.
I was, heaven help me, going to take a look at the new batch of pseudo-sequels; but I figured I’d better tidy up this mess first. As far as a mess like this can be tidied up…
.
THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (2005)
In which a newly blended family moves into its dream home and—well, I’m pretty sure you know how this one goes.
The most significant feature of this version of the by-now venerable tale is that it allows the 1979 version to belatedly achieve its aspiration of looking like a respectable mainstream production…at least by comparison…
#1 by RogerBW on January 13, 2014 - 9:57 am
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These days I have trouble with this whole business, since it made the careers (such as they were) not only of Jay Anson but of the con-artists Ed and Lorraine Warren (recently celebrated in The Conjuring). But hey, George Lutz hated this film (probably because he didn’t get paid for it) — he can’t have been all bad…
Anson’s original book has the “site where the Shinnecock Indians abandoned the mentally ill and dying” claim. Don’t remember whether that made it to the first film, but it was certainly available from the beginning.
For me, as not much of a horror fan, the eye-windows are the most important element. Messing them up is… impressive.
#2 by lyzard on January 15, 2014 - 9:40 am
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This version has a very violent and abusive George, so you can understand why GL might have objected on a personal level, as well as for more esoteric reasons.
Ah, they did mention something of the kind in the book? I’d forgotten that. I’m fairly sure that detail didn’t make the films; I had an idea it crept in in the later books, but they may have been building on the original.
I guess the problem the designers were facing is that they got the house perfectly right the first time. Of course they had to change *their* house somehow, and therefore could only make it less perfect. What they came up with has none of the impact of the original. One of the reasons I love A3D so much, in spite of (or because of) it being so relentlessly dumb, is that of all of them, it makes the house into a real malevolent presence.
#3 by El Santo on January 15, 2014 - 3:06 pm
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No, the original movie mentions the “ancient Indian dumping ground for the aged, infirm, and insane” thing, too. George’s coworker’s psychic wife puts it forward as her theory to explain the haunting.
#4 by lyzard on January 15, 2014 - 10:08 pm
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Ah, true. I think I always skipped that, mentally, because of the inherent improbability of such things affecting one patch of suburban ground and not the houses on either side. (Though of course at this point the house is fairly isolated – as opposed to the second film, when it’s on an ordinary street – and the third, where it is completely isolated…)
#5 by El Santo on January 16, 2014 - 3:09 pm
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To say nothing of the inherent improbability of pissed-off phantom pre-contact Indians dreaming up a haunting plan clearly premised on capitalist economic structures. I mean, how would somebody who was left to die on a Long Island beach in 1370 even know what a bundle of hundred-dollar bills was?
#6 by ronald on January 15, 2014 - 10:01 am
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I was wondering, how do you decide which reviews get humorous captions for the screencaps and which don’t? I think that’s one of the best parts, but you don’t always include them. Just curious. Thanks. 🙂
#7 by lyzard on January 15, 2014 - 11:21 am
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The film dictates it. Sometimes captions are done affectionately, and sometimes they’re a sign that I got through a film by mouthing off at it. Conversely, a lack of captions is either a mark of respect, or an indication that I found nothing remotely amusing about a film – as in this case.
Except for the abs. Obviously.
#8 by Jen S 1.0 on January 16, 2014 - 12:01 am
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So all your captions would be :/ ?
I’ve caught Original Flavor Amityville on TV a number of times (usually around Halloween) and can’t get over how much filler there is in the film–at least, it seems so, although a lot of that could just be 70s film sensibilities vs. modern day–but there are tons and tons and TONS of long still shots of the house just sitting there being all “Yep, evil. That’s me. It’s a 24-7 job, I tell ya.”
But after reading your descriptions of the long, damp, dispiriting trail of sequels and prequels and remakes and reimaginings and blahblahblah, I appreciate that pacing a lot more. You really should feel like this is a) the longest month of this family’s life and b) that the evil takes its time, warms up, enjoys itself. After all, it’s not like it gets new tenants to scare into psychotic breaks every day of the week, right? It only makes sense that it would savor the opportunity when it arrived.
#9 by lyzard on January 16, 2014 - 12:44 am
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Oh, the first film is miles too long, but it does a much better job of the slow build-up (though it doesn’t turn out to be building to anything in particular).
The original also goes for “creepy” rather than “gross”, at least most of the time, and therefore holds my interest in a way that this re-make can’t hope to, though it’s about half an hour shorter.
I can happily look at that house as much as they want me to. 🙂
#10 by RogerBW on January 16, 2014 - 1:12 pm
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Certainly when I watch films from the 1960s and 1970s I’m surprised at how much “slow stuff” there is between the payoff scenes, but that’s because my film-watching habits were formed in the 1980s and 1990s. The slow stuff done right builds up narrative capital, so that we care when someone’s placed in danger rather than just thinking “oh, OK, designated victim”.
#11 by ronald on January 17, 2014 - 3:01 pm
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Off-topic (so feel free to disregard):
While re-perusing your review of “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer” (the title sort of works if you read it as shorthand for “I Still Know What You Did That Last Summer in Southport”), I suddenly realized the secret of slasher films: The characters are SUPPOSED TO be idiots. Most (many? the majority of?) “mainstream” film protagonists tend to be at least *reasonably* intelligent, but the protagonists of slasher films serve as shining examples to idiots everywhere (and I think most will concur that idiots are, in fact, everywhere): Yes, though you may be totally lacking in brains, talent, and even personality*, YOU TOO can be a hero, YOU TOO can triumph over the forces of evil. Your teachers always told you that anybody can succeed with enough perseverance and God put you on earth to PROVE it. No matter how many stupid things you’ve done in your life*, no matter what mind-numbingly imbecilic decisions you’ve made in even the past ten minutes, you poor sap, if you can just manage to STAY ALIVE long enough, fortune will smile upon you at last.
(Oh, and do your best to avoid drugs and irresponsible sex, since that will probably HELP to you survive {because the idiots of the world need to be TOLD this}.)
Really, it’s brilliant in its subversiveness and subversive in its brilliance.
Or not. 🙂
But seriously, while I’ve admittedly watched very few slasher films (in general, I find it more fun to read about movies than to actually watch them), I knew they tended to follow a pattern, but not until diverting myself (doesn’t take much) by examining several slasher film plots in succession did I realize exactly how identical so many of them are (not all, but many). It’s like the filmmakers just filled out a page of Mad Libs OSLT. In some cases (not all, but some), it’s as they used up most of their creativity just by figuring out how to trap the protagonists inside a building.
It seems to me like it would be pretty easy to revolutionize the slasher film industry.
If I knew any filmmakers.
But I don’t. So it goes.
===
*After all, just look at Congress. LOOK at it, I tell you, take a big steamy GAWK.
#12 by DamonD on February 6, 2014 - 5:51 am
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You covered it, but Reynold’s physique just added a comical quality to things.
It was like…on one level, hey, full congratulations, sir. You’re in phenomenal shape. You should be proud of that. For an everyman role like this? I can only assume that axe was very, very heavy indeed and he got through three thousand logs a day.