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Bzzzzzz... AMITYVILLE HORROR remake sounds pretty darn great!
Hey folks, Harry here... this is one that I'm dying to get a peek at. The original AMITYVILLE HORROR is one of those late night all alone films that gives me the heebie jeebies. Maybe because my childhood home looked a bit like the Amityville House... or at least to my monkey brain at the time it did. Perhaps - it is because my father chopped wood real good and always has a grumpy look on his face like Brolin did. I actually think it has more to do with how fucked up the house gets Rod Steiger... how, just a phone call from someone inside the house to him, can give him sick fucked feelings driving him closer and closer to death. Then there was always the knowledge that... this really happened. This isn't just some bullshit scenario... Amityville... it's a truly real place, with truly real dead bodies as a result. I enjoyed this production team's TEXAS CHAINSAW remake - and I love that they're staying true to their period - even if Jessica Beil shouldn't have had a bra on in TCM. Nitpick. Here ya go...
Harry, I saw Amityville Horror Wednesday night at a test screening and here's my shot at a review.
The screening was at the Pacific Beach Cities in El Segundo, where I see most movies and where I got invited to this one, along with what seemed like 5000 other people. I barely got in. Unlike a lot of movies that test screen there, I was motivated to actually go see this one. I have vague memories of the original- just that it scared the crap out of me and there was a pig in the window saying GET OUT!! There was no pig in this movie. But it scared the crap out of me. Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Dawn of the Dead both definitely did not suck and this movie is easily as scary, if not more. The scares are sort of like in The Ring- scary because you don’t know what’s gonna happen but you know it will be FUCKED UP!
Moving on- Amityville Horror starts like the trailer… quick cuts of the DeFeo murders at the Amityville House. DeFeo went crazy and wasted his whole family with a shotgun. Then we get the title and that music. It’s still creepy. It’s now one year after the murders and we meet the Lutz family- cute kids, hot wife, Ryan Reynolds with a beard and looking very cut (in Blade: Trinity mode). You just feel bad for this nice little family because they go looking for a house to make their lives better and find the Amityville house with the creepy eye windows. It's big and out in the country and, by the way, A MAN KILLED HIS WHOLE FAMILY THERE!!!! But they tell each other, there are not bad houses, only bad people.
So they move into the house and we see it as their home movies-Ryan Reynolds, the hot wife (Melissa George from Alias), the little girl and boy and the older boy, Billy. DAY ONE! Everything’s just great. Except that for Ryan Reynolds, the house is never warm enough. And little Chelsea, the daughter, starts talking to an imaginary friend named Jody. And while Ryan Reynolds is getting sex from his hot wife, a creepy little girl pops into the bedroom then disappears. Yes, I jumped, no, I didn’t crap my pants. A few more other disturbing things happen and you can tell they're holding back because the shit hasn't truly hit yet. But you know it will.
So, they survive Day One. But Ryan Reynolds keeps waking up at 3:15 in the morning (the hour DeFeo went through the house capping family members). He's not the kids real dad and starts getting mean, yelling at them. He’s fixated on the basement, trying to turn it into an office. But the dog keeps digging at a rotting wall in the basement. MAYBE BECAUSE THERE ARE DEAD PEOPLE IN THERE??? Just asking.
Then we meet the pot-smoking ultrahot babysitter, who used to babysit for the DeFeo’s and scares the shit out of the kids when she tells them where everybody got shot. When they get to the closet where the little girl was killed, Billy dares her to go in. But once she’s in there, the door slams and locks, blood oozes down the walls. She's pounding on the door, trying to get out, and then the fucked up little dead girl with a hole in her head (who happens to be named Jody)- grabs the babysitter’s finger and forces it into the entry wound on her head.
It was at this point that I realized this movie is not going to let up. You don’t even want to know what happens to the family dog. There are things in the walls and in the water around them, and voices telling certain characters to do things. Ryan Reynolds gets darker, weirder, meaner. He's getting sick and wakes up every night at 3:15 and every time he wakes up, you know some FUCKED UP SHIT will occur. There’s an axe Ryan Reynolds uses to cut wood. And there’s a shotgun in the house. Then one day, he soaks into a hot bath (not a good idea)and bloody arms claw him under the water. Something is seriously fucked in the house- and there's a story behind it, but the hot wife doesn't put it together until the end.
She is is starting to realize how bad things have gotten at the Amityville house. By this time it's DAY 28!! DeFeo killed his family 28 days after he started hearing voices. Ryan Reynolds has been hearing voices since Day One.
At the end of the movie, I realized I hadn’t unclenched my jaw the whole time and it ached. I might even have crapped my pants, but I won’t tell anybody if you won’t. There’s a lot to like in this movie. I can actually say IT WILL SCARE THE CRAP OUT OF YOU!
This was a rough cut- it wasn’t finished. A lot of shots looked washed out and there were a couple of parts that didn’t belong in the movie at all. The audience clapped at certain points (I don’t want to spoil this), but at this one part after Ryan Reynold’s bath from hell, there’s a shot of the hot wife holding him like a baby- everybody actually laughed. It was just strange. I don’t want to give the ending away, but there was one other shot like that (BLOOD SHOWER!!!) that that didn’t make much sense.
The acting was outstandng, especially the kid who played Billy. He’s the one who knows that Ryan Reynolds is becoming dangerous before anyone else. The hot wife and the kids all act like a family does. That’s what stuck with me, because the stuff that happens to them you wouldn’t want to happen to people like that.
