The Amityville Horror: Less-Than-Average-Movie Remake

The Amityville Horror is the story of George and Kathy Lutz (Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George) and their 28-day ordeal in a house plagued by angry spirits. This 89-minute film is a re-make of Amityville Horror, the 1979 horror film as well as the 1977 book of the same name.

In 1974, Ronald DeFeo, Jr. the oldest son of the DeFeo family murdered his entire family while they slept. One year later, while searching for a house, George and Kathy Lutz find their dream home in Amityville, New York. They learn about the grisly murders but decide to purchase the house anyway. They soon move in with their three children and dog. It doesn't take long for things to turn spooky as the house immediate begins to take effect on the hapless family.

George seems to be the first one to be effected by the house. Shortly after their arrival, he begins to hear chilling voices telling him "Catch them, kill them". From this point George begins his downward spiral into insanity. Saying how cold the house always seems to be, he moves into the basement to be closer to the wood-burning stove. The longer he stays in the house, the more menacing he gets, enough so that he turns against the family dog in a gruesome manner. His attitudes and actions towards the rest of his family become even darker, almost tyrannical as he punishes the children harshly for the slightest infraction. However, whenever George leaves the house, he seems to revert back to his good-natured ways. Of course, near the end of the film he's chasing his family down with an axe and a shotgun.

In the meanwhile, young Chelsea has begun interacting with a strange apparition named Jodie. Jodie, it turns out is the murdered daughter of the DeFeo family. She manages to convince Chelsea to climb up to the roof of the house. Luckily, her frightened mother saves her before she plunges to her death. Thus, we find Chelsea being led into more and more dangerous situations by her dead companion throughout the movie.

Several days of this unholy terror go on before the family decides to call upon the local clergy for help. Father Callaway, played by Philip Baker Hall, comes over to bless the house and maybe exorcise a few demons. Shortly after entering the house, he runs out screaming that the house is evil and the Lutz's need to leave immediately. But they don't.

28 days after entering the house, we see the entire Lutz family fleeing it for their lives and leaving everything in it behind. Strangely enough, when Ronald DeFeo, Jr, killed his entire family in the same house, they had only lived there for 28 days. Another strange coincidence is George waking up at 3:15 every morning, since that's the estimated time of the DeFeo murders.

Since this is a remake, I have to draw comparisons between the original, the re-make and the actual events the movies were based on. Actually, except for some surface similarities, there's very little to compare. In the re-make, George tries to kill his family, which didn't happen either in the original film or real life. Nor was there a daughter named Jodie. In the original film and book versions, there was a demon-like pig named Jodie, but not in real life. The re-made movie showed the "daughter", Jodie as having been hung; the real DeFeo daughter was shot. The 2005 film had some comedic moments that never occurred in anything else previously; murdering your entire family does not lend itself well to levity. No dog was ever butchered with an axe in any previous Amityville stories, real or not. There's a laundry list of discrepancies between the 2005 Michael Bay production and the original, the book and the real life events of the Lutz family. The only things that reflect any accuracy are the names of the Lutz family and the general look of the house, after that its all on its own. Having said that, if you've seen the original movie or read the book, you'll find this movie to be too untrue to the original story line to be enjoyable. If you're a horror fan or don't care about retaining the plot of the first film, you just may enjoy this film.

It's fast paced and the CGI effects are outlandishly frightening at times, although the overall scariness of the film falls flat in some areas, especially after the first half-hour or so. Reynolds does a fair job, but it's a little hard to picture Van Wilder in a serious situation. To be fair, he was a lot better than James Brolin was in the original. Melissa George turned in an adequate performance, considering she doesn't look to be much older than her on-screen children.

Sure, there's plenty of gore and creepiness to go around, but this film seems disjointed. The Amityville theme has been done and re-done so many times over the years that there really wasn't much else to add to it except upgrading the special effects and adding more blood. If I were to compare the original flick to the new one however, I would have to recommend the new one. It doesn't have the subtle eeriness of the original, but it does have a lot of shock value that the original simply couldn't provide. Basically, Bey took a less-than-stellar movie and remade it into a less-than-average movie.