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trinityvixenAs it turned out, the movie channel at home was showing the original The Amityville Horror, so I postponed this review until I'd seen both. I didn't realize Lois Lane from Superman: The Movie was the wife in the original (I couldn't place Margot Kidder as a name in forever), which makes for a nice parallel with the new version where all I knew about the wife was she always has "(Alias)" after her name since that's what she's best known by (point of fact, I still don't know what her name is).
The Amityville Horror from the 70s suffers for its authenticity as much for its ludicrous posturing. The direction is crap, the acting sub par, and the clothing...well, let's just say that the new Amityville does the 70s a favor by not going for the actual clothing. No matter how dated the costumes are in 2005, they cannot compare in cheesiness to the actual; there's a scene where the Lutzes go to a wedding, and the less said about the bow ties and tuxes, the better. That, and nothing else from the original, will haunt me forever.
Where Amityville falls behind Amityville 2005 is in sustaining and elevating the tension adequately to keep the audience in suspense without relying entirely on spooks and surprise freak-outs. Amityville starts with the Lutzes already aware that the house they're moving into is the sight of a murder. It makes their final selection of it a bit less understandable in the end; they knew where and what they were getting into. Amityville 2005 allows the couple to investigate the house, debate it on its merits as home and a legitimate purchase/investment, and then, after deciding to buy it, finding out about its grisly history. This shows a better appreciation for the facts of human nature. Once the gruesome is introduced, the object involved is forever afterward irrevocably tainted (case in point: Ground Zero. Chances of another attack are next to zero, but tell that to the businesses that have hightailed it out of the city since 9/11). However, if you learn that your home is, say, on top of an ancient Indian burial ground etc etc only after you've gotten really excited and planned out all the possibilities for your future, it's harder to give up.
Back in the 70s' Amityville, the Lutzes' problems are undercut by a subplot involving a priest who becomes aware of High Hopes' demonic nature and tries, unsuccessfully (of course), to get higher ups in the church to intervene and perform some kind of mass exorcism. The continued intervention of this separate story complicates the Lutzes' story by making it impersonal. This is about Satan and demonic possession, and the family's just at the center, but everyone's affected. It's impersonal and the film comes off as such. There is, to be fair, an acknowledgment of the fact that George Lutz's distraction is causing his business to suffer. Amityville 2005 makes no such self-aware references, leaving a knowing audience to figure out on its own that George's constant wood-chopping and non-working must have some financial consequences. While the conflict and pressures of financial burden adds to the original Amityville's realism, it detracts from and diminishes the tension.
There's also a violation of the first law of horror: too many characters. The priest, the business partner (and his wife, who has a hand in figuring out the mystery), the cops, the neighbors, the family friend, the wife's brother, and on and on and on. Amityville 2005 is a lot better focused and concentrated; aside from the paramedics who come to get one casualty of the house, there are only three non-Lutz characters in the main film: the real estate agent, a babysitter, and the priest consulted by the wife. This brevity of characters allows for focus on the disintegration of the Lutzes which, ghosts and possession aside, is fascinating in its own right.
Before going on, it should be said that both Amityville movies deserve kudos for creating an often misused set up for conflict: a family by marriage. It's a strong point to the normal haunted-house-making-us-crazy reworking; because George Lutz is new at the whole family thing, having married a single mother of three whose husband has only just died (tragically, we are to assume), his misfired attempts to be a disciplinarian and best-friend instead of 'Dad' can be faulted for his behavior long before anyone puts the blame on the supernatural. Unforunately, the original, having already given credence to the supernatural at the outset, fails to exploit the awkwardness of this written-in excuse to its fullest extent. Amityville 2005 with a younger, more immature-seeming George better manipulates the intrafamily problems to delay suspicion. George's short-temper and wild mood swings are almost forgiveable because he is being set up to fail and keeps catching secrets he shouldn't hear that undermine his confidence in being a step-father. While he tries his best, attempts accomodation and gracious stepping-out-of-the-way, his wife is telling her kids they don't ever have to consider him their father and that their father is irreplaceable in her heart as much as in theirs. George, understandably, is a tad upset and put-out by this. This strain on a new marriage, that was birthed with enough complications as was, would be a terrific story on its own, without any ghosts at all.
