Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

The Amityville Horror Blu-ray Movie Review

“GET OUUUUUUUUT!”

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater September 22, 2010

So, what happens when you take a commercially successful but critically panned horror film from the 1970s and remake it—under the auspices of producer Michael Bay—for a modern audience? Well—surprise—you get yet another commercially successful, critically panned horror film. For all its staying power—which is mostly attributable to its controversial, based-on-a-true-story origins—the original 1979 version of The Amityville Horror simply isn’t very good. At best, it’s a pale imitation of other 1970s fright flicks, like The Exorcist, at worst, it’s depressingly dull. The 2005 remake faces the same fate. It’s endlessly derivative—copping liberally from The Ring and The Shining and employing just about every ghost movie cliché imaginable—and its scares are jarring but fleeting, relying on a screeching soundtrack and in-your-face imagery rather than real psychological terror. The only horror here is that, despite the surfeit of sequels and the best efforts of this polished-to-a-sheen remake, Hollywood has yet to make a genuinely scary retelling of the supposedly "true" Amityville haunting.

Happy homeowners...

The story should be familiar by now, as it’s standard issue haunted house stuff. Impressively bearded contractor George Lutz (Ryan Reynolds,), his wife Kathy (Melissa George), and her three kids from a previous marriage—the youngest, Chelsea, is played by Kick Ass’ Chloë Moretz—move into a grand old, conspicuously cheap Dutch Colonial house on Long Island. So what if there are stains on the ceiling that look like coagulated blood? Who cares if the realtor refused to go down in the basement while showing the place? And, well, yeah, a deranged psychopath did shotgun his entire family to death here a year ago, but come on! What a great deal! I understand the allure of the American Dream—having a big waterfront house with a big yard for your big family to play in—but with the first mention of a little kid found dead in the upstairs closet, I’m pretty sure I’d have the realtor take me to the next property on her list. Not so for George and Kathy, who see the house as their golden ticket to the dream life they’ve always wanted. Of course, they’re in for a rude awakening, as I don’t think their dream involved bleeding electrical sockets, visions of a dead girl, demonic possession, a bathtub ghost, and refrigerator magnets rearranging themselves to spell “KATCH EM, KILL EM.”

Although first time director Andrew Douglas uses every scare tactic in the horror handbook—creepy pop-up-out-of-nowhere demon faces! loud noises! voices from the furnace!—none of his visual or aural trickery can disguise the fact that The Amityville Horror has all the tension of an overcooked strand of spaghetti. The film is an assault to the senses, with quick-flash jump cuts, gruesome imagery, and ear-assaulting soundtrack stabs, but the best ghost stories are about what we don’t see, about the horrors of the imagination and the terror that can rush in to fill the void when a house falls deadly silent. There are several jump-out-of-your-seat moments, but none of them stick with you; Douglas just can’t drum up a sense of lingering malice. To overcompensate, he resorts to low blows—gratuitous violence to children and animals and over-the-top stunts like having young Chelsea, at the suggestion of her “invisible friend,” tiptoe along the apex of the three-story house’s dangerously slanted roof. Remember Rod Steiger, as the town priest, overacting in the original? Here, he’s replaced by the much more nuanced—but underused—Philip Baker Hall, and the overacting is done by a CGI swarm of seriously angry flies. Likewise, the ambiguities of the 1979 version have been obliterated with a let me spell it out for you origin story involving a 17th century preacher who tortured Native Americans in the basement. I suppose this sub-plot is the result of the “new evidence” that MGM purported to use as the basis for this remake.

When the film isn’t ripping off The Ring—and seriously, the overplayed black-haired dead girl stuff has got to stop—it’s not so subtly stealing from The Shining. Under the evil influence of whatever malignant presence haunts the house, George grows increasingly more sleepless and psychotic. He wakes up every night at 3:15—the exact time the murders took place—and takes to hanging out in the basement, where he shivers with an afghan draped around his shoulders and watches Super-8 home movies that convince him that his step-kids are demons. By the time he starts chopping wood with an enormous ax—his eyes bloodshot, his face sweating—we’re just waiting for him to hack through a door, whilst smiling manically, to give us a good “Here’s Johnny!” Jack Nicholson impersonation. The sad thing is, Ryan Reynolds is quite good in this role, as is Melissa George as his extremely long-suffering wife—the kids are a bit too precocious—but the sloppy, often illogical script doesn’t give them much to work with. And it doesn’t give much to us either. The Amityville Horror is yet another glossy remake—see the newest iterations of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street—that’s bland, unimaginative, and instantly forgettable.

The Amityville Horror Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

If there's one benefit to this slick remake it's that it looks terrific on Blu-ray, with a crisp 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer, framed fairly closely to the film's original 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Horror films have an understandable reputation for being bleak, dingy affairs, but this one is almost vibrant in comparison, with dense autumnal colors in early outdoor scenes, balanced skin tones, and a vivid bluish cast as the film moves toward its rainy climax. Black levels are deep, contrast is strong—without going into the realm of the overly stylized—and darker scenes often have surprisingly revealing shadow delineation. The image is satisfyingly resolved as well, with readily visible fine detail in facial features and clothing texture, like the weft of the shawl that George wraps around himself while watching Super-8 films down in the basement. A thin layer of grain gives some warmth to the image, and there are no signs of DNR, overzealous edge enhancement, or other unnecessary tinkering. Aside from occasional softness and some mild color fluctuations during certain scenes—like the rooftop sequence—I can't really dredge up any complaints. All in all, the picture is sharp, clean, and cinematic.

The Amityville Horror Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

I could say the same for the film's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track, which lives up to the horror movie expectations for creepy-crawly, heebie-jeebie sound design. The fact is, the few scares that The Amityville Horror generates are the direct result of its emphasis on loud, jarring sounds—accompanying imagery that would only be mildly disturbing on its own—and while this in a cheap narrative cop-out, it does provide some great immersive moments for your home theater system. The rear channels are used to strong effect here, both in quiet scenes, where the soundfield is filled with ambience—rustling wind, leaves skittering across the yard, hard rain, disembodied voices floating out of air vents—and in the more outright horrific, jump-out-of-your-pants sequences, where impressionistic swooshes and demonic sounds circle from one speaker to the next. Likewise, the music by Steve Jablonsky has plenty of dramatic oomph, and taken as a whole, the track is well balanced, with grounded low-end and clean highs. Dialogue, throughout, is clear and easy to understand. Optional subtitles are available in easy-to-read white lettering.

The Amityville Horror Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Here's another case where the sole bonus feature on the Blu-ray disc is a high definition theatrical trailer, while the included DVD has deleted scenes, two featurettes, multi-angle camera options, a photo gallery, and a commentary with Ryan Reynolds and the film's producers.

The Amityville Horror Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Oh the horror. Michael Bay doesn't do subtlety—if he could've worked an explosion into The Amityville Horror, he probably would've— and his slick, bigger-faster-more mentality as a producer creeps into director Andrew Douglas' ill-fated remake. The film isn't dreadful—it's competently made and offers a few decent scares—but there's simply no basis to recommend The Amityville Horror over the legion of vastly better horror titles available on Blu-ray. If you saw the film theatrically and liked it, have at it here—the movie looks and sounds great—but for newcomers, a try-before-you-buy rental is the best course of action.