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DVD : The Amityville Horror (Widescreen Special Edition) |
- GoodI came into this film with low expectations and walked away enjoying this movie very much. Ryan Reynolds really impressed me with his acting ability and I really did buy into and got into the storyline. The ending seemed kind of weak, but made sense. There was a build up, and a fizzle ending, but it still didn't hurt the overall film. So, I don't know if you will enjoy the movie if you expect a lot, but if you come in with low expectations-you can only go up from there. A real enjoyable movie that worth watching at least once, but I don't know if I'd want to see it more than that.
Rating:
- Same space, newly renovatedI watched the original of this movie a few weeks before this new one came out, and it was even worse and cheesier than I anticipated. I was hoping the remake would be fairly decent, and you have a the necessary element there--i.e. creepy house--and I hoped that they would throw out a lot of the "adherence to the facts" that made the original such a bore and retool it to make it actually scary. But no. What's most disappointing about this movie is how, even though they changed the events, it remains pretty much the exact same movie, just turned up a notch.
I was not bored or unentertained during the 90 minutes I spent in the theater, but for me, there's nothing here that's scary. What horror [the genre] has devolved into as it becomes more popular--essentially a bunch of empty "Boo!" scares--just isn't scary to me. But for a film to have an effect it has to have TIME to build an effect [not to mention atmosphere or thematic resonance] and this is not possible in a country that increasingly has no attention span. Here some face or creepy something appears onscreen with a crashing noise every five minutes, lest anyone get "bored."
But... aren't you BORED with those idiotic scares?
I won't go on too long here, as there's no point. If you like these kind of scares, you get what you deserve.
Incredibly, there's not even any interest to be had in comparing the two versions.
The only point of interest to the film is the way they've redesigned the house. They added an entire floor to the bottom that is a glassed-in porch [I was thinking "Jeez... and I never have time to wash my THREE windows"], which doesn't accomplish much and is used to no purpose, but it does make the house taller and narrower. The exteriors and the interiors do not really match, as they've made the house so tall and narrow to emphasize its scariness. The interiors are also designed to be unusually tall and narrow. This isn't much, but at least it's a kind of clever cinematic sleight-of-hand, and truly is the only clever thing about the entire film. It is most noticeable when the dippy little girl goes out on the roof for no other reason than that we need a sequence of peril; you can see that the roof is pitched at a very steep angle that doesn't match the interior at all. Whatever, at least they tried something somewhat interesting.
On the last day the family spent in the house, the wife is at the library before it opens in the morning, does some research, visits the priest, but by the time she goes home [seemingly around noon] it is the dark of night, because the climax has to happen at night. Huh. Ghostly forces, I guess.
Mildly entertaining, like cinematic potato chips, not scary, not interesting, devoid of subtext. The only interest this movie can drum up is the way it signifies one more beat in the continual death knell of the Horror film.
Rating:
- An opportunity wasted...I saw the Amityville remake last night. I absolutely loved the original even if it didn't age well over time. I think what made the original so good was that the characters who played the leads really looked frightened e.g. James Brolin ,Margot Kidder and Rod Steiger really conveyed fear in their eyes. The newer version stars Ryan Reynolds, who is more renowned for comedy and Melissa George, an Australian actress who started her career in daytime soaps. Philip Baker Hall plays the priest Fr Callaway. It would be unfair to describe the acting as incompetent, it isn't. My main problem is with the plot and the way the film unravels.
The opening sequence shows the massacre of the DeFoe family by Ronnie the son who goes mad. This is quite a creepy sequence and uses similar imagery to the film Se7en. It sets the scene nicely. Then we cut forward to the Lutz family who snap up the property and are told of the house's history. After initial reluctance, they decide to move in and give it a go. Then the weird things start to happen like the apparition to the Lutz daughter of Jody Defoe, the girl who was murdered by her brother a year before. There are one or two jump out of the seat moments after this but I consider the film to be a wasted opportunity overall
The film turns into a budget version of The Shining , concentrating on the declining sanity of George Lutz played by Ryan Reynolds. This insanity builds up until the end of the film where he comes to his senses and the family escape the house. In the original, the insanity of the Lutz father is only one of several episodes to befall the family in the house. Gone is the appearance of the demon pig, the secret room behind the fireplace painted in blood and other such episodes. Most disappointing was the brief appearance of Philip Baker Hall, an actor who is normally excellent at conveying distress (remember him as the dying quiz show host in Magnolia ?).I expected lots more from his appearance in the house than the swarm of flies attacking his face ?
I suppose one of the main problem with the film is it's brevity. It clocks in at under 90 minutes in runtime.
What starts out as a very eerie film ends up another shlock horror zombie film. It could have been so much better really.
Rating:
- NOT GREAT BUT GOODFOR SOME UNEARTHLY REASON NOW ADAYS WE SEEMS TO BE BOMBARDED WITH REMAKES OF GREAT CLASSIC FILMS. I COULD UNDERSTAND WHY THEY WOULD MAKE A MORE UPDATED VERSION OF CLASSICS LIKE ROMEO AND JULIET AND O, WHICH IN MY OPINION WERE WONDERFUL MOVIES. BUT I JUST DONT GET WHY WE R SEEING CLASSIC HORROR BEING REMADE, WE UNDERSTOOD THE FILMS THE FIRST TIME AROUND, UNLIKE SHAKESPEAR WHO I REALLY DID NOT GET TIL I SAW MOVIES I COULD UNDERSTAND AND RELATE TOO...IM PRETTY DISGUSTED WITH MOST OF THE REVAMPED VERSION OF PURE AND TRUE CLASSICS...TXS CHIN SAW MASS, HILLS HAVE EYES, ETC....BUT I HAVE TO HONESTLY SAY I ENJOYED THIS ONE, ITS ALMOST AS GOOD AS THE ORIGINAL...GREAT ACTING AND GREAT SUSPENSE! ALL I AM GOING TO SAY IS DONT EVEN THINK TO REMAKE NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, THAT WOULD JUST BE PLAIN WRONG AND UNGODLY!
Rating:
- Don't waste your timeWhat conceivable reason could there be for making this movie? We all basically know the story and we all know that the "true story" behind it is bogus. Moreover, the movie isn't all that long--about 80 minutes not including the credits. This is basically enough to skim through the story without any real depth or development. The acting is fairly mediocre--the babysitter being the exception--and can't say much for the dialogue either. In the end, not all that frightening, and not really worth the time.
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