Review of My Amityville Horror (2013) by Brandon S — 19 Aug 2013

This movie is really only as interesting as long as you pretend that everything that Daniel is saying is completely true. I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but I do not believe anything, whatsoever, about the Lutzes claims of strange goings-on around this house.

Do I think it was a scam perpetrated by George Lutz in order to sell his story, which led to books and a ton of films, and get himself a paycheck from naive people looking for an "interesting" story? It's very likely, we have no proof of this, but it is more than likely considering how things went.

Do I believe that Daniel Lutz believes he's telling the truth? Yes, but how much of that truth is REALLY what happened?? Daniel was around 10 years old at the time he lived there, so how much of what he remembers is actually true and how much did he just fill in the gaps using everything that came out after he left? All the movies, all the books, all the stories that came out.

I believe that helped Daniel fill in the gaps in his memory and helped shaped what he calls the truth. It's clear that whatever back there, and really whatever happened since the moment George Lutz came into his life, has left him with some real emotional issues.

The way he speaks and some of his facial expressions has led me to believe that his most traumatic experience wasn't even living in the Amityville house, it was living with his stepfather and having to deal with his shit on a constant basis.

Daniel makes no bones about the fact that he hated George and is happy that he's dead, but I believe that, somehow, Daniel uses his 'experiences' in the house to sort of rationalize his hatred for George.

But, as mentioned, I believe that Daniel believes he's telling the truth. I think he's a reliable narrator, he seems confident in what he's saying, it's clear he believes this is the truth.

But the fact of the matter is that NONE of the families that lived in the Amityville house since the Lutzes have reported any paranormal phenomena. Why would that stop when the Lutz family moves out of the house? The evil spirits are gonna be trapped there right? That, more than anything else, makes me doubt the Lutzes' story even more.

If there's a real problem with the film is that there's no real structure to the movie. Scenes are just randomly thrown together and, as such, there's no real story here. Sometimes they'll be talking to Daniel about something in specific and the next scene is something completely unrelated to what came before it.

There's no progression to the story that Daniel is telling them, they're going all over the place. Because of that the movie feels much longer than it really is. There's also the fact that the majority of the movie pretends as if this events actually happened and they don't really bother, outside maybe 20% of the movie, to look at the fact that the Lutzes may have, in fact, been lying about this in order to get some publicity.

I just think this aspect of the film should've been more focused on, rather than just pretending that it's true right from the start. I don't think the filmmakers grilled Daniel as much as they could have.

Maybe he intimidated them, but still. I think the movie needed a little more diversity of opinions and we just didn't get that here. Still, this is a pretty good movie. I wouldn't recommend it, because it's just not that good, but there are worse ways to spend 85 minutes.

This just feels like a missed opportunity however.