The Amityville Horror (2005)

[Joe the Destroyer]

I'm usually quite accepting of remakes and Hollywood horror, or at least a little lenient on them.  Not so much with this one.  I really feel they dropped the ball on it, trying to make it an all out assault of a film rather than a psychological ghost thriller. 

The first thing about this that irritated me was the blatant barrage of clichés from start to finish.  It's almost as though they couldn't figure out which direction to take the film or what films they wanted to rip off, so opted for "all of the above."  Everything from flies to bleeding walls to disturbing imagery a la J-horror appeared and smacked me upside the head. 

The need to dumb the film down and make it more brutal really got to me.  Usually, I'm for adding a little brutality.  I really don't see a point, though, to making George Lutz into a would-be slasher.  I read the book, and I know he gets a little testy, but he sure as hell doesn't hold a gun or an axe to anyone, at least not that I remember. 

I will admit, though.  I did like the rooftop scene.  I thought it was somewhat effective.  It's just a shame that everything before and after it caused a lot of pain.  After seeing this, and now hearing that Michael Bay is working on The Birds, all I can say is that I think I need a woman tonight.  I need someone to cradle me to sleep and tell me it's going to be all right, then take pictures of me sleeping while pouring melted vanilla ice cream on my- ehem... Sorry, got carried away.

We've seen Amityville 3D, now we have Amityville ADHD.

[Mofo Rising]

I've seen every single one of the Amityville movies and they all suck.

I'll give this one the edge over the original, but they're both bad movies.  I actually just commented to congratulate you on your Amityville ADHD line.

This is off-topic, but you know what I would like to see remade?  C.H.U.D.  I think that would be really entertaining done well.

[Joe the Destroyer]

I would have to agree.  CHUD is an awesome flick, and put it in the hands of the right writer and director and I think it would be a great remake.  Just keep it away from Michael Bay.

Or Uwe Boll.

Or Paul WS Anderson.

[AndyC]

I would have to agree.  CHUD is an awesome flick, and put it in the hands of the right writer and director and I think it would be a great remake.  Just keep it away from Michael Bay.

Or Uwe Boll.

Or Paul WS Anderson.

Those would be the big three. Funny, they do make a movie scary in their own way. I get the shivers just thinking about Bay remaking Hitchcock.

I would like to see CHUD in the hands of someone who can scare without special effects. Brad Anderson perhaps.

[Oldskool138]

When "Van Wilder" is cast as George Lutz, your movie is doomed before you even turn the cameras on.

[RapscallionJones]

I'm going to take the low road here and admit to you that I actually like the original movie quite a bit.  I'm a sucker for a haunted house movie and it's so hard to find any that restrain themselves as much as the original Amityville.  For reasons beyond my understanding, I actually watched the remake and still kick myself for doing so.

If you'll excuse me for a moment, I must now kick myself.

See, they really rubbed me the wrong way by attaching the "based on a true story" line to the marketing.  I realize that this movie came out at a time when EVERY horror movie released theatrically had that true story line jammed somewhere in the tv spots and posters.  I think they even did it to The Hills Have Eyes remake wherein the original was very, very loosely based on the Sawny Bean Tribe but Amityville twisted the facts up, omitting many completely and then made some s**t up from thin air and STILL added the true story line to the advertising.  Most of the movie seemed like a cheap reason to show Ryan Reynolds with his shirt off.

The final straw came in the third act when the producers decided that a haunted house itself wasn't scary and that it needed some kind of historical byline so off goes the wife to the hall of records where a moment's googling produces the chilling tale of indians tortured and murdered by some psychopath in the house's basement.  Man, f**k that!

[Mr_Vindictive]

Most of the movie seemed like a cheap reason to show Ryan Reynolds with his shirt off.

I believe that to be the reason why my wife dragged me to the theater to see it and why it mysteriously popped up in my DVD collection a while back....

[Torgo]

All of the Amityville Horror movies are awful. The 1st one is memorable mainly because of how unintentionally hilarious it is throughout.

The 3-D one is the worst of the bunch IMO.

[DistantJ]

Personally, I would have put this one in the "Good Movies" forum. Great remake.

[D-Man]

I was never a fan of the old Amityville movies, and remake was equally lame to me.  J-horror imagery, and cheap "jump" scare moments just don't fit with these kinds of films. 

But it's at least a little better than the remake of The Omen we got the following summer, which I think was created solely for the purpose of a 6/6/06 release date.