The Amityville Remake

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Remo D
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The Amityville Remake

Post by Remo D »

Oh, boy... a remake of a lousy movie based on a hoax... and starring the guy who helped make BLADE:TRINITY the worst pile of 2004! Can't wait! Can't wait!

Whoops... did I speak too soon?

Okay--you heard it here first. The new AMITYVILLE HORROR is one of those few remakes that is easily better than the original.

Now, of course, you just read that I thought the original was lousy. It worked for me ONE time when it first popped up on HBO. Then when I tried to watch it again, it bored me to tears. Then the story was exposed as a hoax (not that I was a "true believer" to begin with). But still... AMITYVILLE this and AMITYVILLE that kept dropping into my collection (got four of them for free from a store that was going out of business, so what the hell?).

Watched the original again last night. It's still excruciatingly boring and impossibly overlong. Then I watched AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION (and yes, I'm gonna get to the rest of them later). What's up with THAT one? The idea that it's a prequel depicting the original murders doesn't hold water--this sure as hell wasn't set in 1974! 80's cars, a possessed Sony Walkman... nope--they made this one up, too, and just based it ever so slightly on the original murders (there was even one less family member to deal with in the movie!). It's also overlong--but it does have some effectively nasty business that I'll credit it with nonetheless.

Well... too late to marathon everything from 3-D to DOLLHOUSE, so it's off to the remake. And this is certainly chunkier than anything that the pathetic original had to offer--but that's not the point I'm getting to.

My point is that if this new AMITYVILLE HORROR is a send-up (and I think it IS), then it's a pretty clever one. In any event, it's better than SCARY MOVIE 2 and 3 put together.

If the stoner babysitter doesn't convince you, then how 'bout a scene in which the twelve-year-old is trusted to watch his younger siblings? "May I go upstairs and get my dolly?" asks the little sister. "Sure," big brother replies, "but don't tell Mom and Dad--they'd kill me if I let you out of my sight for a second." So when Mom and Dad get home? There's little Chelsea doing a balancing beam act on the roof!! You KNOW that nothing's actually going to HAPPEN to her, so this becomes a slapstick scene--and the only thing that's missing is the circus music! And right afterwards? James Brolin only chopped wood and glared at his family, but Ryan Reynolds? "Now, put your hands on the log... and hold still!"

Then they throw some genuinely unpleasant stuff in to keep you from laughing too hard... but don't worry--the spoof kicks in again before too long. "If he says 'Here's Johnny!,' I'm out of here," I heard myself saying.

This can't be an accident. The real-life George and Kathy Lutz are so wrapped up in their bullshit "true story" that they couldn't possibly care less how many details get changed between adaptations... and George apparently doesn't mind seeing himself depicted as a raving fruitcake loon after twenty years.

Those of us who know what's what are invited to join in this very deliberate parody--and the bullet is aimed squarely at the forehead of anyone who's still buying into this "Amityville" dookey after all this time.

Over in out in less than ninety minutes, too! This remake corrects each and every thing that was wrong with the original... which can be summed up in how bloody seriously it took itself.

Go have fun.
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Post by King TXL AKA The Juice »

the movie sucked ass. the original made me laugh. ok this movie had a few freaky moments, like when the kid is trying to turn on the sink. but that was basically it, the fucker killed the dog too BASTARD.

only time i could say i got "scared" was when i was paying attention to the movie and my friend would tap me. asshole always does that.
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Post by shawn »

Remo, the Amityville Horror story was NEVER proven to be a hoax. And most of the details and facts in the case point to quite the opposite of a hoax, like leaving ALL of their personal belonging behind and just giving the house back the bank. Here is George's site for more info: http://www.amityvillehorror.com/
George and Kathy (before her death) did say that there were some writing embellishments in the book as well as in the original movie and the media jumped on that bit of info and claimed it was all a hoax. Some things were "beefed" up but they claim that their experiences in the house were all true, they have always stuck to their story. No one will ever know for sure but I do know they both seem genuine having seen several interviews. Also the interview with the priest that tried to bless the house really hit home. The priest had absolutely nothing to gain by lying. He claims the room got freezing, he was slapped by something that wasn't there, and a voice told him to get out. Pretty interesting stuff...
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Post by King TXL AKA The Juice »

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Post by Latte Thunder »

King TXL AKA The Juice wrote:hoax

http://www.amityvillemurders.net/
An advertisement site for Ric Osuna's true-crime book? Hardly a damning piece of evidence.

