Hey folks, Harry here... Tomorrow night is my big House of Flies screening of AMITYVILLE HORROR that Ryan Reynolds and his Producer team will be coming to and as I was searching AICN tonight I realized I hadn't posted any reviews. So I searched my email box and found, just these 3 so far. 2 of the 3 really enjoyed the hell out of it. The third wanted it to adhere more to the original film, and I hear they went back to the book for their inspiration, while wanting the iconography from the original film in place. I'll see Thursday night, that's if my eyes are not eaten by 25,000 flies! Beware of spoilers. This first review is very spoiler light, but after that... watch out!
Last friday the arclight cinema in Hollywood had a press screening for the AMITYVILLE remake and allowed some 'real audience' to attend. It's a very solid piece of film. Parts felt a bit formula - in regards to Michael Bay's TCM success (based on true story, use of vintage news reel footage, beautiful washed out cinematography, hot cast). But then again most horror these days is totally generic and at least in this case the formula works (very well).
I don't want to "give away" the story - all who have seen the original are familiar with the plot anyhow. For the rest, I can say the story works. The scares are effectful - we're talking SHRIEKING audience. And the cast is quite great - both Ryan Reynolds and Mellisa George's performances are proof of concept that good horror needs really good actors (not some pretty face right off the latest tv teen show).
The director certainly takes his cues from asian genre films like The Grudge, but at least he does it well. "6th Sense" is another reference. And though (to me) the end felt a tad anticlimatic - the new Amityville Horror it definetly worth checking out.
ONE SPOLIER: The most memorable sequence involves a sexy babysitter. from the moment she enters the house to the scene when she is carried out on a stretcher, screaming on the brink of insanity -- the sequence holds everything the genre is great for... sex, scares and a whole popcorn bag full o' fun!
Rockin' Baby
Then there's this wildly enthusiastic review that I got back in February, but forgot to put up. Here ya go...
Harry, I saw Amityville Horror Wednesday night at a test screening and here's my shot at a review.
The screening was at the Pacific Beach Cities in El Segundo, where I see most movies and where I got invited to this one, along with what seemed like 5000 other people. I barely got in. Unlike a lot of movies that test screen there, I was motivated to actually go see this one. I have vague memories of the original- just that it scared the crap out of me and there was a pig in the window saying GET OUT!! There was no pig in this movie. But it scared the crap out of me. Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Dawn of the Dead both definitely did not suck and this movie is easily as scary, if not more. The scares are sort of like in The Ring- scary because you don’t know what’s gonna happen but you know it will be FUCKED UP!
Moving on- Amityville Horror starts like the trailer… quick cuts of the DeFeo murders at the Amityville House. DeFeo went crazy and wasted his whole family with a shotgun. Then we get the title and that music. It’s still creepy. It’s now one year after the murders and we meet the Lutz family- cute kids, hot wife, Ryan Reynolds with a beard and looking very cut (in Blade: Trinity mode). You just feel bad for this nice little family because they go looking for a house to make their lives better and find the Amityville house with the creepy eye windows. It's big and out in the country and, by the way, A MAN KILLED HIS WHOLE FAMILY THERE!!!! But they tell each other, there are not bad houses, only bad people.
So they move into the house and we see it as their home movies-Ryan Reynolds, the hot wife (Melissa George from Alias), the little girl and boy and the older boy, Billy. DAY ONE! Everything’s just great. Except that for Ryan Reynolds, the house is never warm enough. And little Chelsea, the daughter, starts talking to an imaginary friend named Jody. And while Ryan Reynolds is getting sex from his hot wife, a creepy little girl pops into the bedroom then disappears. Yes, I jumped, no, I didn’t crap my pants. A few more other disturbing things happen and you can tell they're holding back because the shit hasn't truly hit yet. But you know it will.
