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HORROR POSSUM She speaks her mind, in five words or less. Her verdict on this movie: "It was shitty but good".

THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (2005) Director: Andrew Douglas. Hacktors: Ryan Reynolds, Melissa George, Philip Baker Hall. Rating/5: The lowdown: Just as in the 1979 original, the Lutz family are moving into a suspiciously cheap dream home. Turns out that the majority of the previous owners, the DeFeo family, were wiped out by one of their own kin. So why is George Lutz, head of the family, acting so strangely while he's on the grounds? Good points: Whereas the original movie, with James Brolin and Margot Kidder, is a slow-burner (and effectively so, spinning a fair few chilling moments), producers must have known that today's audiences probably wouldn't have gone for a suspense-fest. So this Amityville is lean, fairly mean and perfectly watchable throughout. This is largely down to Ryan Reynolds, who was excellent in Blade: Trinity and is pleasingly cast against type here. He gets to do his charismatic comedy, making us like George Lutz, but also attacks the possessed stuff with a grim intensity. Encouraginly, the most effective set-piece is entirely new, but it has little to do with supernatural shenanigans: the vertiginous moment when the family's little'un Chelsea decides to take a nice stroll across the house's uppermost beam. Brilliantly shot, it'll have you clinging to the sofa. Bad points: It's not nearly frightening enough. As we saw in the seriously warped Amityville II: The Possession, there's a hell of a lot of scary stuff to be wrung from the 'possessed family member' scenario. For all its loud, jolting sound effects and fast, choppy editing, The Amityville Horror just doesn't scale those heights. Perhaps this is because it's ultimately a major studio picture and we know full well that none of the Lutz's three kids are about to get their brains blown out. Or perhaps it's because the script seems intent on shoe-horning in various cliches from The Sixth Sense, ie one of the Lutz kids going to the toilet along the scary landing, or the sympathetic ghost-girl, Jodie. DVD Details: Plenty of stuff here, for a single-disc set. There's a serious doc called Supernatural Homicide, which examines the real-life murders in the Amityville house. Then there's a 26-minute behind-the-scenes doc which is commendably thorough, interviewing most of the cast and crew and taking a specific look at how scenes like the aforementioned 'vertigo' scene was filmed. An interactive feature called On-Set Peeks allows you to watch the movie while gaining access to making-of snippets specific to nine scenes. Ryan Reynolds joins with two of the producers for an entertaining audio commentary ("I grew this beard especially," notes the actor), which also extends to the interesting deleted scenes. Actually, most of the deleted scenes aren't that interesting, but the commentary is amusing. Says Reynolds at one point, "My take on why this scene doesn't work and isn't interesting is... zzzzzzzzz..." Overall: An excellent DVD package, for a fair take at an Amityville revamp. Release Date: October 4, 2005 in the States. October 24 in the UK. [Check it out at Amazon US] [Check it out at Amazon UK] [See Slasherama's report from the UK DVD launch] [Reviews Menu] [Home] © Copyright Slasherama 2002-present