Indeed, sympathy and empathy for the set-up villains in Amityville 2005 are why it succeeds in out-doing the original as much as better acting and special effects contribute to the consistent creep and interest factor. Whereas Amityville starts with the real estate agent showing the house and jump cuts back to the murders, Amityville 2005 tells the murder story first in strobe-like quick shots but invests enough time in the killer to garner some sympathy for him--you almost pity the poor guy when, upon reaching the last member of his family, he says, "I love you," then blows her away. This is extremely necessary for continuity and bringing the story completely full circle when the Lutz family moves in. It helps to remember that, no matter what the house has done to the family, outside of it, and somewhere deep within the characters themselves, there are still good people shocked at their own behavior. In particular, George Lutz's sustained efforts to save his wife's daughter, who is or else seems to be in near-constant jeopardy, reveal the decent person beneath the evolving monster; he may snarl and snipe at the girl or her brothers afterwards, the adrenaline and panic forgotten, but the point that Amityville 2005 drives home is that he tried to save her first.
Amityville 2005's weakness, as I saw it, was in the quick discovery of the source of the problem late in the third act. However, the original does not improve for putting the explanation in the hands of a stranger. Indeed, rather than split the explanation up, throwing it all together at the end was mercifully quick and not as agonizingly drawn out as the original. Apparently, the original couldn't find enough things creepy about a broken, mixed up and confused family moving into a home where a son killed his entire supposedly loving and beloved family. So, what did it do? It played with the Satan vs priest angle a la Exorcist, made repeated, pointed references to the fact that George Lutz mysteriously looked like the killer DeFeo boy (despite, one would think, being at least ten years older, since the kid was maybe 21 on the outside and George is married to a woman with three kids, the oldes of whom is 12), and threw in a thousand poorly acted dream sequences. I'll take short spurts of blood and the sudden appearance of a black-frocked insane minister of Amityville 2005 in the last act than the repeated double-takes and vacant stares of the thousand extras in the original.
I suppose it's time to mention, with that last bit, the acting in both films. While some might believe I'm unfairly biased in some way (inconceivable!) to favor Ryan Reynolds over James Brolin, let me take the time to debunk that misconception. I not unfairly biased; my preference is extremely fairly biased. Even allowing for the excesses of 70s-style acting, James Brolin was extremely...removed. His interaction with anyone other than Margot Kidder was forced or overplayed; with the kids, he's absent and absent-minded guardian and with his friend, he's abrasive and abusive. The most you get of the house getting to him is the red-rimmed eyes and wild hair. Again, though consistent with the period, this last is the most ridiculous. Maybe Ryan's haircut is a little too modern for the 1970s, but it's better than the white-fro thing Brolin's got going on. Ryan gets the assist from some red-eye contact lenses for his insomnia-induced exhaustion, and his physical weariness and breakdown suffers a little for the reliance on the cosmetics. Brolin's got the puffy red eyelids thing down, but Ryan trumps him everywhere else, even on the physicalities of his performance. And, okay, fine, he has his shirt off a lot and I liked it, okay?
That out of the way, the acting really was an extraordinary improvement over the original and outstanding it its own right. The girl from Alias is appropriately conflicted, enjoying the romance of her new marriage, the sexual highs, the new-love getting-to-know-you, while trying to reconcile her recent loss and the grief and confusion of her children with the new aquisition to the family. The actress brings the right amount of youthful exhuberance and mature responsibility to her role as newlywed and single mother, and the blend is never off until near the end when she struggles too much to save both husband and children (whereas the concerned mother she's been portraying ought not to have had a problem at all making the choice of kids before husband).