So, they survive Day One. But Ryan Reynolds keeps waking up at 3:15 in the morning (the hour DeFeo went through the house capping family members). He's not the kids real dad and starts getting mean, yelling at them. He’s fixated on the basement, trying to turn it into an office. But the dog keeps digging at a rotting wall in the basement. MAYBE BECAUSE THERE ARE DEAD PEOPLE IN THERE??? Just asking.
Then we meet the pot-smoking ultrahot babysitter, who used to babysit for the DeFeo’s and scares the shit out of the kids when she tells them where everybody got shot. When they get to the closet where the little girl was killed, Billy dares her to go in. But once she’s in there, the door slams and locks, blood oozes down the walls. She's pounding on the door, trying to get out, and then the fucked up little dead girl with a hole in her head (who happens to be named Jody)- grabs the babysitter’s finger and forces it into the entry wound on her head.
It was at this point that I realized this movie is not going to let up. You don’t even want to know what happens to the family dog. There are things in the walls and in the water around them, and voices telling certain characters to do things. Ryan Reynolds gets darker, weirder, meaner. He's getting sick and wakes up every night at 3:15 and every time he wakes up, you know some FUCKED UP SHIT will occur. There’s an axe Ryan Reynolds uses to cut wood. And there’s a shotgun in the house. Then one day, he soaks into a hot bath (not a good idea)and bloody arms claw him under the water. Something is seriously fucked in the house- and there's a story behind it, but the hot wife doesn't put it together until the end.
She is is starting to realize how bad things have gotten at the Amityville house. By this time it's DAY 28!! DeFeo killed his family 28 days after he started hearing voices. Ryan Reynolds has been hearing voices since Day One.
At the end of the movie, I realized I hadn’t unclenched my jaw the whole time and it ached. I might even have crapped my pants, but I won’t tell anybody if you won’t. There’s a lot to like in this movie. I can actually say IT WILL SCARE THE CRAP OUT OF YOU!
This was a rough cut- it wasn’t finished. A lot of shots looked washed out and there were a couple of parts that didn’t belong in the movie at all. The audience clapped at certain points (I don’t want to spoil this), but at this one part after Ryan Reynold’s bath from hell, there’s a shot of the hot wife holding him like a baby- everybody actually laughed. It was just strange. I don’t want to give the ending away, but there was one other shot like that (BLOOD SHOWER!!!) that that didn’t make much sense.
The acting was outstandng, especially the kid who played Billy. He’s the one who knows that Ryan Reynolds is becoming dangerous before anyone else. The hot wife and the kids all act like a family does. That’s what stuck with me, because the stuff that happens to them you wouldn’t want to happen to people like that.
I thought it was very well directed. Let me put it this way- it’s fast, brutal and FUCKED UP! My only suggestion to the director (I filled out one of those cards at the end of the screening and wrote this on it) would be to take out that bathtub shot and the that shot near the end. And while I’m at it, how about full frontal nudity from the hot wife?
Hope I didn’t totally fuck up this review. Good luck with your leg. If you use it, call me IL DUCE!
Then there's this far less enthusiastic review. It is filled with spoilers throughout, so read at your own risk...
Many salutations Harry, not too long time reader but much enthused none the less. The following is review of the newly remade Amityville Horror I was able to see at an advance screening Tuesday, April 12, 2005, at around 7:30 PM. I was able to score free entry into it due to this friend of mine who works at the local cinema. As I waited in line I wondered how many of the under 17 kids had actually seen the original and how the hell they got admittance into this flick. And yes it is a “flick”. I was not able to see this movie as a younger child but have rented and totally enjoyed the original at the ripe age of 21. I found the original to be very creepy, creepy to where I was hearing “GET OUT!!!” in my mind as I walked down the hall to pee! Well that’s enough babble, on to the review…shall we…
*** There will be some spoilers in the review that follows. ***
Warning aside, the movie starts with Ronnie Defeo as he seems to just lose it and gets his shotgun and decides to kill everyone. The “VOICE” has become a whisper, not the demonic yell that I was accustomed to hearing in the original. This time though as he makes his rounds, his youngest sister, Jodie, hears the gun shots and proceeds to hide in her closet. The exchange dialogue and Ronnie shots her. This is where it bothered me, someone got up! The thing I found creepy in the original was that no one heard the shots, as if the house muted them.
