The Amityville Horror (2005)
Just let me say right up front that I’m not a fan of Ryan Reynolds. Not sure why, but the guy just bugs me in everything he is in! So that might be why it took me 5 years to finally get around to watching the Amityville Horror remake. Well that and the fact that I’m not a big fan of the original movie. I have to say in spite of these facts I kind of dug the movie.
Okay just in case you haven’t ever heard of the story the Lutz family gets a beautiful house on the cheap. Mostly because no one else wants to buy a house where an entire family was brutally murdered by the eldest son. After moving into the house the father, George, starts to hear voices and act strangely. Eventually he starts to get violently scary, much like the son who wiped out his family. After a lot of scary shit goes down (much more then any rational person would tolerate) they hop in their boat and get the hell out of there!
The original Amityville movies are another of those series that I’m sort of late to. By the time I got around to watching stuff like this the cat was out of the bag that the story was made up to pay some bills and get out from under a house they couldn’t afford. So they hype that really propelled the original movie was pretty much gone. In fact it wasn’t until I found the first 3 flicks and this remake on the cheap that I took the plunge to check them out. After sitting thru the original and a couple of it’s sequels I had no desire to see anymore. But this ended up being a pretty strong movie. The story is pretty creepy and there are several jump scares that worked nicely. These were totally lacking in the original movie. Though to be fair I think the remake has the advantage of not having to pretend this stuff was real. The movie is also paced nicely and makes sure that something interesting is always happening, which keeps the viewer on their toes. You really never know when something might pop out to scare you.
I’ve already mentioned that I’m not a fan of Ryan Reynolds, but I’ll be damned if he isn’t really good here at George Lutz. He does a wonderful job of starting off as a pretty decent guy trying to make his blended family work who slowly gets more and more violent. By the end of the movie he really is a scary dude! Honestly I never would have thought that he had a performance like this in him. I also wanted to mention Melissa George, who plays against him as George’s wife Kathy. For the movie to work it really needs both leads to give it their best and they do.
Another advantage that this movie has over the original would be the special effects. There are some really creepy moments here with the ghosts (especially the little girl). My favorite bit has to be the babysitter getting what is coming to her! Good stuff. The lighting and camera work capture the settings in a perfectly skewed way that helps to build some atmosphere and work nicely.
It isn’t very often that you will here me give this much praise to a remake, but they made a nice little ghost story here in the Amityville remake. If you can get yourself a copy I recommend that you do.
3 out of 4
reviewed by John Shatzer
© Copyright 2010 John Shatzer
