Jacob Sterling, Stephen Macht an architect from Burlwood, California, has just returned from a business trip to Amityville, New York. During his absence, his ex-girlfriend, art student Andrea Livingston Shawn Weatherly, took care of his two teenagers, Lisa Sterling Megan Ward and Rusty Sterling Damon Martin. He arrives with news that Amityville has commissioned his firm to design a new neighborhood, and he also brings back an old mantel clock he found in the ruins there, placing it on the fireplace and declaring, “This is exactly what our home needed.” That simple act will set off a chain of eerie, escalating events that blur the line between ordinary life and something unexplainable.
<blockquote>This is exactly what our home needed.</blockquote>
Once the clock sits on the mantel, the house begins to change. The clock ticks loudly, a murmur of sound seems to come from upstairs, and soon events grow stranger. Late at night, Rusty goes downstairs, turns on the living room light, and the room inexplicably transforms into an archaic, torture‑chamber‑like space—an effect that persists until the lightbulb burns out.
The next morning, after Lisa and Rusty leave for school, Jacob finishes a jog and discovers something unsettling: his digital watch stops working and his neighbor, Mrs. Tetmann Terrie Snell, is out with her dog Peaches. Peaches charges, catching Jacob’s leg, and he defends himself with a bottle. At the hospital, a doctor misidentifies Andrea as Jacob’s wife and urges her to take care of his wound. Jacob, however, resists help and presses on with his day.
Rusty skips school and seeks out Iris Wheeler Nita Talbot, a neighbor who senses something malevolent at play. Iris explains that the malevolent force has come to their home because its old place is gone and it needs a new home. When Rusty and Andrea later stop by Mrs. Tetmann’s to ask about Peaches’ rabies vaccine, Mrs. Tetmann seems confused and points to Peaches’s uninjured state, reinforcing Iris’s warning. Rusty is left to ponder Iris’s words as the clock’s influence grows clearer.
Back at the design table, Jacob concentrates on a model of the new neighborhood. At dinner, Andrea asks Rusty to fetch the phone book, and when he returns a minute later, the kitchen is empty and the table is cleared. Three hours have somehow vanished from the household, a mystery that none of them can explain.
That night, Lisa asks to sleep with Andrea after the clock’s ticking gnaws at her nerves. The plan is briefly interrupted when the living room doors slam shut and lock, trapping her inside. Meanwhile, Andrea feels something slimy on her bed, a black slime that vanishes when she switches on the light, leaving her unsettled. After unlocking Lisa’s door for her, Andrea wonders whether Rusty locked it, but Rusty claims he was out for a walk.
The following morning, Peaches is found dead, and a swastika is drawn in blood on Mrs. Tetmann’s house. Police suspect Rusty, further deepening the sense that something cracks at the family’s core. That night, Dr. Leonard Stafford [Jonathan Penner] (Andrea’s boyfriend) experiences a hallucinatory confrontation in which he is haunted by Jacob’s interrogation.
The next day, Rusty visits Iris again. Iris confirms that the clock is the source of the trouble, but as she attempts to warn Rusty, a stork statue falls from a truck and kills her, leaving Rusty with a stark warning that the clock may be beyond ordinary explanation.
Troubles escalate at the Sterling home: Lisa’s boyfriend Andy [Dean Cochran] melts onto the floor, Leonard’s body writhes with goo, and a zombie rises from the bathtub. Jacob’s manner grows increasingly hostile and controlling, and both Lisa and Jacob fall under the clock’s spell. Rusty fights to defend himself and ends up killing Lisa in a desperate act to survive the onslaught.
Andrea fights off Jacob’s assault and discovers the clock has de‑aged Rusty into a child just as he attempts to destroy it. She tells the clock to let Rusty go and starts breaking open the wall behind the mantel. Inside, she uncovers enormous clock gears, revealing a mechanism far beyond their understanding, and cannot destroy the clock. As the clock ages Andrea into an old woman, she lights a gas pipe, triggering an explosion that hurls the clock into another dimension.
Awakening back on the clock’s original night, Andrea finds herself unharmed and returned to her normal age, while the memory of what happened remains hazy for everyone except her. She sees the clock in Jacob’s hands, and, with a fresh resolve born of memory, she smashes it. Jacob questions her, but she leaves with her overnight bag in a burst of decisive escape. Across the street, Rusty looks toward Iris’s vacant home and shares a quiet smile with the memory of what they once were. The film leaves it unclear exactly how much everyone involved with the clock truly remembers, preserving the mystery at the heart of the house.