On the other hand, there's plenty of evidence out there on the internet that does point out al the inconsistencies in the Lutz's story about their haunted house.

http://www.prairieghosts.com/amityville.html
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Post by shawn »

King TXL AKA The Juice wrote:hoax

http://www.amityvillemurders.net/

Sorry bro been researching this for many years. Look into it a little more, Ric Osuna is a fucking liar. And out of all the shit in the Amityville case the one thing that has been proven is that Ric Osuna is terminally full of shit. Read up and looking into it a little. -shawn
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Post by shawn »

Latte Thunder wrote:An advertisement site for Ric Osuna's true-crime book? Hardly a damning piece of evidence.

On the other hand, there's plenty of evidence out there on the internet that does point out al the inconsistencies in the Lutz's story about their haunted house.

http://www.prairieghosts.com/amityville.html

That page is garbage, half of the info on there is mis-leading or false. Yes there are some inconsistencies in the case for sure. But not enough to call it a hoax. -shawn
PS: as for the "money" angle; The house now is worth more money than the Lutz's have made off the story since the day they fled...
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Post by King TXL AKA The Juice »

the site you posted is slow and takes forever to load. prolly because all the movie hype
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Post by AllocesThroat »

Inaccurate....but kinda close...It was alright. I thought the violence was cool.
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Post by Latte Thunder »

shawn wrote:Sorry bro been researching this for many years.
I have to get your opinion of the Warrens, Shawn. I'm a bit of a paranormal fan and those two idiots pop up in a few of the less plausible cases I've read about. Particularly, the Smurl haunting. Ed and Lorraine Warren seem to fuel a lot of the demon hype in their own investigations and seem more like Satan-paranoid Christians than paranormal investigators.
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Post by Remo D »

Okay--the debate rages on. But I still believe the movie itself to be a deliberate send-up. This is the sort of film in which refrigerator magnets rearrange themselves to spell "KATCH 'EM & KILL 'EM." The wife notices--and she actually says "Honey, did you do this thing with the refrigerator magnets?" But of course, they rearrange themselves again when she's not looking.

That's not a horror movie scene--that's an AIRPLANE! scene.
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Post by bRRt »

looks to me like just another chunk of hollywood crap. The Texas Chainsaw re-make was such a pile of shit that I probably won't give this re-make a single glance. just my two cents.
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Post by Griff [Mola] »

Never seen the original or heard the 'legend' but I saw this remake and I was less than impressed.

Remo's right though - it seemed like a parody to me while I was watching it. All character moments and exposition is rushed through to get to the ghostly setpieces (of which there must've been about oh, I dunno, a conservative 60?) which feature an attempted 'boo'-scare every 3.5 seconds on average. And the J-horror black haired ghost thing? Say goodbye to that beloved icon thanks to the misappropriation and subsequent overkill by this flick. Its now officially a joke. The girl who played the ghost should've got top billing since she's probably got the most screentime in the entire film. She's everywhere, like the filmmakers figured "Hey, more = MORE!". But don't worry, there's still the immoderate music score to tell you when you're supposed to be scared.

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Post by stypees back »

The house isn't that far from where I live and the people that now own it have since made renovations, you can barely recoginze it. I haven't seen the remake (and plan too) but the trailer pisses me off because the least they could have done was found a house that resembles the real one (before rennovations), it's too freaking big. The real house itself faces the other side of the rest of the block where as the first film, it doesn't.

As for the "reality" and "hoax", I too have been following the story for years. The author did confess to sprinkiling it up a bit and he sold enough books to do so. I'm not sure if part II was supposed to take place in the 70's but it did do a fairly decent job on the murders.

