The Amityville Horror (2005) – WTF Happened to This Horror Movie?

The episode of WTF Happened to This Horror Movie? covering The Amityville Horror (2005) was Written and Narrated by Adam Walton, Edited by Victoria Verduzco, Produced by Andrew Hatfield and John Fallon, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.

This may be stating the obvious, but we love horror here at JoBlo towers, and it’s great to see that the genre is currently thriving, with not just the obligatory franchise stalwarts that rely upon jump scares doing well but also new and original movies such as Talk to Me and Ti Wests’ X follow-up Pearl. However, there’s also a trend that won’t go away, and will never go away, of course, for better or worse. Yeah, you know what we’re talking about gore-hounds, the remake. At the time of writing this episode the world is just about to bear witness to the return of a supernatural phenomenon from the early seventies with Universal’s The Exorcist: Believer. But if reviews and a lack of pre-release buzz is anything to go by, director David Gordon Green should perhaps step away from horror for a little while. However, what’s intriguing is that despite the movies’ apparent flaws, Hollywood are still looking back on existing IPs to make a buck or two, even if that means resurrecting the pea soup flying antics of William Friedkins’ 1973 classic. Back in 2005, almost twenty years ago, MGM brought back another classic tale of the supernatural with The Amityville Horror (watch it HERE), directed by music video veteran, Andrew Douglas. It was based upon the novel, also titled The Amityville Horror, by Jay Anson, which was also adapted into the 1979 movie, and it became the ninth movie in the lengthy Amityville film series. If you haven’t seen the original, nor the 2005 remake, it would be fair, and accurate, to assume that it focuses on a haunted house and a poor family who become terrorized by its history. Well, we’re taking a cautionary dive into the supernatural in this episode of Revisited so watch out for ghouls in the bathroom mirror, as we find out what the f*ck happened to The Amityville Horror.

The original movie was released to a fairly mixed reception back in 1979, with the voices of dissension critical of the tired cliches in the film, while those who liked the movie, praised the familiar location of the haunted house as being particularly effective. The plot of the movie follows a couple of loved up newlyweds (played by James Brolin and Margot Kidder) and their three children, who move into a house in which a grisly mass murder happened a year previously. Of course, things that can go bump in the night begin to freak the family out as their dream house quickly becomes the stuff of nightmares. The movie was successful enough that a prequel, Amityville II: The Possession was released in 1982, and a sequel, Amityville 3-D swiftly followed in 1983, boasting a tagline that says, WARNING: In this movie you are the victim. Dodgy 3D movies were all the rage back then, with the unintentionally hilarious Jaws 3D bursting out of cinema screens a month later. Such was the success of the growing Amityville franchise at the time, that the grand total of nine movies now exist, including the 2005 remake were looking back on in this episode.

The plot of the 2005 remake sticks pretty closely to the 1979 original with the story focusing on the Lutz family after they’ve moved into a house at 112 Ocean Avenue, Long Island. Back in 1974, real life mass murderer, Ronald DeFeo Jr killed six of his family members in the house, after claiming that he heard voices coming from the house, persuading him to slaughter his family. This time, the couple are played by a pre-Deadpool Ryan Reynolds and Australian soap opera star Melissa George, who also have three kids in tow, just like in the original. One thing that stands out in the remake is how much Reynolds and George tone down the overacting from the 1979 movie, with James Brolin guilty of some awesome histrionics when possessed in some key scenes from the first movie. The original film is regarded as a horror classic but while it does have a few decent scenes, it’s in no way a masterpiece. The plot drags along at a snail’s pace for much of the runtime and the VFX, even for the time of release, are laughably bad. However, because of the premise and the over the top acting, you can still see why the movie has a huge cult appeal and also why it managed to launch such a long lasting franchise. This was clearly in the minds of the production team behind the 2005 remake because, as we all know, it’s easier nowadays to rinse existing IPs dry, rather than spending time coming up with new and original horror classics. Or, are we being harsh on modern Hollywood, let us know YOUR opinion of horror originality, or lack thereof, in tinseltown today.

Alongside the considerable talents of Ryan Reynolds, who lest we not forget has come a long way in his career since, from Deapool to Wrexham of all places, and Aussie Melissa George of course, we also get a pretty decent cast to support them. The most prominent name is probably future Hit Girl herself, Chloe Grace Moretz who makes her feature debut as the lutzs’ daughter, Chelsea. It’s a nice introduction to the movie world for Moretz and one memorable scene sees her character traverse the roof of their haunted house before throwing herself off it. We also get the great Phillip Baker Hall as Father Callaway, who also attempts to chew the scenery like he’s a man possessed, which is ironic given the nature of the scenes he’s in. Jimmy Bennett and Jesse James play the Lutz sons, Michael and Billy while Rachel Nichols plays the Lutz’ ‘underdressed’ babysitter who, after telling the kids about out the murders that happened in the house previously, gets spooked by one of it’s ghostly inhabitants before being taken away in shock, by the paramedics. The rest of the cast are fine and while they aren’t particularly household names, their work here is pretty good.

