Dir: Andrew Douglas
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Melissa George, Philip Baker
Hall, Rachel Nichols, Jesse James, Jimmy Bennett
Rated R, Approx: 89 minutes
An MGM Pictures Release
This Shameless Cash-In on an Infamous Story.
that infamous Long Island house. The only truth to this story is that this is little more than a cheap attempt to cash
in on a very well established name property. Bearing almost no resemblance to the 1979 film or Jay Anson’s creepy
novel of the same name, this is a slickly produced movie with intentions of riding the latest trends in the genre, in
this case the unnecessary remake. What this means is that you won’t get a faithful retelling of George Lutz's
account of the 28 days that he and his family lived in the house. You won’t get a version of the story to make you
forget the original film (okay, so its slow and overacted, parts of it are still spooky), or even the book. What you will
get are lots of cheap “jump scares” (actually, that’s about all you’re going to find here), “scary” children and zero
dramatic build up or tension to a weak story that makes very little sense.
George (Mulholland Drive) star as George and
Kathy Lutz. After a quick but interesting prologue
detailing the real life murder spree that occurred in
the house (probably the only part of the film to stay
true to the story), we see the Lutz couple move into
the home with their three children and immediately,
things start to go wrong. One of the children
begins sleepwalking, another befriends the ghost of
a young kid named ‘Jody’ (who was a talking pig in
the book) and George himself flips his lid. As a
priest, Philip Baker Halls shows up for about a
minute and a half, throw in a brief bit of Christian
lore and some out of place nonsense regarding
Indian slaves and that’s the story in a nutshell.
Unless you’re scared by loud noises and cheap
jumps, than 'Amityville ’05' probably won’t do much
to freak you. It’s not terribly scary and completely
fails to leave a lasting impression. If there weren’t
so many creepy children popping up in movies over
the past five years (The Sixth Sense, The Ring)
than you can bet you wouldn’t have seen one here
either. Scott Kosar’s screenplay (the man who
scripted the completely overrated The Machinist
not to mention the terrible remake of Texas
Chainsaw Massacre) is a derivative hodgepodge
of ideas lifted from other, superior films. Why else
would Jody be changed from a pig to a little girl? Is
it because other films have proven successful at
featuring scary children? The entire last half of this
one is a knock off of The Shining with Reynolds
channeling Jack Nicholson. There’s also that Indian
stuff I mentioned with a briefly glimpsed villain
ripped-off directly from Poltergeist II’s Reverend
Kane. For a “true” story, Scott Kosar sure takes a
lot of liberties with the facts.
concepts, but that’s really not the case. I’m annoyed because the filmmakers behind this thing (Michael Bay and his
Platinum Dunes production company) show such contempt for said source material. If they’re not concerned with
telling this story again than why bother? Naturally it all trickles down to money, but it’s still a shame because I always
felt that the 1979 film could be improved upon. Leave it to Michael Bay and co. to actually make it worse (even the
house looks awful in this update!).
Reynolds (right) and his increasingly over-the-
top performance, Melissa George as the
sympathetic mother trying to keep her family
together and Rachel Nichols who brings
considerable sex appeal to the table as the
slutty babysitter (although her scenes with the
kids are in piss poor taste). Reynolds is a
good actor who constantly winds up in lousy
films, I don't blame him for this fiasco at all,
quite the opposite actually. Ditto for George
who does very little here besides provide
exposition in the last half and look terrified in
close-ups. These are thankless parts no
matter how you slice it and the actors try, but
in the end the material is far too pedestrian for
anything good to come of it.
continues to intrigue readers with the possibility that the Lutz family ordeal actually happened. An interesting flipside
to that coin makes the compelling argument that the whole thing was a hoax (thanks to Dr. Stephen Kaplan’s
excellent book “The Amityville Horror Conspiracy”), but that doesn’t change the fact that the story is still haunting.
Had this team of filmmakers stuck to Anson’s book, things may have been different, the film may have been really
scary. Instead we’re left with a fast-paced but unimpressive movie that won’t scare anybody save the sixteen-year-
old girls who thought The Grudge was the end all and be all of horror films.
that this man started a company so he could begin stealing well-known horror titles and concepts and putting them
in terrible, unoriginal modern versions illustrates his appalling lack of respect for these films. The Amityville
Horror is slightly less offensive than the forgettable Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2003, but that doesn’t make it any
better.
* out of 5
Reviewed by Matt Serafini 08/29/05
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