By Madeline Kerins
No child on Long Island grows up without hearing stories about the “Amityville Horror House,” as most in this area call it. Few of these children mature into teenagers without exploring the house, or at least its block, for themselves. And even as these teenagers become adults, it still remains a subject of fascination and curiosity. This odd obsession with the house on Ocean Avenue in Amityville stretches far past Long Island. People all over the country and presumably the world have come to know about the house on 112 Ocean Ave. that turned from a gorgeous Dutch colonial into the perfect setting for a real-life mass murder.
To briefly summarize, on Nov. 13, 1974, Ronnie DeFeo killed his entire family, six people in all, execution-style in the middle of the night while they slept. Once DeFeo was found guilty, he admitted that he murdered his family because demonic voices had inspired him to do so. The house remained empty until December 1975, when the Lutz family moved in. Though they were informed about the murders before purchasing the home, the Lutzs decided that at its inexpensive price-$80,000-the house was more than worth any mixed feelings they had about its troubled past.
While both factual and fictional accounts of the events that happened to the Lutzs vary wildly, no matter who’s telling the story one fact always checks out-the Lutzs only stayed in the home 28 days. In the latest remake to hit theaters, The Amityville Horror re-vamps the 1979 book adaptation, based loosely on fact and more on pure Hollywood imagination.
Following an unnerving but brief rendition of the happenings on that night in November, the movie setting takes us to the Lutz’s previous home in Deer Park. The film then chronicles the time from when George and Kathy Lutz, played by Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George, respectively, first view the home up until their departure in pouring rain 28 days later. With widow Lutz’s three children in tow, the happy newlyweds spend quality time unpacking and being overjoyed with their new lease on life. Then night falls.
George is the first to experience any hauntings. While he and Kathy are making love, he looks over her shoulder to see a young girl hung from the ceiling. While this image shocks the audience into a jump, it seems out of sequence considering that all the DeFeos were murdered by shots to the head. Looks like whoever checked the film for continuity was drinking on the job. Regardless, this image serves as a guideline for the remainder of the film, with most of its scare value coming from perfectly timed gory facial morphs and jumpy camera cuts accompanied by generic but effective crescendos.
The film jumps from day one to day 28 with few random stops chronicled in between, with George becoming increasingly temperamental and distanced as they go. The Lutz’s youngest daughter, Chelsea, is often visited by a ghost of Jodie, one of the DeFeos, and eventually her visits with Jodie threaten her own life, as she walks across the house’s roof in a dramatic scene. With all other options exhausted, a saddened Kathy decides to seek solace in one of the local priests, hoping he can cleanse her home and save her relationship with her husband. While she visits with the priest, George is at home, becoming more and more psychotic one step at a time. In a raging fit, he breaks through a wall in the boathouse, where the family’s dog has been constantly scratching. His discovery is the remains of what used to be a torture chamber for American Indians, in which the house’s first owner, Reverend Jeremiah Ketchum, brutally murdered more than a few Indians. This scratches at the surface of Long Island’s deep Indian history, however, the gory flashbacks George experiences while touring the chambers transforms this good idea into typical horror film cheese.
Overall, The Amityville Horror isn’t that bad of a horror flick. Though the back-story is what keeps any interest in the film whatsoever, MGM’s last attempt at film making is not futile. (They are being taken over by Sony Pictures.) It has enough jumpy scenes and gore to entertain moviegoers; well, it does while they’re inside the theater, anyway. Scary movie and/or pop culture history buffs may find its inaccuracies offensive, but for the casual movie fan, Amityville Horror is good enough.
Final Grade: B-