The real estate market was a lot different back in the '70s. Nowadays, shag carpets are rarely standard in homes, asbestos is mostly a thing of the past, and virtually no houses are haunted by murderous poltergeists.
In the remake of The Amityville Horror, the latter of these problems is encountered by the Lutz family. George Lutz (a mostly shirtless Ryan Reynolds), the newest member of the family, moves his wife Kathy (Melissa George) and her three kids from their modest home in the suburbs to a monstrosity of a fixer-upper on a lake. And I do mean monstrosity; the house itself gets its own foreboding closeups several times, and it does look scary.
The real frightening stuff is what's inside, however. The Lutzes come to learn that the house, which came with a shockingly cheap price tag, was the previous home of the Defeos, a family of equal size to the Lutzes who fell victim to one of their own. It happened about a year before the Lutzes moved in, and it was a grisly scene. Apparently, the murderer claims to have heard voices throughout the house telling him to murder his family, claiming they were demons. And he did so, with a shotgun while they were asleep.
Seem hard to believe? Well, believe it, because that is, as the movie says, “the true story” on which the movie is based. Alarm bells should be going off in your head, because any time a horror movie plasters the “based on a true story” mumbo jumbo all over its promotional material, the movie usually lacks any kind of strong story or direction. The Amityville Horror is no exception.
The story is supposed to be a man driven to the point of insanity by a house. This does happen, but the methods used are 100% shock-cuts and cheap tricks. Having a character look in a mirror and suddenly see a creepy, demonic monster next to him in the reflection for a split second does not take imagination to include in a movie or to appreciate watching in a movie. Of course you'll jump; the music gets deafeningly loud all of a sudden. This movie contains only cheap tricks, and cheap tricks are not lasting effects for most audiences.
Ryan Reynolds is a good actor, and there are even moments in this movie where the director slowed down the movie enough to let him perform to his potential. But too many quick cuts slighted his performance, as well as the other actors' performances. It makes me think Ryan Reynolds was hired not because the filmmakers needed a competent lead actor, but rather a lead actor who could do 1,000 crunches if the need presented itself.
Once the house's ugly truth is revealed, it really doesn't make much sense as to why the ghosts are trying to have George kill his family. There is a lack of any interesting motive. (Yes, ghosts should have motives, too.) If it's simply to scare away any family from moving in just for the sake of it, then the family should round up the gang, jump into the Mystery Machine and stop meddling. In spite of the film's best efforts, it should be noted that any movie featuring a poltergeist, (usually a ghost that can move physical objects), is hard to pull off. The question will always stare the audience in the face: why doesn't the poltergeist just kill the family with flying knives or something? Going through all the trouble of emotionally torturing a family to the brink of insanity is even more tedious a task than watching this movie. Had the director given the actors more room to breathe, and not fallen into lame horror-movie traps, the movie could have been worth the watch. Instead, we get Ryan Reynolds progressively grumpier and more shirtless for 90 minutes.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
The Blu-ray disc contains a trailer for the film. The rest of the extras are found on the included DVD. So on that, you'll find audio commentary from Ryan Reynolds and a couple of the film's producers for the feature. There's a cool option you can turn on for the duration of the film called “On Set Peeks,” which transports you to a short making-of portion for several of the scenes in the movie. There is a large photo gallery, where you can see sketches of sets, set photos, crime scene photos, etc. There's a featurette called “The Source of Evil” which has interviews with some cast and crew that center around the haunted house that inspired the movie. “Supernatural Homicide” that gives a quick history on the actual murder that inspired the story, given to you straight by some of the folks involved in the investigation in the '70s. Also several deleted scenes, all of which with the option of commentary.
"The Amityville Horror" is on sale September 14, 2010 and is rated R. Horror. Directed by Andrew Douglas. Written by Scott Kosar (screenplay), Jay Anson (novel), Sandor Stern (earlier screenplay). Starring Chloe Moretz, Jesse James, Jimmy Bennett, Melissa George, Ryan Reynolds.
