‘Houses don’t kill people, people kill people.”
Don’t tell that to the Lutzes, the Long Island family behind the horrific “Amityville Horror” yarn that sparked a best selling book and a 1979 movie of the same name.
Said movie was hardly a classic, which left the door wide open for the 2005 remake to make some haunted home improvements.
But the spiffy new version couldn’t muster the scares, either, although it gave rising star Ryan Reynolds an early chance to flash his angry side – and his abs.
Reynolds plays George Lutz, a Long Island contractor who buys a beautiful old home for his family at a too good to be true price.
The “too good” part is that the home’s last owners were slaughtered within its stately hallways.
That doesn’t deter the Lutzes, who prove expert at ignoring every sign imaginable that their new home is chock full of evil.
Reynolds, sporting a Brolin-approved beard, quickly goes insane once the family moves in, while other family members starting seeing ghouls and other outlandish spectacles.
Do they move or even call a ghost buster? Nope. George’s wife (Melissa George) does reach out to a local clergyman (Phillip Baker Hall), but his input doesn’t really help – “this house scares me,” he cries like a fifth-rate exorcist.
“The Amityville Horror” can’t be bothered with building suspense or creating a realistic frame work for its ghoulish goings on. The ghosts appear almost as soon as the family unpacks the last moving box, and director Andrew Douglas quickly establishes the ineffective shock tactics.
We get fleeting glimpses of the dead, usually accompanied by a blast of scary music.
Reynolds flashes a darker persona than we’re using to seeing, but his body is in such ridiculously cut shape it serves as a distraction. When does he have time to hit the gym, what with being possessed by demons 24/7? Chopping wood and rubbing one’s bloodshot eyes hardly sounds like an aerobic routine worth repeating.
The best scene isn’t scary in the traditional sense. The family’s young daughter -Ms. Kick Ass herself, Chloe Moretz – takes to the roof and must be rescued by her frantic family. The sequence blends dizzying camera work, reality-based chills and a “how did they do that?” question that adds to the fun.
“The Amityville Horror,” once more allegedly based on real events, is part of the Michael Bay remake factor. That means it’s as slick as his other reboots and features top-notch set design. But where are the scares the first film failed to drum up?
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I recently watched the original one again for the first time and years and just wasn’t very impressed. I haven’t seen the remake since it first came out but I want to say it was slightly better….