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Overall Rating
  Awesome: 12.41%
Worth A Look: 8.97%
Average: 31.03%
Pretty Bad: 17.24%
Total Crap: 30.34%
12 reviews, 73 user ratings
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| Amityville Horror, The (2005) |
by U.J. Lessing
"Makes Hide and Seek look like The Shining"
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I thought Amityville: Dollhouse was the last gasp of this lousy series, but now we have a brand new remake of the original! The movie poster for the latest in a long line of Amityville Horror films lovingly proclaims, “From Michael Bay, the producer of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” as if that is a good thing. What it should read is, “Michael Bay, not content with just one stupid, bloody remake, has decided to redo one of the least credible and most ludicrous horror films ever made!”Once again, the words “Based on a true story” are flashing across movie screens all over America and insulting our intelligence. Actually, the true story is pretty simple. A disturbed man named Ronald DeFeo killed his parents and siblings, and pleaded insanity in court. He’s currently in jail.
About a year later, George and Kathy Lutz got a great deal on the real estate where the murders took place. They lived there for about 28 days, and left claiming the house was haunted. They told their story to author Jay Anson who wrote a great ghost story that sold a lot of books.
Later the lawyer of Ronald DeFeo came forward and stated that he and George Lutz had invented the story for publicity and to get Ronad DeFeo a new trial. Jim and Barbara Cromarty moved into the house and had no problems with any ghosts, but did struggle with all the curiosity seekers, and sued everyone involved with the book. The case was settled out of court.
My guess is that the success of the original film and its spawn of stupid sequels owe their existence to the three-story Dutch colonial house featured so prominently in all of the Amityville movies. It’s a great visual for a scary house. Those foreboding windows that resemble evil eyes perfectly portray the house as a sentient being.
However, with this latest version, the house is all the atmosphere you are going to get. The rule of the day is “More is more!” There is more blood, more gore, more jumps, more screaming, and more violence.
Director, Andrew Douglas, flashes gory special effects with the glee of a kindergartner showing off a scab. The prime victims are children who are shot, threatened, tortured and killed without any hesitation or reason other than to provide quick thrills.
Missing is any sense of suspense or terror. With the director working on sadistic autopilot, it’s up to the composer to try to create chills and scares, but all the music does is make rumbling foundry sounds or try to get us to jump with loud cadences whenever something startles a member of the Lutz family.
Most of the cast is completely drowned in the incessant busyness of the film. Ryan Renolds adds a little charisma as George Lutz, but his character’s descent into madness feels like a bloodshot impersonation of Jack Nicholson from The Shining. (The result can only be described as, ‘Van Wilder Goes Nutso.’)The Amityville Horror is tedious nonsense. Watching this family endure punishment after punishment, it’s hard to feel any sympathy for such underdeveloped characters who don’t have the common sense to walk out the front the door.
 del.icio.us 
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=11925&reviewer=396
originally posted: 04/17/05 05:05:31
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Horror Remakes: For more in the Horror Remakes series, click here.
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USA
15-Apr-2005 (R)
DVD: 04-Oct-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
14-Apr-2005
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