I have always been a strong believer that Hollywood should stop remaking the good movies and remake the bad ones. Take a long, close look at what went wrong and attempt to make it right. After seeing the dismal remake of "The Amityville Horror" I think perhaps I need to rethink my stance.
I am not a big fan of the original film. I always found it more silly then scary and never could figure out why a family would wait 28 days of going through everything they went through before fleeing. This version doesn't do anything to clear that up. For that matter this version does very little.
The new version seems less like the original and somewhat more like a ripoff of "The Shining." We just watch and watch as the father (here it's Ryan Reynolds as George Lutz playing way over his head) goes crazier in each scene. There is no character development whatsoever. The family moves in and he starts changing. It all happens so fast we have no time to care about him or the other members of the family. At a brief 87 minute running time it appears the director cared more about shocks then his characters.
Speaking of the directing, it's been a long time since I have seen such sloppy direction in a major movie. The director wants to make his audience jump every few minutes but cheats in how he achieves (or attempts to) this. Whenever he wants a scare he simply has a chord of music blare on the soundtrack unexpectedly. Or a loud noise jolts through the theater speakers. I have an idea. Why not create a situation and achieve the scares through that. I detest when an audience is manipulated by a filmmaker. And I have never felt more manipulated in a movie then this one.
Now let's speak of the script. There are several changes from this version to the original. I have no problem with that as long as they make sense to the story or add to the fear level. How about a scene where the priest comes to bless the house and the wife has to chase him to his car? That's right. The priest is literally running for his life to get to his car. Do you think maybe the wife might get the idea something is very wrong and get her kids the heck out of there no matter what her husband says? Phillip Baker Hall as the priest looks like he just wants his paycheck so he can move on to a better project.
As it stands this new "Amityville Horror" may be the worst in the bunch of "Amityville" movies from the 80's. It's hard to imagine anything worse then "Amityville 2:The Possession" but this just might be it. And the third film at least had some good 3-D effects. What worries me most is that this film will spawn remakes of the bad originals and, God forbid, make them even worse.
As I said at the top maybe I need to rethink my position that only bad movies should be remade to try and improve upon them. After seeing "The Amityville Horror" perhaps remakes should be abolished altogether.
I am not a big fan of the original film. I always found it more silly then scary and never could figure out why a family would wait 28 days of going through everything they went through before fleeing. This version doesn't do anything to clear that up. For that matter this version does very little.
The new version seems less like the original and somewhat more like a ripoff of "The Shining." We just watch and watch as the father (here it's Ryan Reynolds as George Lutz playing way over his head) goes crazier in each scene. There is no character development whatsoever. The family moves in and he starts changing. It all happens so fast we have no time to care about him or the other members of the family. At a brief 87 minute running time it appears the director cared more about shocks then his characters.
Speaking of the directing, it's been a long time since I have seen such sloppy direction in a major movie. The director wants to make his audience jump every few minutes but cheats in how he achieves (or attempts to) this. Whenever he wants a scare he simply has a chord of music blare on the soundtrack unexpectedly. Or a loud noise jolts through the theater speakers. I have an idea. Why not create a situation and achieve the scares through that. I detest when an audience is manipulated by a filmmaker. And I have never felt more manipulated in a movie then this one.
Now let's speak of the script. There are several changes from this version to the original. I have no problem with that as long as they make sense to the story or add to the fear level. How about a scene where the priest comes to bless the house and the wife has to chase him to his car? That's right. The priest is literally running for his life to get to his car. Do you think maybe the wife might get the idea something is very wrong and get her kids the heck out of there no matter what her husband says? Phillip Baker Hall as the priest looks like he just wants his paycheck so he can move on to a better project.
As it stands this new "Amityville Horror" may be the worst in the bunch of "Amityville" movies from the 80's. It's hard to imagine anything worse then "Amityville 2:The Possession" but this just might be it. And the third film at least had some good 3-D effects. What worries me most is that this film will spawn remakes of the bad originals and, God forbid, make them even worse.
As I said at the top maybe I need to rethink my position that only bad movies should be remade to try and improve upon them. After seeing "The Amityville Horror" perhaps remakes should be abolished altogether.