'80/'90s movie about a strange hole/tunnel in the floor of a house and bad things happening because of it

Question

I am trying to find a movie I saw part of on TV around my early teens, which would date it between '80 and '90, give or take. I am pretty sure it was a movie because of its length, as I was not allowed to stay up until the very end. I didn't know the name or any of the actors. It was in English and not a B-movie, I think, but the latter could be wrong. It was aired on one of our local channels, so no idea where else it could have aired on.

What I remember:

There was an empty room which was unremarkable except for a menacing hole in the floor approximately in the centre of the room, about a meter or less in diameter. It looked like it was created by some alien creature or it could have been an alien creature in itself. The room and the hole were discovered by a couple or family, moving into the house to which the room belonged. I don't remember any children, except for maybe a baby.

At some point, it was revealed that the hole was actually a deep vertical tunnel which had (small) teeth inside, or the tunnel wall resembled something caterpillar-ish, with ringed protrusions going all the way down. I also think it changed from a closed hole to an open-mouthed tunnel by itself. It didn't move or interact in any other way, it was just there, looking menacingly, and through some event it was shown to be open sometimes. And, not really sure but, the open tunnel meant something was on the loose, though it was never shown what until maybe near the end of the movie. It wasn't an obvious horror movie with blood and gore, or at least not as I remember it, but it did have scenes with bad things happening because of the hole or whatever creature was linked to it. Someone may also have gotten swallowed by the hole, but that is just a fuzzy memory.

A second part I remember is that someone had visited the couple in their new house and taken pictures of the hole with the intent of starting an investigation. But that person got killed because, while driving home in his/her car, the pictures on the passengers seat self-combusted violently and the driver, not being able to escape, was burned alive. I also tend to remember a lot of bees in this scene, somehow involved in the driver not being able to escape the car, but I am probably confusing this with a scene from another movie/show. They showed the body afterwards, when the tragedy was discovered; the car itself wasn't completely burned out but the person was and that did scare me as a kid.

It definitely predates The X-Files (which has an episode about killer bees in a car, I think) and I never came across it again. Various searches with terms from my recollection turned out nothing, even here on Stack Overflow, 'hole in the floor' doesn't have many exact hits.

So, hopefully, this rings a bell for someone, or others' search proficiency might turn up something.

Answer 1

This is Amityville 3-D (1983), the third film in the The Amityville Horror franchise.

A reporter moves into the Amityville house in defiance of the supernatural events connected to it, and finds everyone around him besieged by the evil manifestations which are connected to a demonic presence in the basement.

The haunted Amityville house from the first two films has been purchased on the cheap by a realtor, but he's been unable to sell it, since the house is notorious for the terrible things which have happened there.

There's a manhole-sized hole in the floor of the basement of the house, which is thought to be an old well, but is actually a gateway to Hell.

_{Amityville 3-D (1983)}

The protagonist of the film, John Baxter, is a journalist who specialises in debunking supernatural phenomena, assisted by his colleague and friend, Melanie. John dismisses the rumours about the house as superstition, and decides to take the house off the realtor's hands, after he and Melanie have inspected it and taken some photos.

John has a wife and roughly college-age daughter, but he and his wife are separated and she's much more apprehensive about the house than he is, so he moves in alone.

A series of bizarre events start to befall John and anyone else who's recently been in the house, but he stubbornly writes these things off as mere coincidence.

About 54 minutes into the film, Melanie is examining one of the photos taken inside the house with a magnifying glass, and spots a tiny demonic face she hadn't noticed before. She quickly places the photos in a leather briefcase and gets into her car, presumably with the intention of showing the image to John.

However, as she's driving, a fly suddenly starts buzzing in her face, distracting her (flies are a signature of the Amityville films). She tries to hit the brakes, but they aren't working and she smashes into the back of a truck. She isn't injured by the impact, but then the leather briefcase on the passenger seat spontaneously combusts, setting the inside of the car alight. She tries and fails to open the door and is burned to death. Her charred corpse is discovered by a man who walks up to the car and opens the door shortly afterwards.

_{Amityville 3-D (1983)}

A character is also pulled into the hole in the basement of the house by a demonic entity in one scene.

Answer 2

Is it at all possible that you're mixing elements of various films, and one you're speaking of the 1980s horror cult classic, The Gate?

Essentially, a young Stefen Dorff finds a meteorite that opens a gate to Hell, causing mass, localized supernatural havoc one weekend while his parents are away.

The main Gate is in the backyard, but at some point a "hole" opens up in their living room, where a swarm of creatures, wind, and light come out to attack the main characters.

There are also multiple horror movies where flying insects swarm cars, so if the above isn't the answer, s it possible that there is a bit of a cross-over occurring?

The only reason I bring this up is because the post said the memory was "fuzzy", so I thought a visual aid and the trailer might be helpful.