I remember the book and I recently caught another airing of the first “Amityville Horror” on cable, and I believe those two factors heavily influenced my view of this remake. It’s impossible to try and forget the first film, or the book it’s based on, while watching this 2005 edition. For pure scares, this one may be the better of the two movies. For sticking to the story as told by the Lutz family to writer Jay Anson, this one appears to have forsaken the source material in lieu of more in-your-face frights.
In this version, George Lutz and his new wife Kathy find a house at a bargain basement price that’s just too good to be true. That should have been their first clue. But no, they need a place to raise Kathy’s three kids and the Amityville property has everything they're looking for in a house, so they buy the place knowing its sordid history. Ronald DeFeo Jr (who in real life is serving time in prison for the murders) slaughtered his parents and four siblings in a brutal attack one night about a year before the Lutz family moves in. The Lutzes purchase the 'murder' house anyway and just 28 days later, flee the place leaving all their belongings behind. What caused them to flee in terror is the fodder for this film.
Why the studio was allowed to say ‘based on a true story’ when it seems the only things that were kept from the book were the last names of the families involved - and the fact that the Amityville house had freaky windows that looked like eyes - is unknown to me. Other than a very few instances, it doesn’t seem as though the makers of the 2005 “Amityville Horror” really cared much about telling the story of George and Kathy Lutz as much as imitating and improving upon other horror movies of the past decade. My husband made the argument that this is just supposed to be a scary movie, it’s not a biography. But if that’s true, then why use the Lutz name? Why not just tell the story of a house that’s possessed and a family who is tormented by demons? If you’re going to say your movie’s based on the real stuff, then you’ve got to at least stick with the major plot points from the true story.
The most noticeable of the major changes made in this version is the altering of Jody the demonic pig. In the book and in the first film, Jody was definitely a porker. In the new Amityville Horror movie, ‘Jody’ is the ghost of Jodie DeFeo, one of the children who was slain in the house prior to the Lutz family taking possession (sorry!) of the property. There wasn’t a ‘Jodie’ DeFeo, and the Lutz’ never said there was a little girl ghost haunting them. Other big changes include George repeatedly trying to kill his family. Hmmm, I must have missed that chapter in the book. There are also a few scenes involving the roof of the house, including one where the Lutz daughter follows her best buddy Jodie up there to visit her dead father. Again, I must have skimmed over that part of the “Amityville Horror” story. And don’t even get me started about the dog… Let’s just say what happens in the movie definitely did not happen in real life and leave it at that.
The problem with basing a movie on a book that’s supposedly the real story of real people is that when you make big changes, you’re no longer sticking to the way things went down. And that could have an impact on the lives of the real people who are featured in the story. This is a movie review and as such, I’m not about to take a stance as to whether or not I believe it was all a hoax in the first place. That’s really immaterial. The point is that when you tack ‘based on true events’ onto a film, well then it ought to be actually based on true events. Sure, minor changes can be made, but a whole lotta liberty was taken in this “Amityville Horror.”
As far as the acting in this remake, Ryan Reynolds is decent (better than James Brolin) and does a good job of hitting the humorous moments and also portraying rage as his character speedily descends into madness. Melissa George seems a little young for the part, but she screams well enough to get by.
What it all ultimately boils down to is whether or not the movie did its job of scaring the audience. There were plenty of jumpy moments, but they were buttressed by unintentionally funny scenes. It wasn’t the horror movie I wanted it to be, but it wasn’t a complete disaster either.
GRADE: C+