If there's anything creepy about Amityville, it's the town. Those people are right out a "Twilight Zone" episode.

For a real scare, if anyone lives in the area, try to take a drive and find the house in Massapequa. It resides in the middle of three blocks that curve into 6's. At the end (or middle?)of the six, located along your typical suburban neighborhood sits this mansion type residence. Each window holds a lit candle. If you peek into one of the top floors you can see the walls are painted in red. A painting of a man with a top hat stands on one of the walls. That's one scary freaking place to visit.

I heard that there is some sort of dispute going on with the Lutz' in the amount of 18 million dollars about the new film, the local media has also been doing some coverage in the Amityville area, interviewing locals. All in all it's a nice looking community, looks like something out of Stephan King's "The Dead Zone".
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Post by King TXL AKA The Juice »

if you live in New Jersey here is a good site filled with haunted placeds

http://www.weirdnj.com/
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Post by Kimberly »

Remo D wrote:Then they throw some genuinely unpleasant stuff in to keep you from laughing too hard... but don't worry--the spoof kicks in again before too long. "If he says 'Here's Johnny!,' I'm out of here," I heard myself saying.
Totally felt like The Shining...

They also should of called the movie "How Many Times Can We Show Ryan Renyolds W/Out His Shirt"

Was better then the original... and it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be... was amusing...
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Post by Latte Thunder »

My wife loves this mainstream horror stuff, so I always wind up catching movies like this when I wouldn't normally bother wasting my time. However, I wasn't entirely let down by it. A friend of mine had told me that the effects were by Savini, so that got me a little excited, but some research after the fact told me that he was dead wrong. Tom seems way too wrapped up with acting in half a dozen z-grade features right now to bother with quality FX work.

Amityville '05, I thought, was par for the course when it comes to contemporary mainstream horror. It had all the cheap jumps meant to scare the shit out of the kids at the mall but it was as light on substance as its peers. In the end, there was no real reason to see this movie. The big revelation about the house's origins came way out of left field and the haunting scenes had nothing to do with the DiFeo murder. They completely lacked any sort of context.

But this all comes as no surprise.

There was one scare that I thought was really cool, and maybe it was just because I was a little high, but the dog barking in the boat house after George had axed it kind of gave me chills. Well done.

After I'd watched it and thought about it some, it occurred to me that Amityville 05 is one of the most surreal experiments in film making. This version of the story bears very little in common with the alleged events surrounding the Lutz haunting. This supposedly true story, for the sake of Hollywood and entertainment, was turned into total fiction and then sold back to the public "Based on a True Story". Hoax or no hoax, you have to admit, that's really strange.
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Post by steven_millan »

For a current remake,I was actually surprised that this was a really good movie,for it may have not topped the far more classier and more factual original(both the disappearing money incicdent and Jodie in ghostly pig form chasing Ryan Reynolds around the house would have been a real riot!!!),but it worked as an effective piece of current horror entertainment(even if Ryan Reynold as the new George Lutz got too Jack Nicholson "Shining"-eqsue a bit too quicklky),for the horror sequences did work well,and both the Carmen Electra looking babysitter and really cool looking vintage Kiss posters did help balance out this movie,entertainment-value wise.
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Post by RottedZombie »

I'm a big fan of the original so I had to check this film out and needless to say I liked it alot. It had more of a darker atmosphere than the original wich I really liked. The director of this did a great job and should definatly be checked out.
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Post by darkstar »

Kimberly wrote:Totally felt like The Shining...

They also should of called the movie "How Many Times Can We Show Ryan Renyolds W/Out His Shirt"

Was better then the original... and it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be... was amusing...

I also got "The Shining" vibe coming from it.And I got tired of seeing Ryan Reynolds abs every five seconds too.

This wasnt the total piece of shit I expected it to be, and I was was very surprised how much I actually enjoyed it. Then again what do I know I was stoned when I watched it.
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