I thought it was very well directed. Let me put it this way- it’s fast, brutal and FUCKED UP! My only suggestion to the director (I filled out one of those cards at the end of the screening and wrote this on it) would be to take out that bathtub shot and the that shot near the end. And while I’m at it, how about full frontal nudity from the hot wife?
Hope I didn’t totally fuck up this review. Good luck with your leg. If you use it, call me IL DUCE!
Vic
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Feb 19, 2005 4:17:23 PM CST
Hope this is actually good and this isn't just another blatant p
by swarmy
Loved the original. Here's hoping.
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Hot wife? Fuck this and fuck that? What a moron! If that jerkwater likes this flick, then it has to suck ass in a big way. This has got to be the worst review ever.
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Why don't you call yourself mein Fuhrer!!! What a stupid motherf*cker!
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Not cool Reynolds, not cool.
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Did anybody working on this film read the fucking book?!! Jody was never a "little girl" Jody was a scary as fuck PIG!!
How the hell do you make an Amityville movie without using Jody the pig?!! c'mon, the hoofprints in the snow, the squeals coming out of the walls, Jody was easily the scariest thing about the book! And there NEVER WAS A BABYSITTER!!!!!!!
Piss on this movie!! -
Feb 19, 2005 11:46:23 PM CST
"Then there was always the knowledge that... this really happene
by napoleondynamite
Um....no Harry, it didn't really happen. The whole Amityville book was a hoax. There is no such thing as ghosts and devils, dude.
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Ummm ... OK ... thanks for that.
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but there is such a thing as werewolves and vampires. shame this movie doesn't have some of those.
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banshees and titwillows, whatever the hell a titwillow is...it should be in the movie too. O btw, gonna see this one cuz the original actually did scare the shit outta me...have the stains to prove it...muahahaha
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It chose to destroy itself rather than have us living in it...You can't help but feel a little rejected. I've never seen the original, but I have to say I enjoyed the TCM remake, and I'm guessing this'll be very similar, so I reckon I'll be there.
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Feb 20, 2005 6:25:52 AM CST
hey, just keep us updated with the latest state of your bowels,
by team america
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Feb 20, 2005 8:57:44 AM CST
No Need to see the film now that you know all the cool parts are
by mentallymariah
Oh well, sounds cool but a bit like they are trying to be like the RING and Dark Water vibe with the hand coming out of the water and the creepy lil girl...How about Paris Hiltons Pussy exploding all over Ryan Reynolds head while he is in the bathtub?
Now that I would pay $9.50 to see! -
hmm that sounds positive but where is rod steiger as a priest when you need him?
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They'll fuck it up. I garauntee it. The Texas Chainsaw remake was a total cheapass cop-out. They fucked up every opportunity they had to seriously fuck with the audience. Expect exactly the same thing from this.
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Feb 20, 2005 7:18:02 PM CST
Seriously, is it medically possible to crap one's pants in fear?
by jim jam bongs
Peeing I can see (I knew a kid, not me as a kid, okay?, who actually did that). But actually shitting? For real? www.paris-hacked.com
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Feb 20, 2005 11:33:22 PM CST
Amityville was a hoax from day one....though that's not especial
by hanfiredfirst
On the Amityville hoax: www.prairieghosts.com/amityville.html
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Mr. Science sez: The sphincter tends to loosen in cases of great stress or sudden fright, part of the natural fight-or-flight mechanism.
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Feb 20, 2005 11:38:35 PM CST
It's going to be R Rated and this is the 2nd review I have read
by mr. profit
And in defense of the TCM remake. It was a cool and effective slasher film. People should give it more credit. People have to remember, they can not get away with remaking the original in the same waym in 2005. Americans have become pussies. Films like A Clockwork Orange, and The Exorcist could not be made today. The brutality, even though the original TCM was not too bloddy, but the brutality and violence implied would be too intense for these PG13 happy execs who make films for little kids (The Grudge, Boogeyman, White Noise). TCM 2003 was good and it was a hard R rated film that made a bunch of money. And besides, the film really isn't a remake. If you were an exec, would you rather make Texas Chainsaw Massacre 5 or just reimagine the original? The question remains, will Harry's head make a cameo in Amityville attached to the pig saying Get Out?
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Ive said it before, but this site needs a consistent spoiler policy. Some stories are marked as SPOILER when they aren't and this isnt marked as SPOILER when it contains lots of them. Please sort it out!
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I'm quite lookin forward to this one.
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Feb 21, 2005 9:28:02 AM CST
Shitty remake of a shitty film based on a shitty lie of a marria
by salvatoregravano
Yes, sounds perfect.
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What Harry meant about the dead bodies is the fact that some people were murdered there...I think that part is true...what is fiction is what happened to the Lutz after they moved in...although...we will never know what really happened...
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Feb 21, 2005 3:28:59 PM CST
"24" is really good this year, especially the focus on this year
by lost skeleton
nuclear power PLANTs. That said, I'll see it.
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There has been a prequel, a new location or two, and a fuckig dollhouse. So the next one has to be take place in space... or in the hood... or someplace that many horror movies have tread before.
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...that noticed the bra thing in the TCM remake. Attention to detail people!
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the real house has been altered recently. They removed the creepy windows, and put in damn square ones. Photos at findadeath.com, I think.
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http://www.findadeath.com/funstuff/Amityville/Amityville.htm
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