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The Amityville Horror: Frank's Take
01/06/2005 . Source: Frank Ochieng 
The real horror behind 2005's The Amityville Horror is that it had the audacity to try and mine its lukewarm absurd scares from the 26-year old original bland product. Let's face it-the 1979 blueprint and its woeful 3-D sequel wasn't exactly anything uniquely distinctive to write home about in the first place. Buy The Amityville Horror in the USA - or Buy The Amityville Horror in the UK  (2005) MGM/UA. 1 hour 32 minutes. Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Melissa George, Phillip Baker Hall. Directed by: Andrew Douglas.
However, director Andrew Douglas feels like conjuring up a clichéd creep show that has all the eerie vibes of a creaking screen door in need of some oil on its rusty hinges. Douglas and his screenwriters Scott Kosar and Sandor Stern provide the arbitrary and sketchy chills that are scattered throughout this banal boofest.
Supposedly, The Amityville Horror (from the Jay Anson book) tosses about its "based on a true story" mantra concerning the exploits of a doomed domicile situated on Deer Park, Long Island. Granted there have been many spookfests that featured a haunted house as its core premise. But Douglas never allows for any flexibility in terms of enhancing his tedious tale beyond the atmospheric demonstrations of so-called ominous swinging doors and bloody appliances.
The shallow script doesn't demand very much in reference to challenging the audience with wicked, escapist bloodbath frivolity. Sadly, Amityville is indeed a house of misguided horrors-the scariest thing about this updated presentation is that it doesn't offer anything remotely stimulating in its flimsy scare tactic of an empty imagination.
The film outlines its background story to set up the gruesome circumstances involving the 1974 slaughtering of an affluent Long Island family. The demon responsible for such a frightening fracas was the oldest son who apparently went ballistic and completely lost it in the house. One year later, the Lutz family headed up by contractor George and his new wife (Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George) decide to move into the dubious dwelling-a Dutch Colonial house that they strangely got a good deal on as seemingly shrewd buyers. Gee, you wonder why, huh?
Just as the Lutzes are settling into their new digs, peculiar occurrences start popping up out of nowhere. The kids are experiencing nightmarish ghostly visions. Walls are mysteriously "coming alive" within the household as they grab at its harried residents. Blood is seen pouring out of water faucets and light fixtures. And breadwinner George undergoes a perverse personality transformation (much like Jack Nicholson's devilish turn in The Shining) and begins to taunt his family in a deadly, disillusioned fashion. One can imagine what the hampered Lutzes are thinking now in regards to their affordable dream house.
There's nothing more passé in the horror genre than the conception of dire domestics concerning a haunted house that a foolish family refuses to abandon for whatever inexplicable reasons. Curiously, The Amityville Horror is nothing but a tepid punch line for every comedian that joked about daunting properties and the masochistic morons that insist on being its very reliable moving targets.
As a first-time director, British moviemaker Douglas formerly made his mark by helming videos and commercials. Here, Douglas has no riveting idea as to how to instil Amityville with a sense of creative callousness. The standby exploitative method he uses is utterly tiresome-the repetitive shock devices of peddling endangered tykes and pets into harm's way for the sake of the dreary drama.
It feels like such as cop out to resort to putting the big screen's kids and animals in a periled predicament just to raise some bored eyebrows. In one particular sequence, a spaced-out George is forced to chop up his dog yet the viewers are supposed to be intrigued by this spontaneous happening? When decapitating an innocent hound is passed off as one of the compelling highlights you know that the movie is reaching for something quite desperate in the goosebump department.
It figures that one of the producers for The Amityville Horror is none other than sensationalistic cinema insider Michael Bay (The Rock, Pearl Harbor, Con Air, etc.). Moviegoers who are familiar with Bay's stylised filmmaking will recognize the highly polished and relentlessly frenetic look to his numbing, escapist flicks. Surprisingly, this recent instalment of Amityville lacks the usual energetic flair associated with Bay-oriented productions. Much like an irritating muffler whose clamp has broken off, this gloomy sideshow scrapes along on the ground creating some weak sparks.
It's a shame that The Amityville Horror is so pointless in its pronouncement of staggeringly recycled schlock. The casting of Reynolds (Van Wilder, Blade: Trinity, The In-Laws) is somewhat inspired if not to capitalize on his potential as a box office pretty boy in the making. The mindless material doesn't do immediate wonders for Reynolds or any of its remaining young cast.
Sure, they react to the flaccid gory goings-on but are not called upon to do much else that would give this frightfest some credibility. Only capable veteran character actor Philip Baker Hall emerges decently as the resident Catholic priest who presides over an exorcism that doesn't quite take too well considering the situational urgency. Hall does justice to a role that was once coveted in the Amityville predecessor by the exceptional late Oscar-winning Rod Steiger.
If you end up yelling bloody murder upon the prospect of checking out this latest go-around involving The Amiltyville Horror, it certainly won't be because of the lurking spooks invading a piece of real estate with a chequered past. In short, a horrifying house is certainly not a hedonistic home with this lacklustre thriller.
Frank Ochieng
(c) Frank Ochieng 2005
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