The fourth film in the Amityville series, released in 1989.
Despite the destruction of the haunted Amityville house in the third film, it somehow still exists so that a group of priests can exorcise it. However, the evil in the house hides in a lamp which is then sold at a yard sale afterwards and send to an another house where it starts causing terror and mayhem.
The Evil Escapes has examples of:
- 555
- The '80s: The son's giant white sneakers, the older daughter's obnoxious clothing and badly crinkled blonde hair, and the grandmother's gaudy fashion make it quite easy to identify the decade.
- Attack of the Killer Whatever: An EVIL LAMP. Yes, really. It's about as terrifying as you'd expect it to be.
- Body Surf: The Evil can't transmigrate into people very well but it can hop into other inanimate forms, and The Stinger has it leaving the broken lamp and possessing a housecat.
- Chainsaw Good
- Creepy Child: The lamp keeps showing Jessica visions of her late father, which makes her act creepy and protective about it.
- Dumb Blonde: Possibly implied with Amanda. She tries dumping two entire bowls' worth of fruit scraps into the garbage disposal. Any sane person would know better; of course it would clog it up. It would've been perfectly rational and easier for her to put it in the garbage, but the movie needs it to happen, so it makes her look like a dumbass instead.
- The End... Or Is It?: Despite being destroyed, the lamp manages to possess the family cat.
- Evil Is Petty: Really, demon lamp? You really had to roast their parrot? What purpose did that serve?
- Evil-Detecting Dog: When the possessed lamp is lit in its new location, a cat and a bird react violently to it.
- Evil Phone
- Flatline
- Flies Equals Evil: Flies are shown buzzing around when the priests in the opening arrive at the house to exorcise it. Also, the possessed lamp attracts flies toward itself.
- Hand in the Hole: Amanda almost gets her hand mangled when she's stuffing leftovers into the garbage disposal when it jams on her and when it is about to go back on by itself, she's interrupted and takes her hand out of it. Then someone else's hand gets ruined instead.
- Kick the Dog: The demon lamp roasts the parrot, apparently either because it was aware of its evil or because it was just being petty.
- Light Is Not Good: The evil lamp. It emits light, after all.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Helen, the woman who buys the lamp, cuts her finger on it and starts to develop tetanus to the point where her pointer finger is swollen and discolored. She doesn't immediately go to the hospital, but runs it under water. What happens to her? As Phelous puts in his review:Phelous: So she dies of irony, I mean Tetanus
- Numbered Sequels: The film was numbered on some video release covers; otherwise it marks the point when the series Stopped Numbering Sequels.
- Plot Hole: There are of course dozens, but the most obvious one is where did the demon lamp leave the plumber's van? And how can it control objects not within its own walls? Even if it left the van in some abandoned lot somewhere, the company who deployed that plumber would know in less than a day that he went missing, would contact the cops, and since their house was the last place he was seen, they'd find him in probably only about 48-72 hours depending. What was the point of concealing that murder when the housekeeper is killed in broad daylight with no attempt to hide it and the other attacks just happen at random with no attempts to keep it under wraps?
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: At the end, the cat's eyes glow red, indicating that the evil that was within the lamp is now inhabiting it.
- Shipper on Deck: The housekeeper Peggy is quick to get Amanda and Danny alone together and even smiles while doing it. When Danny helps her carry the lamp into the attic, she even asks him about her.
- Therapy Is for the Weak: Even before the killing and maiming starts, the youngest girl is showing serious signs of denial and trauma from missing her father. And yet even after the garbage disposal maims the repair boy and the housekeeper gets mysteriously killed, the mother doesn't take her daughter to a psychiatrist. She lamely says "after she gets back" from her meeting with the priest that she'll take her to a specialist, but naturally, it's painfully too late in the process. The kid should've been taken in the same day the housekeeper turned up dead.
- Unexplained Recovery: The house at 112 Ocean Avenue is in pretty good shape for having been blown up in the previous movie.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Is the plumber still under the house, with the hand from the drain?
- Vertigo Effect
