"Amityville Horror" is a slightly scary movie that give you a jump or two, a few tense moments, some overacting and a predictable storyline. This films, along with many others, is filled with too many clichés and forgot what makes classic horror movies so frightening in the first place. Since this movie is set up on the serious, it's lack of fear can be critical. But with the theaters filled with mediocrity in the horror section, this one is somewhat satisfying.
AH stars Ryan Renolds ("Van Wilder") as George Lutz, a newly married contractor with 3 step children, who comes across house that has a bad history and easy price tag. Van Wilder decides to take the deal, disregarding the fact that a family was murdered in cold blood one year ago, moves in with trouble starting from Day 1.
The film has a great opening revisiting the the events that occurred earlier with a "Se7en"ish style, foreshadowing the events yet to come. The house seems to focus on Van Wilder with visions and premonitions as he struggles to interpret them and shows signs of possession with gradual homicidal thoughts. No one else with the exception of the youngest daughter is really subject to the house's hauntings while the rest of the Van Wilder family battles with his constant moods swings and the house's strange behavior. There are few new tactics used to make you jump coupled with a few predictable ones, but nothing was more disturbing than the fact that I was forced to see Van Wilder ripped naked torso throughout half the movie, to include chopping wood and running around in his pajama bottoms in the rain. To tell you the truth, I really had no idea SoloFlex machines were that popular in the 70's. Anyways his modesty in question was finally answered when the the half-naked, pot smoking babysitter they hired, with enough mascara on to chalk your pool cue, showed up at their door. Maybe that was all Van Wilder could afford, due to the fact he seemed to spend all his money on firewood and never worked throughout the whole movie.
The real problem with this movie is that the director "humanizes" this film using the clichéd, "creepy kid" as a bridge to the supernatural and the living, as the youngest daughter befriends an imaginary friend. In the original movie this character was a pig, represented by glowing red eyes to convey a demonic presence. As always, anticipation of being scared is much scarier (ie, Hitchcock) than having a ghouly kid pop in and out of scenes and dashing by the camera at blurring speeds. Andrew Douglas was far often reliant on CGI and special effects to get the job done instead of focusing on the elements of fear itself like M. Knight Shyamalan.
There are a few tense scenes and the ending was so-so, but I think it would have been a challenge to make riveting one. The movie does answer your questions about the plot to include the origin of the house's demonic state. The acting is above average, with a few over dramatic moments and a few scene that will insult your intelligence, but overall it's a decent scary flick compared to the recent ones. But this is definitely not a classic and I recommend something like "The Shining" instead.
AH stars Ryan Renolds ("Van Wilder") as George Lutz, a newly married contractor with 3 step children, who comes across house that has a bad history and easy price tag. Van Wilder decides to take the deal, disregarding the fact that a family was murdered in cold blood one year ago, moves in with trouble starting from Day 1.
The film has a great opening revisiting the the events that occurred earlier with a "Se7en"ish style, foreshadowing the events yet to come. The house seems to focus on Van Wilder with visions and premonitions as he struggles to interpret them and shows signs of possession with gradual homicidal thoughts. No one else with the exception of the youngest daughter is really subject to the house's hauntings while the rest of the Van Wilder family battles with his constant moods swings and the house's strange behavior. There are few new tactics used to make you jump coupled with a few predictable ones, but nothing was more disturbing than the fact that I was forced to see Van Wilder ripped naked torso throughout half the movie, to include chopping wood and running around in his pajama bottoms in the rain. To tell you the truth, I really had no idea SoloFlex machines were that popular in the 70's. Anyways his modesty in question was finally answered when the the half-naked, pot smoking babysitter they hired, with enough mascara on to chalk your pool cue, showed up at their door. Maybe that was all Van Wilder could afford, due to the fact he seemed to spend all his money on firewood and never worked throughout the whole movie.
The real problem with this movie is that the director "humanizes" this film using the clichéd, "creepy kid" as a bridge to the supernatural and the living, as the youngest daughter befriends an imaginary friend. In the original movie this character was a pig, represented by glowing red eyes to convey a demonic presence. As always, anticipation of being scared is much scarier (ie, Hitchcock) than having a ghouly kid pop in and out of scenes and dashing by the camera at blurring speeds. Andrew Douglas was far often reliant on CGI and special effects to get the job done instead of focusing on the elements of fear itself like M. Knight Shyamalan.
There are a few tense scenes and the ending was so-so, but I think it would have been a challenge to make riveting one. The movie does answer your questions about the plot to include the origin of the house's demonic state. The acting is above average, with a few over dramatic moments and a few scene that will insult your intelligence, but overall it's a decent scary flick compared to the recent ones. But this is definitely not a classic and I recommend something like "The Shining" instead.