"The Amityville Horror"
Movie Review
by Eric Jeter
| *1/2 (out of 5 stars) STARRING Ryan Reynolds as GEORGE LUTZ Melissa George as KATHY LUTZ Jesse James as BILLY LUTZ Jimmy Bennett as MICHAEL LUTZ Chloe Grace Moretz as CHELSEA LUTZ Rachel Nichols as LISA Philip Baker Hall as FATHER CALLAWAY Rated R Opens April 15, 2005 Studio: MGM Directed by: Andrew Douglas Back to Movie Review Home Read more of Eric's reviews at www.permierereviews.com. |
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‘Amityville’s’ Horror also a Hoax
As a young child, the story of the Amityville Horror left me with a sense of fear that rivaled even that of The Exorcist. Said to be rooted in reality, the thought of red-eyed pigs peering through windows, horrifying voices from the unknown, and a house whose very windows seemed to stare back with a chilling gaze, left me in a terrorized heap. When those disturbing events were brought to the big screen in 1979, I deliberately avoided a viewing, and could only shudder as more daring moviegoers returned petrified. Even when the factuality of the story was struck down a few years later (much to my relief), a healthy appreciation for the quality of the fabrication still remained. It was fiction, but it was good fiction, very good fiction. Once again, that famed tale is revisited in yet another Hollywood remake, The Amityville Horror. This time, however, it’s hard to tell where the greater scam lies, in the story on which the film is based or in the stew of scenes its makers swindle from other horror classics.
The new version of Amityville follows the basic premise of the original. After an insane father butchers his own family at home, another young family moves in. Soon, the father of the new family also begins to act strangely, as the spirits of those slain turn the house into a living hell.
With a newbie director (Andrew Douglas) and the screenwriter responsible for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake (Scott Kosar) on board, both a lack of quality and originality roars through. We get a film that could easily serve as a microcosm for the pitiable parade of horrors presented us this year. With the movie’s loud sonic shrieks and piano stabs designed to make you jump into the ozone layer, we are reminded of the blaring madness of Boogeyman. In the film’s good for nothing phantasms, we are taken back to the nonsensical visions of The Ring 2. Then there are the constant noises and breathy whispers from beyond, taking us back to that great blast of hot air, White Noise.
Amityville’s makers shamelessly abandon the more effective horror routes of a finely crafted story, subtlety, and meaningful visual scares, and go instead for an all-out sensory assault, a style that distances itself completely from anything found in the original version. Graphic sight frights, most of them ghastly specters that appear from nowhere, do manage to bring a few good jolts, but the most effective of these are fraudulent rip-offs of the original Ring movie and The Sixth Sense. Without the support of a suspenseful storyline, these scares are far less persuasive and eventually feel like overused gimmicks incapable of producing memorable chills.
Amityville does include a few updates to the original story, but even these are just more instances of sampled stupidity. The pig spirit, Jody, has received a remarkably ashy makeover, and we get a real taste of the best in modern day child care, the hootchie-sitter. Characters take perilous dives into water looking for their loved ones (before first checking their rooms), and despite the non-stop appearance of apparitions, no one remembers to bring them up in conversation.
As the demonized father, Ryan Reynolds (Blade Trinity) isn’t a bad choice, but he is victimized by an inconsistent script that has him hopscotching from romancer to maniac and back again. Melissa George (Down With Love) is adequate as both mother and lover, but she’s not unlike the rest of this movie, you see her but you just don’t care.
The “domicile made me do it” tale of the Amityville Horror had its day, but should have long since settled alongside Bigfoot as one of many well-perpetrated fables. This latest re-telling adds nothing to either its legend or mystique, and holds a level of horror that is just as much a hoax as the story upon which it is based.
