CORPORATE LINE: On November 13, 1973, police received a frantic phone call that led them to a nightmarish crime scene at the Defeo residence in Amityville, Long Island – an entire family had been murdered in their beds while they slept. In the days that followed, Ronald Defeo eventually confessed to methodically killing his parents and four siblings with a rifle, saying “voices” in the house drove him to the massacre. One year later, George and Kathy Lutz and their children moved into the house thinking it would be their dream home. But soon the voices began again. Sleepless nights. Numbing cold. Visions of a murdered little girl. Then George began to do what the voices told him… 28 days after moving in, the Lutzes abandoned the residence – lucky to escape with their lives. 30 years after the shocking real-life events that inspired one of the most popular horror stories of all time, revisit the house that started it all: The Amityville Horror.
THE GOOD: I’m still thinking about it.
THE BAD: A movie needs some personality and The Amityville Horror has none. Everything about the movie is regurgitated from every other horror flick that has been released in the last five or so years. Each movie has become a mishmash that makes them almost impossible to differentiate.
Ryan Reynolds is supposed to be scary with his blood shot eyes and beard. It’s too bad we know him better as the guy who always cracks-wise in every movie he is in. Reynolds is as scary as a puppy that was given big fake fangs and strap-on horns.
The most bizarre aspect of the entire film is that Kathy never leaves with her children when her new husband starts acting crazy. Horror movies prove just how stupid Hollywood thinks we are (and don’t let them fool you with “it’s based on a true story”—yeah, loosely based).
Everything about The Amityville Horror is horror cliché at its finest and proves this isn’t all about being based upon a real story but based upon real movies created dozens of times by Hollywood. You have to love how the ghost always hovers and the bad guy won’t die. Please, haven’t we seen it all before? You know what would be imaginative? Stab me in the leg while I’m watching… then maybe I’ll be frightened.
FRANKLY: The Amityville Horror is a comedy of horrors that scares with stupidity from beginning to end. Boooooooo!
+ Charlie Craine
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