Beginning with this third film in the Amityville series, we're no longer dealing with events that purportedly took place in the real house at 112 Ocean Ave. Of course, the legacy of those events provided plenty of fodder for this and a seemingly endless number of sequels, and Amityville 3-D doesn't do anything to curb the series' momentum.

That being said, this is a much different film than its predecessors -- no one gets possessed, there's really no blood and gore to speak of, and there are no real scares to be found. With its PG-13 rating, it's the one Amityville film you can watch with your whole family. It was also the last Amityville film to get a theatrical release until the 2005 remake of the original.

The filmmakers seem to rely on the 3-D effects to press the buttons of the audience. Only recently has a 3-D version actually been released -- available as part of Scream Factory's Amityville Horror Trilogy Blu-ray box set -- but I've only seen the 2-D version. Still, you can at least tell which scenes were intended to fling things at the eyes of the audience. The 3-D technology also allowed Orion to release this film with a 3 in the title -- a pending lawsuit with George Lutz forbade them from describing this as a sequel to either of the first two films.

I love the film's opening scene featuring a seance conducted in the house. That indirectly leads to journalist John Baxter (Tony Roberts), who makes his living debunking haunted houses, purchasing the place. Obviously, he did not believe in the paranormal, and the house was a great buy for a man having to move out of his old house because he's divorcing his wife. Naturally, tragic "coincidences" begin happening almost immediately, but John won't listen to the warnings he receives from his work partner and soon-to-be ex-wife, who forbids the couple's daughter Susan (Lori Loughlin) from ever going back there. Susan's friend Lisa (Meg Ryan) has other ideas, though, as she's fascinated by the murder house. Enter a team of paranormal researchers, and everything is in place for an explosive -- but less than thrilling -- ending.

Amityville 3-D pretty much tanked at the box office and has never fared well at all with film critics. It also tends to disappoint any fans that expect the kind of scary experience offered up by the first two films. This film simply wasn't designed to be scary; if anything, the story served as a vehicle for jumping into the brief 3-D craze of the early 1980s.

If you accept the film for what it is, though, I think the story still manages to play fairly well -- especially all of these years later. It certainly takes nothing away from the legend and mystique of the Amityville house -- and it gives you a chance to see Meg Ryan and Lori Loughlin before they were stars. Ultimately, it's not scary but still worth watching.