As mentioned earlier, the movie’s director, Andrew Douglas, was most well known for his work on various music videos and The Amityville Horror was his first major film gig. He does a decent enough job but, like any remake where the studio is looking to cut costs as much as possible, his lack of experience on bigger budget movies shows. Douglas began his career in Antony Armstrong-Jones Snowdon’s photographic studio before going on to work as a photographer for Esquire and The Face. His music video work included directing promos for artists such as Paul Young and Alison Moyet and he also went on to direct two episodes of the excellent Mindhunter in 2017. He was, therefore, a solid, if uninspiring hire for the studio and while the movie looks pretty good, you can’t help but wonder what a horror director with more of an eye for the genre would have conjured up.

You can argue that some films should never be remade, I’m looking at you Wicker Man and I swear if Universal dared touch Back to the Future I’ll seriously lose my shit. Well, I’ll probably just roll my eyes and go back to wondering if Disney will ever make a proper Star Wars movie anytime soon. Anyway, I digress, the point is, The Amityville Horror is one of those movies whose hardcore fans will probably argue that a remake was completely unnecessary, and they’d be right. However, you could also point to films such as the Swedish classic Let the Right One In that didn’t need an American remake, but we got one anyway, and it was pretty decent to be fair. It didn’t bring anything new to the original story though, so did 2005’s The Amityville Horror manage to give us something new and suitably disturbing? Well, if we’re being brutally honest, no. Not really. It takes a lot to scare this gore-hound, and spooky shenanigans and jump scares in a haunted house aren’t gonna get me jumping behind the sofa. When will Hollywood realize that predictable shocks with loud noises are such a tired and boring trope of the genre? I know we’re talking about a movie from almost twenty years here but it’s still an issue with the mainstream horror genre nowadays, albeit a lucrative one for the studios still.

This however, is probably just an aspect of the haunted house trope in horror movies being limited in its effective shock value. Even more recent TV shows such as An American Horror Story struggled to keep the shocks coming, with season one’s narrative being set in a haunted house delivering some decent chills early on, but ultimately losing its grip on what makes the sub-genre scary. Amityville 2005 suffers from a similar problem and its narrative just follows a tired, seen it all before story, where the haunted shenanigans slowly build up to a predictable mess in the third act. Despite a lack of true scares, we do at least get a decent turn from the main cast. Reynolds does his usual joker schtick at the beginning, before the house starts to get a grip on him and he descends into a sociopathic, paranoid monster. He even gets some rather fetching bloodshot contact lenses just so the audience knows he’s gone FULL psycho. Because, you know, we would have never guessed it from all the shouting and axe wielding. So, if you’re the kind of horror fan who’s easily scared by overly loud sound design and being told exactly when you should be terrified then, yeah, 2005’s Amityville remake will be a fun time for you. However, if you’re after cult appeal and a movie that makes the most of its shortcomings by at least being stupidly entertaining, you’re probably better off sticking with the 1979 original.

The Amityville Horror remake opened on 3,323 screens in the US on April 15th, 2005, topping the box-office chart with a decent haul of $23.5 million over its opening weekend. It went on to earn a total gross of just over $65 million domestically and ultimately earned $108 million internationally. Not a bad return on its estimated budget of $19 million.

Critically, the movie fared less than well and it currently holds a 24% score on Rotten Tomatoes, from a total of 163 reviews, if that sort of info holds any relevance for you. Most reviewers at the time bemoaned the lack of scares in the production with The New York Times saying that the movie was, “Low-key creepy rather than outright scary, the new Amityville marks a modest improvement over the original, partly because, from acting to bloody effects, it is better executed, and partly because the filmmakers have downgraded the role of the priest, played in all his vein-popping glory by Rod Steiger in the first film and by a considerably more subdued Philip Baker Hall here.” Rolling Stone were also less than impressed by the film, saying that, “First-time director Andrew Douglas crams in every ghost cliché, from demonic faces to dripping blood. This house springs so many FX shocks it plays like a theme-park ride. Result? It’s not scary, just busy. For the real thing, watch Psycho, The Shining, The Haunting, or The Innocents. What all those films have in common is precisely what the new Amityville Horror lacks: They know it’s what you don’t see in a haunted house that fries your nerves to a frazzle.” Sounds harsh, but they have a point. The Times were more forgivable in their appraisal of the movie as they stated that, “There is something pleasurably batty about the way the family blunders on. The chills are satisfyingly creepy. The gory special effects are lavish and effective. And the wooden house itself is a sinister architectural pleasure. It’s total nonsense of course, but I left the lights on that night anyway”. Nice review, but did you really need to leave the lights on after watching the movie?

Ultimately then, 2005’s Amityville remake is a pointless and tame, if sometimes entertaining, horror remake. The cast do their best with the material they’re given and it’s fun seeing future Deadpool Reynolds try his best to be scary, spooky red contact lenses and all! More importantly though, what’s YOUR take on the remake? Are we being too critical of the movie’s flaws or should people stick with the cult classic original from 1979. As usual, let us know in the comments and we’ll see you wonderful gore-hounds next time.

A couple of the previous episodes of WTF Happened to This Horror Movie? can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!