The Amityville Horror (2005)

A family of five moves into a new home and discovers too late that it was once the site of a series of grisly murders, where a patriarch brutally slaughtered his entire family. Strange things begin to happen around the house, and the father (Ryan Reynolds) begins to slowly go mad. Can his wife (Melissa George) find out what is causing this before history repeats itself?

Technical excellence aside, this movie was stupid, stupid, stupid. Way too short to properly develop the characters, way too quickly edited for us to get into a scene and it showed us too much in a vain attempt to keep the mood mysterious and suspenseful. Less is more people.

Sure, Ryan Reynolds owned this movie with a fantastically believable performance, but it was wasted on this trash that was made to cash in on the horror movie remake craze that's so vogue right now. Even the lovely Melissa George (who I loved on Alias) didn't get to show off that she's capable of being a decent actress.

It’s never scary and never suspenseful, only tiring and more than a little boring. The script felt it was thrown together at the last second, using the original film as it's backbone with a plot twist from Poltergeist was thrown in to mix things up. Lame.

I hated the original film due to its extreme slow pace and craptastic acting, but for some reason I found this movie that was tailor made for the MTV Generation to be even more grating on the nerves for some reason. Go rent the second film in the series, Amityville II: The Possession. Sure it's cheesy crap, but its way more creative and kind of creepy to boot, unlike this hunk-o-shite.

1 out of 5


*written 4/15/05