Ryan Reynolds is chilling as George Lutz. Outside of High Hopes and Amityville, he has the potential to be the runner-up father who can look forward only to disappointment as his support of another man's children leaves him still outside of their affections. The in-house George that Reynolds portrays is a man at the end of his patience for this treatment; instead of accepting his dismissal, he punishes the children for their disloyalty and ungrateful behavior towards him. Utterly devoid of mercy, Reynolds tortures the oldest, most unloving boy and then regrets it such that you believe him but hold your breath--because in another moment, after that brief resurfacing of his conscience, you know he's going to descend further into pitiable madness. Whereas the entirely family was affected in the original, George, the outsider, bears the brunt of the evil force, being its avatar, and Reynolds does a splendid job of accepting the burden and unleashing the awful, unwanted portions of his soul. The promise Reynolds brings, of a perfect suitor content to play second-fiddle, always smolders with dashed hopes of ever being an acceptable replacement. When he takes it out on the children, it's not so much a perversion of his character as the acknowledgment of his dark side. The imperfect hero and the imperfect villain, neither entirely lovable or entirely hateable, all thanks to a compassionate portrayal. Throwing all the guilt onto one pair of shoulders could easily have solved the problems of the amorphous evil that ruined the first Amityville at the expense of an interesting character, but, fortunately, it doesn't fall that way.
Lastly, the kids. Creepy children in horror are in vogue--the dead girl scared my friend Liz C worse than anything else--and the living girl here is so-so. The strongest was the oldest boy, right on the cusp of adolescence, who must rise to manhood at a time when a new man has entered his mother's life. When George belittles him, his shame and sense of inadequacy burns the audience as much as him for the fact that the man with whom he competes is one he doesn't esteem as equal to his father. There's one scene where he shines (actually there are two, but the latter would be a spoiler, so I'll focus on this one): George forces the boy the hold logs in place while he chops them with an axe. Tears in eyes, the boy actor just screams fear and anger and frustration with his own reaction; he wants so bad to be able to stand up to this bully and his fear is cutting him down, which frustrates him worse than anything else. It was a really genius scene, for both actors and both characters involved.
Ending lacked something, a too-easy solution to the problem that ought to have been implemented earlier or else been made impossible by circumstances, but I suppose both movies were constrained by their adherence to the 'true story.' Never mind that the (surviving) Lutzes are generally believed to have made the whole thing up, the writer felt the need to keep all who survived in real life alive in the movie. It might have been better had it ended the way George fever-dreamed, as a film, but to fault the film for its ending would be a mistake. It's a credit to all that came before that nothing, no ending could have resolved the creepy tension the film had built up. On the other hand, it's open enough for a sequel, which would be a mistake. Like the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the remake of The Amityville Horror should rest on its spooks and be contented for what it is and not 'what could be.'
Outside of my otherwise legitimate review, I think I should add the following amusing anecdotes. Before leaving for home, Carrie mentioned she was going to see Kung Fu Hustle and asked if I wanted to wait to go home until I saw that. I reminded her that I was going to see another movie that night, but this didn't quite take. She asked me again a bit later, as I was packing up stuff in my room. Very calmly, I thanked her, and said, "I have," took her chin in my hand, turned her head to face by Blade: Trinity wallpaper, er poster, and said, "priorities." She giggled and understood at once. It was brilliant.
En route to the theater, Liz C 'treated' me to songs by Constantine, her new favorite on American Idol, which was pretty okay, actually, even if the pictures of him on the cover weren't. It was a good night for a meeting and pseudo-understanding of our respective sex drives. Despite having told her that the loser I liked from Blade: Trinity was in it, Liz C thought Ryan Reynolds was Jason Lee. Either one would have been dreamy, but I had fun making her admit he was pretty cool a couple of times when he was really cruel and awful...or should I say cool and awful. Also, OMG HE HAD HIS SHIRT OFF SO MANY TIMES I NEARLY DIED. Seriously, if I were the girl I'd have been like "What husband?" when this guy came on to me and thrown out the old memories, pictures, hell, even the kids. Forget it, she could make newer, less flabby ones with this guy (much as I loved the older boy, he was a tubby bastard), and even if she didn't/couldn't, she'd still be able to have a lot of mad, mad monkey sex with this guy.
Plus, there was that scene were he was wet and shirtless...wow...
I have, in fact for this occasion, modified his nickname from when I saw Blade; it used to be Ryan "I-want-to-suck-on-any-part-of-his-body-that-he'll-let-me" Reynolds to Ryan "PLEASE-let-me-suck-on-every-inch-of-your-body" Reynolds. Shame that the sex scene focused on the girl instead of him. Then again, seeing dead girls hanging at the foot of your bed can really put a guy off his best performance. Might be a tad difficult for an obvious stud like my main man Ryan to get across that kind of, ahem, problem.
