is survived by his four children and eight grandchildren.
Steven Spielberg said in a statement to Variety, “I owe a debt of gratitude to Roger Donaldson, Gilliam Armstrong, Graham Baker and Phillip Noyce for casting Sam Neill in the roles in which he was so brilliant that brought him to my attention and led to his playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. Sam was exceptionally collaborative. It was a stretch for him to play a character who acted as though children were messy and smelly because this was the opposite of the loving father he was to his children. I adored making all the Jurassic movies with him.”
Spielberg adds, “Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world.”
Sam Neill in ‘Event Horizon’
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