Enter the Lutz Family. Ryan Reynolds is still sporting the “Jesus Abs” from Blade: Trinity. The actress who plays his wife is pretty convincing. This time though she has 3 children instead of two, who we learn have lost the father to some demise that is never spoken of. So we have the younger brother and sister, but enter a new 12 year old-I’m pissed my father is gone-boy. I could have done without the added kid and his problems, but he does serve his purpose later on. Of course you know the rest, they buy the house and the realtor decides to really punctuate how great the house is, with “A family was murdered here…” So they look past the house’s past and go for the buy! God I love capitalism!
The next scene is an old home movie of the family movie in, joyful over their new home. It is all fun and games, with upbeat music playing. I liked the juxtaposition of tone used form that to a black screen with white lettering spelling out “DAY 1.” Pretty emphatic those good times are over. I was really pulling for the movie at this point but…
There is no priest that comes over to bless the house when the move in. I was ready for the priest to show up, freak out at the voice, flies, and get terribly and GET OUT! No such luck early on. You notice a shift in Reynolds’ tone and over all demeanor. He doesn’t come off as mean but more of a smart ass. He gets mad at the youngest step son for getting something from the basement. He then tells the child, “My office…” He hugs the kid and apologizes for being harsh with his tone.
So the mom (sorry don’t know the actress’s name at the moment) goes up stairs to do something, and she goes into her daughter’s room and asks who she was talking to. The girl says her new friend Jodie, as the mom passes Jodie appears. Later on that night the youngest son runs to pee at, you guessed it, 3:15, and after he tinkles there is some gruesome corpse ghost is over his shoulder. In the same night, Reynolds awakes to his wife getting undressed and the engage in some activities related to being married, and Reynolds sees Jodie hanging from a noose. This is where I really started to have issues. I mean when was this movie a ghost story? Oh yeah and the daughter trying to commit suicide, was a bit much for me. The ghosts play too much of a part in this. But the magnets on the fridge were a nice touch.
The babysitter, well she is a hottie, but what happens to hotties who smoke pot in the bathroom and are mean to the kids they sit? This is probably the only scene that really reminds me of the original except, the babysitter has a run in with Jodie. I missed the whole, dark closet, don’t know what’s in there type thing going on.
Reynolds’ descent into madness is kind of convincing. The whole having the step child hold the wood he is chopping is down right abusive instead of mean. You can clearly see that the blood shot eyes are contacts. But that is a nitpick.
The priest is finally introduced but he goes to the house way too late. It was not like the original where he shows up and what happens sets the mood for the entire movie. The holy water sizzles on the floor, which was neat. But the moment the swarm of flies knocked him down, well, I was just about done. He doesn’t get sick at all or almost crash. He leaves scared, and that is about as much of him you will get. I feel he was greatly under-used.
So “DAY 28” rolls around. Mind you it jumps from day 1 to 15 then to 28. The wife goes to the library and views the micro films about the Defeo murders. At this time she researches some vital information about the house, which I was thoroughly bothered by. Why do studios or writers feel they need to humanize everything? I mean look what they did to Leatherface in the new “Chainsaw.” Ugh
Well, I do not like the direction they took needless to say. Why can’t the house be a demonic doorway to hell as I interpreted from the original? I can’t say to avoid this movie like the plague because I saw numerous tweens grabbing hold for life on to their mommies. It has its moments as any film does…oops, sorry…as any flick does. My date decided that the feeling my arm was not as important as her needing to hide from the ghosts on screen. I do feel the original will hold up better. Its tone, look and overall story telling was enjoyable. Movies nowadays feel the need to explain everything. Why can’t some things be left untainted.
Harry at the off chance to you do use this, please call me…
Ra-Ra
