The Amityville Horror (2005) Review (1 Viewer)

[Shawn_KE]

Thought it was ok.

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

That was the highlight of the film. What are you talking about?

 

[Steve Phillips]

I'm glad I got the free ticket in the DVD set!

 

[Jeff Adams]

Man, this movie is really getting ripped into. I never saw the original and I have never read the book so I can't comment on how close the story line is but the way I look at it is, who cares. I enjoyed it and thought it was pretty scary. I saw it on opening night and it was in a huge theater. It was sold out. It was really an interactive experience. The audience was screaming and jumping. It was fun just hearing and seeing the audience react to the movie. Some people ran out of the theater and I don't think it was because they thought it was a bad movie. Anyway, I enjoyed it very much and will be adding this to my horror dvd collection when it comes out. I give it a B.

 

[Michael Martin]

*cough* hoax *cough*

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I wish I'd thought of that! Instead, I just sat through this disaster. I disliked the original, and I liked the remakes of Texas Chainsaw and Dawn of the Dead - preferred both to their predecessors, actually - so I thought I might enjoy the 2005 Amityville. Nope - it made me nostalgic for the original! Terrible, terrible, terrible movie. Plenty of laughs, not a single scare or even moderately tense moment...

 

[Brian W.]

Yeah, I saw this yesterday with a friend. Even worse than I expected, though I thought the woman playing the mother gave a fairly good performance. It's just so... "techniquey." And so DISJOINTED. It really does make the hammy original look like a masterpiece.

Regarding George having his shirt off... really took me out of the movie, because there was just no reason that someone in his job would have a Body By Jake like that. Sheesh, almost no one in the mid-1970s had a body like that.

And I hate to break it to the costumer, but low-rider jeans didn't exist in 1975.

I was also perplexed by just how far they strayed from the original story. Basically, the only things taken from the book are the DeFeo murders, the fact that George is always cold, the priest being told to "get out," and the name of the one of the entities in the house. Pretty much everything else was completely invented for this new film.

And whether the haunted house story is fictional or not, the DeFeo case is real... but the DeFeo's daughter was NOT named Jodie. Jody, a male, was the name of a demon pig in the book and the original film. There were no ghosts of the DeFeo family in the house in the original story -- it was something made up for the new film. I think it's in rather poor taste to take the real-life tragedy of a family that was murdered, and say their little girl's ghost is wandering the Amityville house with a bullet hole in her head.

 

[Jace_A]

I don't think the filmmakers were going for realism here. I mean, the lead actor is Ryan Reynolds. Strictly mall-girl fare.

 

[Will K]

I agree. I thought it was disgusting to distort the facts of the DeFeo case that started all of this. Not only was the DeFeo girl not named Jodie, she was also not shot in a closet. All of the victims in the real case were found shot in their beds.

At least the filmmakers behind the very loosely-based Amityville II: The Possession had the decency to not use the DeFeos' real names.

 

[Brian W.]

Wanna really get freaked out? According to IMDB, some shots of the house in the trailer were of the real house. I do think the case is almost certainly a hoax, but the thought of looking at the real house while listening to that music... eeeeeeshhhhh!!! Creeps me out.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

This was a very odd divergence from the real story since part of the spookiness of the DeFeo murders comes from the way they were killed. They were all shot while sleeping, but apparently the gunshot blasts didn't waken any of them. The movie changes that and removes a potentially eerie moment.

Oh, what a terrible film!