The Amityville Horror from the 70s suffers for its authenticity as much for its ludicrous posturing. The direction is crap, the acting sub par, and the clothing...well, let's just say that the new Amityville does the 70s a favor by not going for the actual clothing. No matter how dated the costumes are in 2005, they cannot compare in cheesiness to the actual; there's a scene where the Lutzes go to a wedding, and the less said about the bow ties and tuxes, the better. That, and nothing else from the original, will haunt me forever.
Where Amityville falls behind Amityville 2005 is in sustaining and elevating the tension adequately to keep the audience in suspense without relying entirely on spooks and surprise freak-outs. Amityville starts with the Lutzes already aware that the house they're moving into is the sight of a murder. It makes their final selection of it a bit less understandable in the end; they knew where and what they were getting into. Amityville 2005 allows the couple to investigate the house, debate it on its merits as home and a legitimate purchase/investment, and then, after deciding to buy it, finding out about its grisly history. This shows a better appreciation for the facts of human nature. Once the gruesome is introduced, the object involved is forever afterward irrevocably tainted (case in point: Ground Zero. Chances of another attack are next to zero, but tell that to the businesses that have hightailed it out of the city since 9/11). However, if you learn that your home is, say, on top of an ancient Indian burial ground etc etc only after you've gotten really excited and planned out all the possibilities for your future, it's harder to give up.
Back in the 70s' Amityville, the Lutzes' problems are undercut by a subplot involving a priest who becomes aware of High Hopes' demonic nature and tries, unsuccessfully (of course), to get higher ups in the church to intervene and perform some kind of mass exorcism. The continued intervention of this separate story complicates the Lutzes' story by making it impersonal. This is about Satan and demonic possession, and the family's just at the center, but everyone's affected. It's impersonal and the film comes off as such. There is, to be fair, an acknowledgment of the fact that George Lutz's distraction is causing his business to suffer. Amityville 2005 makes no such self-aware references, leaving a knowing audience to figure out on its own that George's constant wood-chopping and non-working must have some financial consequences. While the conflict and pressures of financial burden adds to the original Amityville's realism, it detracts from and diminishes the tension.
There's also a violation of the first law of horror: too many characters. The priest, the business partner (and his wife, who has a hand in figuring out the mystery), the cops, the neighbors, the family friend, the wife's brother, and on and on and on. Amityville 2005 is a lot better focused and concentrated; aside from the paramedics who come to get one casualty of the house, there are only three non-Lutz characters in the main film: the real estate agent, a babysitter, and the priest consulted by the wife. This brevity of characters allows for focus on the disintegration of the Lutzes which, ghosts and possession aside, is fascinating in its own right.
Before going on, it should be said that both Amityville movies deserve kudos for creating an often misused set up for conflict: a family by marriage. It's a strong point to the normal haunted-house-making-us-crazy reworking; because George Lutz is new at the whole family thing, having married a single mother of three whose husband has only just died (tragically, we are to assume), his misfired attempts to be a disciplinarian and best-friend instead of 'Dad' can be faulted for his behavior long before anyone puts the blame on the supernatural. Unforunately, the original, having already given credence to the supernatural at the outset, fails to exploit the awkwardness of this written-in excuse to its fullest extent. Amityville 2005 with a younger, more immature-seeming George better manipulates the intrafamily problems to delay suspicion. George's short-temper and wild mood swings are almost forgiveable because he is being set up to fail and keeps catching secrets he shouldn't hear that undermine his confidence in being a step-father. While he tries his best, attempts accomodation and gracious stepping-out-of-the-way, his wife is telling her kids they don't ever have to consider him their father and that their father is irreplaceable in her heart as much as in theirs. George, understandably, is a tad upset and put-out by this. This strain on a new marriage, that was birthed with enough complications as was, would be a terrific story on its own, without any ghosts at all.
