Director: Andrew Douglas
Writers: Scott Kosar, Jay Anson
Stars: Ryan Reynolds, Melissa George, Jimmy Bennett
Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/2UQdOAY
Synopsis
We start on November 13, 1974. Ronald DeFeo loads his gun and kills his entire family after hearing voices. Credits roll.
One year later, George and Kathy Lutz go house hunting, and they find a super value, a huge house that they can barely afford. The Realtor is really nervous about going inside, but they decide to go for it. The Realtor does eventually explain what happened a year ago but then adds “The house is fine, really!”
The very first night, George sees a ghost, a dead girl who appears to be hanging near the foot of his bed. The next day, the young daughter makes an imaginary friend named Jodie. It’s the same little girl.
The second night, George sees himself killing his own children, and the youngest boy sees a ghost in the bathroom. There’s lots of ghostly activity going on in the background that no one but the audience actually sees.
George and Kathy go out for dinner and get a babysitter for the kids. The babysitter gets locked inside the closet with Jodie’s ghost, and things escalate until they end up taking her away in an ambulance.
Lots of weird stuff starts happening for no apparent reason, and none of it seems to have anything to do with the DeFeos. There’s a whole impossibly silly scene where they all have to climb to the roof of the house because the little girl climbed up there at Jodie’s direction.
Kathy goes to see Father Calloway at the nearby church. She tells him that something evil is in the house. George sees something nasty and ends up killing the family dog.
The priest explains that the Lutz’s daughter is playing with Jodie’s doll, which was buried with Jodie. He then tries to bless the house, which goes just as badly for him as it did for Rod Steiger, only with more CGI.
On the 28th day, Kathy goes to the library and learns the whole story, along with graphic flashbacks involving torturing native Americans in the 1600s. George breaks down a wall in the basement and finds a hidden room, and then he gets flashes of the same information. As Kathy rushes home to get everyone out of the house, George goes fully over the edge.
Before long, everyone is back outside on the roof in a thunderstorm for a soggy climax.
Commentary
They’ve added a lot of family drama to this one, with the kids missing their dead father and George trying too hard to fit in with Kathy’s kids. In this film, a lot of George’s craziness comes off as child abuse, which didn’t really factor in at all in the 1970’s version. In the original Amityville Horror, George hit Kathy in one scene, but we get the clear impression that here there’s a lot more of it, and it’s directed at the children.
The basic story is all there, but they’ve also thrown in a bunch of jump scares and CGI creatures that are completely unnecessary. There’s just lots of stuff thrown in to make this story seem different from the original. While the original film still holds up really well, this just feels like any other man-going-insane horror film.
With all the added backstory and history, this feels more like a “Poltergeist” remake than “Amityville Horror.”