Watching The Amityville Horror is about as enjoyable as attending a Halloween party hosted by people you can barely tolerate.
The Amityville Horror (2005)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:155
Fresh:37
Rotten:118
Average Rating:4.2/10
Consensus: A so-so remake of a so-so original.
Rated: 15 [See Full Rating] for violence and terror, sexuality, language and brief drug use.
Runtime: 89 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Theatrical Release:15-04-2005
Synopsis: This frightening remake of the 1979 horror classic from producer Michael Bay (THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE) delves deeper into the supposedly true story of supernatural events that occurred in a... This frightening remake of the 1979 horror classic from producer Michael Bay (THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE) delves deeper into the supposedly true story of supernatural events that occurred in a Long Island, New York home in the '70s. When George and Kathy Lutz (Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George) come across a beautiful river-front colonial home being sold for a steal, they suspect a catch. Once informed that the home was the site of a grisly mass murder, they decide to buy the house anyway and eagerly move in, bringing with them Kathy's three children from a previous marriage. While no one can deny that the house is rife with spooky sounds, the family members try to put their fears at bay. But over time, strange occurrences start happening, becoming more and more frequent, and these events start to have a transformative effect on several family members. Kathy's daughter starts to act bizarrely, ending up in a variety of life-threatening situations, led by her new, not-so-imaginary friend Jody (one of the children slaughtered in the house years before by her older brother). Likewise, something strange seems to be happening to George. His usually sweet demeanor is replaced with a hostile one, and he starts cruelly taking out his aggression on Kathy's children. Kathy's original assumption that a house cannot be evil is challenged as she watches her husband transform into the sort of man that just might be capable of murdering his family. Faster-paced than the original, THE AMITYVILLE HORROR keeps viewers on the edge of their seats with quick editing, suspenseful music, and moderately graphic violence. The two leads give quality performances, and seem to inhabit the decade in which the story is set despite the film's slick, contemporary production. [More]
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Melissa George, Jimmy Bennett, Jesse James
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Melissa George, Jimmy Bennett, Jesse James, Chloe Grace Moretz, Philip Baker Hall
Director: Michael Bay
Director: Michael Bay
Screenwriter: Sandor Stern, Scott Kosar
Producer: Andrew Form, Michael Bay, Brad Fuller
Studio: MGM/UA
Reviews for The Amityville Horror
A gory lark, a cheap-thrill-packed love poem to the history of the contemporary horror film.
If they scare up enough business to perpetuate this sort of retread, that will be the real horror.
Despite Andrew Douglas' tightly focused direction, this is a cheap, calculated scare.
Why bother ratcheting up suspense with unseen forces and horrors of the psyche when you can just show actors in makeup instructed to look spooooooky?
The movie is a procession of unregenerate B-level goosing. But there's definitely a smirk beneath the muck.
It's also the first utterly, jaw-clenchingly scary movie of the year.
You might think The Amityville Horror is just a copy of the 1979 original, but there's much more to it than that. It's also a knockoff of at least four other movies and one music video.
There's nothing this Amityville won't beg, borrow, steal from or fabricate in trying to make your neck hairs sit up and quiver.
OK, I admit it: movies about demonic houses scare me a little. I mean, we've all, at one time or another, stared long and hard at the attic and/or basement door, haven't we?
...if nothing else, The Amityville Horror deserves kudos for eschewing teenagers and self-referential bits of comedy in favor of ambiance and flat-out horror...
Shorter and sillier than the original, but easily more entertaining, this version feels like less like a documentary of supernatural events than a piece of nasty pulp horror.
When filmmakers leave nothing to the imagination, you're left with the product of their imaginations.
Things don't go bump in the night in this movie; they wake you up, introduce themselves and pull up a chair for a cup of coffee.
Why take an old. ugly lump of cheese and make it into a bigger, uglier, and smellier lump of cheese?
Better than the original and scarier than The Grudge or The Ring 2.
You’d think that in 86 minutes of screen time that the makers of THE AMITYVILLE HORROR’s 2005 incarnation could come up with at least one genuinely scary moment
Go see it -- the perfect antidote to the overly-intellectual horror films we've suffered lately: a scream-a-minute, lighthearted thriller.
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