Indeed, sympathy and empathy for the set-up villains in Amityville 2005 are why it succeeds in out-doing the original as much as better acting and special effects contribute to the consistent creep and interest factor. Whereas Amityville starts with the real estate agent showing the house and jump cuts back to the murders, Amityville 2005 tells the murder story first in strobe-like quick shots but invests enough time in the killer to garner some sympathy for him--you almost pity the poor guy when, upon reaching the last member of his family, he says, "I love you," then blows her away. This is extremely necessary for continuity and bringing the story completely full circle when the Lutz family moves in. It helps to remember that, no matter what the house has done to the family, outside of it, and somewhere deep within the characters themselves, there are still good people shocked at their own behavior. In particular, George Lutz's sustained efforts to save his wife's daughter, who is or else seems to be in near-constant jeopardy, reveal the decent person beneath the evolving monster; he may snarl and snipe at the girl or her brothers afterwards, the adrenaline and panic forgotten, but the point that Amityville 2005 drives home is that he tried to save her first.
Amityville 2005's weakness, as I saw it, was in the quick discovery of the source of the problem late in the third act. However, the original does not improve for putting the explanation in the hands of a stranger. Indeed, rather than split the explanation up, throwing it all together at the end was mercifully quick and not as agonizingly drawn out as the original. Apparently, the original couldn't find enough things creepy about a broken, mixed up and confused family moving into a home where a son killed his entire supposedly loving and beloved family. So, what did it do? It played with the Satan vs priest angle a la Exorcist, made repeated, pointed references to the fact that George Lutz mysteriously looked like the killer DeFeo boy (despite, one would think, being at least ten years older, since the kid was maybe 21 on the outside and George is married to a woman with three kids, the oldes of whom is 12), and threw in a thousand poorly acted dream sequences. I'll take short spurts of blood and the sudden appearance of a black-frocked insane minister of Amityville 2005 in the last act than the repeated double-takes and vacant stares of the thousand extras in the original.
I suppose it's time to mention, with that last bit, the acting in both films. While some might believe I'm unfairly biased in some way (inconceivable!) to favor Ryan Reynolds over James Brolin, let me take the time to debunk that misconception. I not unfairly biased; my preference is extremely fairly biased. Even allowing for the excesses of 70s-style acting, James Brolin was extremely...removed. His interaction with anyone other than Margot Kidder was forced or overplayed; with the kids, he's absent and absent-minded guardian and with his friend, he's abrasive and abusive. The most you get of the house getting to him is the red-rimmed eyes and wild hair. Again, though consistent with the period, this last is the most ridiculous. Maybe Ryan's haircut is a little too modern for the 1970s, but it's better than the white-fro thing Brolin's got going on. Ryan gets the assist from some red-eye contact lenses for his insomnia-induced exhaustion, and his physical weariness and breakdown suffers a little for the reliance on the cosmetics. Brolin's got the puffy red eyelids thing down, but Ryan trumps him everywhere else, even on the physicalities of his performance. And, okay, fine, he has his shirt off a lot and I liked it, okay?
That out of the way, the acting really was an extraordinary improvement over the original and outstanding it its own right. The girl from Alias is appropriately conflicted, enjoying the romance of her new marriage, the sexual highs, the new-love getting-to-know-you, while trying to reconcile her recent loss and the grief and confusion of her children with the new aquisition to the family. The actress brings the right amount of youthful exhuberance and mature responsibility to her role as newlywed and single mother, and the blend is never off until near the end when she struggles too much to save both husband and children (whereas the concerned mother she's been portraying ought not to have had a problem at all making the choice of kids before husband).
Ryan Reynolds is chilling as George Lutz. Outside of High Hopes and Amityville, he has the potential to be the runner-up father who can look forward only to disappointment as his support of another man's children leaves him still outside of their affections. The in-house George that Reynolds portrays is a man at the end of his patience for this treatment; instead of accepting his dismissal, he punishes the children for their disloyalty and ungrateful behavior towards him. Utterly devoid of mercy, Reynolds tortures the oldest, most unloving boy and then regrets it such that you believe him but hold your breath--because in another moment, after that brief resurfacing of his conscience, you know he's going to descend further into pitiable madness. Whereas the entirely family was affected in the original, George, the outsider, bears the brunt of the evil force, being its avatar, and Reynolds does a splendid job of accepting the burden and unleashing the awful, unwanted portions of his soul. The promise Reynolds brings, of a perfect suitor content to play second-fiddle, always smolders with dashed hopes of ever being an acceptable replacement. When he takes it out on the children, it's not so much a perversion of his character as the acknowledgment of his dark side. The imperfect hero and the imperfect villain, neither entirely lovable or entirely hateable, all thanks to a compassionate portrayal. Throwing all the guilt onto one pair of shoulders could easily have solved the problems of the amorphous evil that ruined the first Amityville at the expense of an interesting character, but, fortunately, it doesn't fall that way.
