"Amityville: It's About Time" follows a California architect who returns from a business trip in New York, where he acquires an antique clock. Soon after his return, he is in a terrible accident that leaves him bedridden; meanwhile, his family experiences an array of bizarre occurrences in their house. Little do they know, the clock they've brought in was from the Amityville DeFeo house, and is doing more than telling time.

I'll be frank here: none of the "Amityville" films have ever been spectacular—even the original, which, though a good haunted house film, had its flaws. The sequels have been hit and miss, and 1990's "The Amityville Curse" was abhorred by many (I actually somewhat enjoyed it, but that's another story). As the installments in this series progressed, they've tended to sprawl out to the point that each haunting is incidentally connected to the Amityville house via objects rather than geography—this occurred in Part 4 where a lamp possessed evil powers, and would be re-used again in the followup to "It's About Time" in "Amityville Dollhouse." Long story short, the series as a whole is rather silly.

With that out of the way, I do think "Amityville: It's About Time" does have some goods to offer. Where the earlier films in the series were more concerned with suspense, this sequel goes straight for thrills from the beginning, though there is a bit of character building as the film meditates on the disintegration of a family. The clock itself acts as a catalyst in the warped dynamic, and there is a lot of playful writing involving the clock's powers and its relationship toward time.

The film manages to evoke a weirdly oppressive suburban atmosphere, and the performances throughout are better than what you find in most direct-to-video fodder; Stephen Macht's role as the breadwinning architect-turned-madman is decent, and Megan Ward and Damon Martin play convincing enough teenagers. Nita Talbot is a bit of a show-stealer here as a matronly neighbor who uncovers the truth behind the family's turmoil.

Overall, "Amityville: It's About Time," though not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, is one of the better "Amityville" sequels. As silly as the premise may be, there is a decent amount of fun to be had. A few memorable performances plus some appreciable special effects and playful writing render this worth a watch for genre fans. 6/10.

Another straight-to-video sequel in the terrible Amityville franchise. This one is about an architect (Stephen Macht) who brings home a clock that was in the Amityville house. Little does he know it's haunted! Ridiculous on every level. This crapper is probably best known today (if it's known at all) for featuring Jonathan Penner of Suvivor fame in an early acting role. It's pretty much pure garbage. I was sad to see veteran actress Nita Talbot in this. Gotta pay the bills I guess. Most hilarious scene is probably where the daughter's boyfriend melts. Also liked how they managed to fit the title of the movie into the dialogue in a way I'm sure some hack screenwriter thought was clever.

Well, with the "Amityville" movie franchise getting worse and worse with each passing movie, I have to say that I wasn't particularly thrilled about watching the 1992 movie "Amityville: It's About Time" from writers Christopher DeFaria and Antonio Toro. Yet, I opted to sit down and watch it, as I hadn't already seen it, and I had the opportunity to do so.

The storyline in "Amityville: It's About Time" left me with an overwhelming sensation of 'why?'. The iconic house wasn't even the focal point of this 1992 addition to the franchise. And the storyline was just sort of generic and rather pointless really. So I wasn't particularly entertained by director Tony Randel's 1992 movie.

Where in one of the previous movies it was a lamp that served as a focal point of the storyline, "Amityville: It's About Time" has a clock. Yeah, so much for originality.

It should be noted that the acting performances in "Amityville: It's About Time" were actually fair enough, especially when taking into consideration the severe limitations imposed on the cast from having very little to work with from a subpar script and storyline.

Visually then there wasn't anything spectacular about "Amityville: It's About Time". It was a pretty forgettable movie really. And as for the horror aspect of "Amityville: It's About Time", nay, it just simply wasn't there.

My rating of "Amityville: It's About Time" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.