AMITYVILLE HORROR Remake

Talk about the latest movies and video releases here!
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
AndyDursin
Posts: 34185
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:45 pm
Location: RI

AMITYVILLE HORROR Remake

#1 Post by AndyDursin »

Just ran through MGM's new AMITYVILLE HORROR box set and saw the free ticket for the April 15th remake. The "sneak preview" of the remake actually looked promising...though admittedly it wouldn't take much to top the original film, which was OK but kind of silly.

The best element of the DVD is the new commentary by paranormal author/expert Hans Holzer, who blasts the old movie for being so ridiculous and made-up. Dr. Hans sounds like a crazy man at times but it makes for a fun listen accompanying the film.

User avatar
AndyDursin
Posts: 34185
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:45 pm
Location: RI

#2 Post by AndyDursin »

Saw the movie last night. It's competent, but nothing more.

Well directed and acted, but routine and dull, with far too many derivative aspects (THE RING's influence can easily be felt as the "invisible friend" of the young Lutz daughter is visible throughout as a semi-vengeful little dead girl), I wanted to like the new AMITYVILLE HORROR. Ryan Reynolds is good, though the movie is so short (89 mins) that there's not much time to develop his character's descent into madness. There's a nice sequence set on top of the house, but basically the movie plays it safe and is happier ripping off other films (What Lies Beneath's tub scene, The Ring, The Exorcist, The Shining, Poltergeist, etc etc) than doing anything interesting on its own.

Two things stuck out at me while watching it (I'd consider these minor spoilers but read at your peril)"

1. Great to see Political Correctness now making its way into the horror genre. Supposedly the old, real Amityville house was actually built on an Indian Burial Ground. Thus, can we have the o'l Indian Chief as the bad guy? Well of course not! It has to be a repellent CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY who tortured the Native Americans, no less, who's really to blame. But of course!! :roll:

2. Melissa George was 27-28 years old while making this film. We're supposed to believe she's a mother of three, including a 15 year old son. What gives? This is the second movie I've seen lately where the female lead is far too young to be believable -- perhaps Hollywood is now advocating really, really early teen pregnancies?

Maybe worth a rental, but this is the kind of movie that makes me feel "I'm too old for this s--t!", as Danny Glover once said a few times in the LETHAL WEAPON series :wink:

romanD
Posts: 806
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 4:18 am

#3 Post by romanD »

havent seen it yet, though it can only be better than the original... well, a movie with 89minutes runtime is at least a nice welcome in my opinion. RINg 2 was 120 minutes long and Im sure it has less story and character development than AH... It`s nice for me that not every movie has to riun 2 hours... gosh 15 years ago a 2 hours movie was considered overlenght!

how was the score? im sure it sucked hell... jablosnky`s score for TCM was one of the worst scores ever and his STEAMBOY is totally overrated in my opinion... how he got that anime job is beyond me...

User avatar
AndyDursin
Posts: 34185
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:45 pm
Location: RI

#4 Post by AndyDursin »

Roman, believe me -- the Lutz father goes from nice guy to possessed mad man in the span of, oh, 10 seconds after moving in. There's no development of anything. They even added a drug-smoking sexpot babysitter in what had the entire audience laughing outloud.

What's weird, some of the TV spots actually had Schifrin's score quoted at the end of them! Alas, there's none of that in the film. I thought Jablonsky's score was just kind of bland. It didn't hurt the movie, but it wasn't memorable, nor was it up to what Zimmer & Friends wrote for THE RING (which I thought was fairly effective).

The worst part of the movie is that I wasn't scared by any of it -- and there are times I'm easily spooked! The movie didn't get under your skin, nor was it really frightening...I'd consider the original (U.S.) RING to be a far, far more effective and creepy instance of modern horror.

It wasn't awful, it just wasn't very good. My full review will be up later today, BTW.

romanD
Posts: 806
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 4:18 am

#5 Post by romanD »

yeah, Verbinskys RING is fantastic... one of the best horror movies of the decade... and compared to the japanese original and its us sequel it is a good example of what a talented director brings to a movie. RING 2 made everything wrong...

by the way the shortmovie RINGS on the new DVD edition of part 1 is great.. cool story, great visuals, pretty scary... they should have taken that stopry for the sequel and moreover let that director make it!

User avatar
AndyDursin
Posts: 34185
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:45 pm
Location: RI

#6 Post by AndyDursin »

yeah, Verbinskys RING is fantastic... one of the best horror movies of the decade... and compared to the japanese original and its us sequel it is a good example of what a talented director brings to a movie. RING 2 made everything wrong...
Roman -- I agree wholeheartedly! :) Didn't see RING TWO...did any mainstream critic give the movie a positive review? It was one of the poorest reviewed movies I'd seen in ages.

romanD
Posts: 806
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 4:18 am

#7 Post by romanD »

deseveredly so!!! I hated the japanese original already and thought bringing in the director of that is not a good idea and now eveybody knows why. How on earth anyone could like the japanese RING and say the US remake is crap is beyond me. With RING 2 that japanese hack just proved now the whole world that he hasnt a clue how to direct a horrormovie, nor does he know what a good horror story is - the script is already crap to begin with. Add to that a d.o.p who apparently only did soap operas before and you get RING 2... how the producers, who were the same from the first one, could let this happen is beyond me. Also the movie is filled with music, whereas part 1 had around 20 minutes only... very obvious that they tried to fix as much as possible with thundering score...

User avatar
AndyDursin
Posts: 34185
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:45 pm
Location: RI

#8 Post by AndyDursin »

deseveredly so!!! I hated the japanese original already and thought bringing in the director of that is not a good idea and now eveybody knows why. How on earth anyone could like the japanese RING and say the US remake is crap is beyond me.
I found RINGU the Japanese version to be dull. The pacing was languid and the way the scares were set up weren't especially impressive.

Nakata's DARK WATER was extremely creepy, however -- I think it's been remade with Badalamenti scoring at last check, starring Jennifer Connelly. The US version will probably be bad but we'll see.

Post Reply