Lastly, the kids. Creepy children in horror are in vogue--the dead girl scared my friend Liz C worse than anything else--and the living girl here is so-so. The strongest was the oldest boy, right on the cusp of adolescence, who must rise to manhood at a time when a new man has entered his mother's life. When George belittles him, his shame and sense of inadequacy burns the audience as much as him for the fact that the man with whom he competes is one he doesn't esteem as equal to his father. There's one scene where he shines (actually there are two, but the latter would be a spoiler, so I'll focus on this one): George forces the boy the hold logs in place while he chops them with an axe. Tears in eyes, the boy actor just screams fear and anger and frustration with his own reaction; he wants so bad to be able to stand up to this bully and his fear is cutting him down, which frustrates him worse than anything else. It was a really genius scene, for both actors and both characters involved.
Ending lacked something, a too-easy solution to the problem that ought to have been implemented earlier or else been made impossible by circumstances, but I suppose both movies were constrained by their adherence to the 'true story.' Never mind that the (surviving) Lutzes are generally believed to have made the whole thing up, the writer felt the need to keep all who survived in real life alive in the movie. It might have been better had it ended the way George fever-dreamed, as a film, but to fault the film for its ending would be a mistake. It's a credit to all that came before that nothing, no ending could have resolved the creepy tension the film had built up. On the other hand, it's open enough for a sequel, which would be a mistake. Like the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the remake of The Amityville Horror should rest on its spooks and be contented for what it is and not 'what could be.'
Outside of my otherwise legitimate review, I think I should add the following amusing anecdotes. Before leaving for home, Carrie mentioned she was going to see Kung Fu Hustle and asked if I wanted to wait to go home until I saw that. I reminded her that I was going to see another movie that night, but this didn't quite take. She asked me again a bit later, as I was packing up stuff in my room. Very calmly, I thanked her, and said, "I have," took her chin in my hand, turned her head to face by Blade: Trinity wallpaper, er poster, and said, "priorities." She giggled and understood at once. It was brilliant.
En route to the theater, Liz C 'treated' me to songs by Constantine, her new favorite on American Idol, which was pretty okay, actually, even if the pictures of him on the cover weren't. It was a good night for a meeting and pseudo-understanding of our respective sex drives. Despite having told her that the loser I liked from Blade: Trinity was in it, Liz C thought Ryan Reynolds was Jason Lee. Either one would have been dreamy, but I had fun making her admit he was pretty cool a couple of times when he was really cruel and awful...or should I say cool and awful. Also, OMG HE HAD HIS SHIRT OFF SO MANY TIMES I NEARLY DIED. Seriously, if I were the girl I'd have been like "What husband?" when this guy came on to me and thrown out the old memories, pictures, hell, even the kids. Forget it, she could make newer, less flabby ones with this guy (much as I loved the older boy, he was a tubby bastard), and even if she didn't/couldn't, she'd still be able to have a lot of mad, mad monkey sex with this guy.
Plus, there was that scene were he was wet and shirtless...wow...
I have, in fact for this occasion, modified his nickname from when I saw Blade; it used to be Ryan "I-want-to-suck-on-any-part-of-his-body-that-he'll-let-me" Reynolds to Ryan "PLEASE-let-me-suck-on-every-inch-of-your-body" Reynolds. Shame that the sex scene focused on the girl instead of him. Then again, seeing dead girls hanging at the foot of your bed can really put a guy off his best performance. Might be a tad difficult for an obvious stud like my main man Ryan to get across that kind of, ahem, problem.
