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THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (2005)
Put yer shirt on! Another remake, and this one's no worse than the original, though it's not really better either. The original was just boring. This might be bad, but it's not boring (or at least, THAT boring) - the plot's a little more thought out, and there's a lot more haunted-house ooga-booga stuff packed into 90 minutes here than there was in two hours in 1979. What makes this remake bad is just how it's made, how transparently manipulative so many of its scenes and scare techniques are. No surprise that it was produced by Michael Bay. The opening depicts the 1974 massacre in we're-not-Japanese-but-we're-doing-our-best fashion as a young man, after a little too much time watching the test pattern on TV and reading a book called Evil Is Proof Of God, kills the other six members of his family in the house. If you're an epileptic, you might want to jump to scene 2, because the rest of the movie didn't have this problem, though this is the point where the "Based on a true story" starts seeming even sillier than it did in 1979. A year later, George Lutz (here played by Ryan Reynolds, who shows off his abs at every opportunity) and his new family (original father died, we learn) move into the spook house, though they don't find out about the murders until after they agree to buy it. Unlike in the original movie, this one takes pains to illustrate the pre-existing tension between George and the kids, particularly the sullen eldest. (another one is introduced with a brutally ham-fisted and unnecessary Halloween homage) The real George Lutz has since sued for defamation of character, and for sure, Reynolds plays him as a much bigger douchebag than Brolin did. That's pretty much how the movie ends up playing out, with George going full-on Jack-in-The-Shining for half the movie. A lot of the fat from the original is cut out - particularly the religious angle, which here is represented only by Philip Baker Hall as a priest who gets chased out of the house by flies while his holy water is left boiling on the floor. No hippies, no nuns, no blindness, no car chases, no bartenders telling George he looks just like the Defeo boy, only the one scene with flies, no monsters in the window, no dog rescue. (oh boy, there sure ain't) The Indian burial ground (more or less) explanation gets a lot more play, leading to a much bigger and more interesting hidden room in the basement. Reynolds does a creditable job stepping away from the smug gross-out teen comedies he's mostly known for, and the babysitter this time is sexy, and funny, and is given something to freak out about in that closet, in by far the movie's best scene. All that tightening-up sounds good in theory, but what we're left with are basically all the old tricks and manipulations that any slightly seasoned horror fan will see right through, while leaving a lot less to our imaginations. The movie tips its hand very early on with us being able to see the "imaginary" friend and other ghostly manifestations even when there are no characters around to witness them, abandoning way too soon the possibility that anyone's just letting their imaginations get away from them. Our sympathy for the family is contrived with a home-video montage of their short-lived idyll (a sentimental sop worthy of Robin Williams), and when it comes time to build some suspense, later, we get not one but two rooftop chases. Which is lame, but nothing like one of those moments which kills off a major character only to cut back in time thirty seconds later to reveal that this was only how it "could" have happened. That's...shit, is what that is. That's asshole filmmaking. Produced by Michael Bay though, so what did you expect? Director: TV commercial guy Andrew Douglas, in his first feature. He shows some stuff here, but the rote spooky situations and seemingly made-to-order "Japanese" sequences at the beginning and end give him little room to make a good movie. He may yet give us a good one. But probably not if he's still working for Bay. One of the bonus features on the DVD centers on the original Defeo murders, talking with the sheriff, medical examiner (both interesting to hear from), and some predatory old "psychic investigator" hag who even tells us that "the best protection that the devil has is a sceptical public". Anyone who says that or any variant of it should be scheduled for a date with the moat monsters. (c) Brian J. Wright 2006 BACK TO THE A's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE |