Review of The Amityville Horror (2005) by Spangle — 09 Oct 2016

Oh wow. After watching the original right before this being left thinking it was an alright film, this 2005 remake made the original look like the best film of all-time. Obviously as a remake, it is unoriginal. Yet, it decided to take everything that worked in the original: the pacing, the menacing scares, and the mystery, and just remove it. Everything good in the original is gone. In its place is a formulaic modern day horror movie with Ryan Reynolds' abs, Melissa George's side boob, and Rachel Nichols as the sluttiest babysitter of all-time. Clearly, far more attention was paid to attracting teenagers (both girls and boys), rather than making this film at all scary.

With jump scares coming fast and furious, The Amityville Horror refuses to try and be original, though its major strength is expanding on the history of the house. The original had good elements, but I did like that this one took it further. It also had other nice touches like the doll, which was certainly scary. That said, every other addition was poor at best. The additions largely are just gore effects, the aforementioned jump scares, and showing you what the original kept hidden. The best trick a horror film can pull is to try and convince the viewer that the scary elements are not there. That it is just a noise. Once it does this, it can truly shock you and leave you shaking. This film, however, is convinced you must see dead bodies with weirdo jump cuts in order to get the point. Director Andrew Douglas clearly does not understand what works about horror movies. There was a lot to improve upon from the original, but yet, Douglas found a way to infuse it with modern horror elements that leave you scratching your head and trying to watch the original instead.

The Amityville Horror is a film that takes no time at all to jump right into the "scary elements". Rather, it decides from the very beginning that it is best to try and make the audience jump. Yet, horror films must earn their scares through atmosphere. Douglas apparently feels the need to try and shorthand this atmosphere by just showing you creepy looking dead girls and a scene with a Ryan Reynolds lookalike (i.e. Ryan Reynolds) killing his whole family. These moments, though jarringly dumb, do not scare. Even worse, they do not create an atmosphere. As if realizing this, Douglas thinks adding some more CGI demons and scenes of child abuse will assist the film in becoming creepy. Strike two. Next up, Douglas decided the ending of the original was fine, but just needed some alterations. Here, we could definitely add a weirdly placed dream sequence with Reynolds slinging an axe into Melissa George's abdomen only to instead have her almost kill him. But yay, she cannot pull the trigger and Reynolds is saved from the house! Woohoo! If only Melissa George could have pointed the gun at my head and pulled the trigger. It would have been far more rewarding.

The Amityville Horror is schlock horror at its very finest. It is devoid of scares or atmosphere. If you want to watch Ryan Reynolds's abs act in a supporting role (he is actually shirtless for maybe, like, 50 minutes of this movie), then this is the movie for you. If you want to be entertained and scared, then maybe try a different horror movie.