D.C. MOVIE GUYS

The Amityville Horror
Directed by Andrew Douglas
Haunting movie houses nationwide beginning 4/15/2005
0 *
In attempting to review the newly remade version of The Amityville Horror, words fail me. The movie exists on an unfathomable plane where the confluence of a dubious source, a possibly unsalvageable genre, and a collection of repulsive human beings calling themselves filmmakers has resulted in the most excruciating 89 minutes I have endured in quite some time.
It is not because I thought the first movie which came out in 1979 starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder was so terrific. Based on a supposedly true story of a Long Island haunted house, the best-selling book that preceded it into theatres had itself ridden the crest of a paperback book market that featured the likes of The Exorcist, The Reincarnation of Audrey Rose, The Omen’s novelization, and the first few books of some guy named Stephen King (he peaked fairly quickly never to be heard from again). The movie became a sizeable hit at the time the slasher genre was just beginning to come into its own. Many people also remember its signature moment of the ominous voice (presumably of the house) telling people to “Get out!”
But despite its profits and impact, what I recollect about the original movie was what a junky little exercise it was. But even that memory cannot prepare viewers for the true horror that is the remake of The Amityville Horror. Though they paid for the right to remake The Amityville Horror, the movie they remade was The Shining. And the person most wronged in the updating is George Lutz (Ryan Reynolds stepping in for James Brolin).
Current research would indicate that it is most likely that George Lutz made up the whole Amityville Horror and even so, he is the wronged party here. In Anson’s book and the first movie, George is a young guy with a brand new, ready-made family who gets in over his head with a bargain house in a pricey neighborhood that turns out to be not much of a bargain. He turns inward, constantly feels cold, does little around the house, becomes a nasty pill to live with, and is bedeviled by horrible visions. But that is not enough for director Andrew Douglas and producer Michael Bay (yes, the hack behind the Bad Boys, Armageddon, and Pearl Harbor—the most aggressively bad director in Hollywood has turned his inestimable talents to producing). They turn George into a buffed maniac chasing his family through the house with an ax (it would appear they need some discipline). Someone should let the folks know that Stanley Kubrick has already covered the need for inferior versions of The Shining.
Would that ripping off King Kubrick was the least of the movie’s sins, but once we have endured an hour of creepy kid shots (the latest in a lengthening line from the current horror crop), spooky cuts, hyper sped up edits, and the rest of the current fright flick clichés, the house tells us to get out. It is for our own good, but there is still another half-hour to endure. The movie now begins the transition from mindless tedium to truly excruciating. Jack Bauer should use this movie the next time he needs to torture information out of a suspect. In real life though, the Geneva Convention would preclude such treatment.
A friend recently asked me about the report of this movie’s opening (though still unseen by both of us). I informed him that it was from the same gang of idiots that had remade The Texas Chainsaw Massacre two years ago. He counter-questioned about why somebody was remaking all the overrated scary movies from the ‘70s that the Fangoria crowd would try to convince us count as quality pictures (good news for Phantasm fans though). The easy answer is that all of these movies will be made for little to nothing, vault into the marketplace with an advertising budget larger than the negative cost (and rarely is a phrase so doubly accurate), dominate the box office for a weekend or two, and scurry off to other revenue-generating venues. The more difficult reason is that in an increasingly risk-averse Hollywood, green lighting remakes eliminates both second-guessing and alleviates the dearth of ideas.
There is one way in which The Amityville Horror represents a bit of movie history. With the absorption of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer into the Sony empire, this may be the last MGM release. If Leo really cared about “art for artists,” he would have done the honorable thing and stuck a gun in his mouth before affixing his mangy mane to this mess.
–Bill Henry

Related Reading:

Film Directing: Shot by Shot: Visualizing from Concept to Screen (Michael Wiese Productions)

Firefly: Music from the Original Television Soundtrack

Making Movies

Cinematic Storytelling: The 100 Most Powerful Film Conventions Every Filmmaker Must Know

100 Modern Soundtracks (BFI Screen Guides)