By Frank H. Woodward
Apr 16, 2005, 8:10 GMT
The Amityville Horror is in theatres now
The re-imagining of THE AMITYVILLE HORROR is a prime example of the horror film as amusement park ride. It makes you jump, provides a good deal of tension, but in the end it is no more innovative than a carnival spook house.
Unlike the remake of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, also brought to us by producer Michael Bay and screenwriter Scott Kosar, THE AMITYVILLE HORROR needed some renovations. The original 1979 film of a house gone bad was never much of a horror movie. Its fame came mainly from the supposedly true events experienced by the Lutz family in 1975.
What should have been a dream home for the Lutzes fast became their nightmare. Their house was supposedly possessed by the phantom memories of the previous owners, the ill fated De Feos. In 1974, the eldest De Feo son Ronald, under orders from some demonic voice, shot gunned each and every member of his family while they slept. The De Feo house is the same house the Lutzes moved into. When George Lutz started hearing similar voices, his family underwent 28 days of terror they never forget.
The De Feo murders truly happened. What has always been open to debate is what the Lutz family actually lived through in those 28 days. Whether true or not, their story made a riveting book (especially in the age of THE EXORCIST and ROSEMARY'S BABY) and a mediocre film series. We've all seen better haunted house movies (1963's THE HAUNTING, THE SHINING, POLTERGEIST), but THE AMITYVILLE HORROR is the closest to true life. Surely, Hollywood could do the story better justice.
Director Andrew Douglas' solution (no doubt encouraged by the Lord of Loud, Michael Bay) was to dial the scares up to 11. This means, by the filmmakers' own admission, that many liberties were taken with what the Lutz family went through. Bigger and louder doesn't actually make things better, though. Nor does it make them believable.
A by-product of amping the tension up means that George Lutz's descent into madness, the crux of the film's story, happens almost overnight (even if the title cards say it's been 15 days). As played by Ryan Reynolds, George is a loony clearly inspired by Jack Nicholson from THE SHINING. He's still plenty dangerous. Too dangerous for anyone to believe that Kathy (Melissa George) and her children wouldn't have done something about George much earlier than they do. He's constantly sick and cold. Insulting the kids. Forcing his stepson Billy to hold a log steady while he cleaves it with an axe (don't try this at home, kids).At first, Kathy thinks George is just under a lot of stress. What stress? In the original film, there was the constant pressure of money. George was the only bread winner and forced into working overtime to keep the roof over their head. Haunted or not. There's a strong scene in the original (perhaps the only one) where the house has "stolen" an envelope of cash from George. The money he scrimped and saved. He tears the house and himself up looking for it, contributing to his madness. In the remake, this financial struggle is only paid lip service. We never see George pushing his means to the limit. In fact, we don't see him go through much of anything that could explain away his instant madness. The filmmakers seem much more content to skip to the end where George can run around with an axe and shotgun. No build up. Just thrills.
This wouldn't be a bad thing if the majority of these thrills were born of the situation as opposed to other films. Chelsea Lutz's "imaginary" friend Jodi, an unseen presence in the original, is actually visible here. She's yet another in a long line of wet haired waifs that American horror has inherited from the Japanese. Ever since THE RING, clammy little girls are short hand for scary. We also have bobble headed ghosts like the demons from JACOB'S LADDER. Stains on the ceiling also make a cameo from Japan (a literal cameo since these odd stains only appear once and never again).
When AMITYVILLE's images do get original they are quite creepy even if they don't always fit the story. One of the first big scare images is of the youngest De Feo girl's ghost swinging from a noose. It's an effective "BOO!" (thanks mainly to the customary jump cuts found in fright flicks), but it also makes you stop and ask, "Wasn't that girl killed with a shotgun? What does a noose have to do with it?"
Nothing at all. Other bloody ghosts, spectral arms and weird voices pop up throughout and most of them have some thin connection to what's been going on (even if it isn't apparent until the initially interesting, but ultimately lame pre-history of the house -- Hey, is that the Creeper from JEEPERS CREEPERS George encounters behind that wall? You'll see what I mean if you make it to the end.). Making sense isn't foremost on the filmmakers' minds, however. It's all about the ride.
As I said before, THE AMITYVILLE HORROR is of the amusement park variety. This is based on the theory that there are two kinds of horror films. The ones that scar you (THE EXORCIST, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT) and the ones that make you flinch before passing out of memory, like a roller coaster. It all works on the basic level of making you scream, but then you spend the next few minutes beating yourself up for being a sucker. THE AMITYVILLE HORROR has much the same effect.
The film is in theatres in the US and UK now, further details and media can be found in our database .
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