| It�s best to ignore the ad campaigns for this terrible 2005 update of the Lutz family and their terrifying ordeal in that infamous Long Island house. The only true story here is that this is little more than a cheap attempt to cash in on a very well established name property. Bearing almost no resemblance to the 1979 film or Jay Anson�s creepy novel of the same name, this is a slickly produced movie with intentions of riding on the latest trends in the genre. What this means is that you won�t get a faithful retelling of George Lutz�s account of the 28 days that he and his family lived in the house. You won�t get a version of the story to make you forget the original film (okay, so its slow and overacted, parts of it are still spooky) or the book. What you will get are lots of cheap �jump scares� (actually, that�s about all you�re going to find here), �scary� children and zero dramatic build up or tension to a weak story that makes very little sense. Ryan Reynolds (Blade: Trinity) and Melissa George (Mulholland Drive) star as George and Kathy Lutz. After a quick but interesting prologue detailing the real life murder spree that occurred in the house (probably the only part of the film to stay true to life), we see the Lutz couple move into the home with their three children and immediately, things start to go wrong. One of the children begins sleepwalking, another befriends the ghost of a young kid named �Jody� (who was a talking pig in the book) and George himself flips his lid. As a priest, Philip Baker Halls shows up for about a minute and a half, throw in a brief bit of Christian lore and some out of place nonsense regarding Indian slaves and that�s the story in a nutshell. Unless you�re scared by loud noises and cheap jumps, than Amityville �05 probably won�t do much to entertain you. It�s not terribly scary and completely fails to leave a lasting impression. If there weren�t so many creepy children popping up in movies over the past five years (The Sixth Sense, The Ring) than you can bet you wouldn�t have seen one here either. Scott Kosar�s screenplay (the man who gave us the completely overrated The Machinist not to mention the terrible remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre) is just a cheap hodgepodge of ideas from other, superior films. Why else would Jody be changed from a pig to a little girl? Is it because other films have proven successful at featuring scary children? The entire last half of this one is a 100% knock off of The Shining with Reynolds channeling Jack Nicholson. There�s also that Indian stuff I mentioned with a briefly glimpsed villain ripped-off directly from Poltergeist II�s Reverend Kane. For a �true� story, Scott Kosar sure took a lot of liberties with the facts. I do realize that I�m running the risk of sounding bitter because this new film deviates so far from the original concepts, but that�s really not the case. I�m annoyed because the filmmakers behind this thing (Michael Bay and his Platinum Dunes production company) show such contempt for said source material. If they�re not concerned with telling this story again than why bother? Naturally it all trickles down to the answer that money rules everything, but it�s still a shame because I always felt that the 1979 film could be improved upon and leave it to Michael Bay and co. to actually make it worse (even the house looks awful in this update!). Among the film�s (few) shining lights are Rachel Nichols who looks incredibly hot in her skimpy attire as the sultry babysitter who is scared off by the house, Ryan Reynolds and his increasingly over-the-top performance and Melissa George as the sympathetic mother trying to keep her family together. Reynolds is a good actor who constantly winds up in lousy films and ditto for George who does very little here besides provide exposition in the last half and look terrified in close-ups. The real story of The Amityville Horror has been proven to be a hoax to my satisfaction (thanks to Dr. Stephen Kaplan�s excellent book �The Amityville Horror Conspiracy�), but that doesn�t change the fact that the story is still fairly haunting. Had this team stuck to Anson�s book, the film might have been really damn scary. Instead we�re left with a fast-paced but unimpressive movie that won�t scare anybody save the sixteen-year-old girls who thought The Grudge was the end all and be all of horror films. Michael Bay and Platinum Dunes are allegedly going ahead with a remake of 1986�s The Hitcher next. The idea that this man started a company so he could begin stealing well-known horror film titles and concepts and putting them in terrible, unoriginal modern versions illustrates his appalling lack of respect for these films. The Amityville Horror is slightly less offensive than the forgettable Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2003, but that doesn�t make it any better. |
| The Amityville Horror (2005) Dir: Andrew Douglas Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Melissa George, Philip Baker Hall, Rachel Nichols, Jesse James, Jimmy Bennett, Chloe Moretz Rated R, Approx: 89 minutes An MGM Pictures Release |
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| Matt's Review: *1/2 out of 5 |
| Reviewed By Matt Serafini 08/29/05 |