Starring: Ryan Reynolds and Melissa Hall
Director: Andrew Douglas
Rated: MA15+
THE first time round in 1979, The Amityville Horror was a very popular horror film about strange and diabolical things going on in a respectable Long Island house.
First, a family was murdered. Second, the family that moved in without knowing this seems to have been haunted ‘and the father possessed’ by the spirit of a malevolent preacher who had persecuted and killed local Indians.
The house was something like a gate to hell.
The film fitted into the spirit of the 1970s with The Exorcist, The Omen, The Sentinel and a host of imitations. In fact, there were three television sequels for Amityville.
This remake is strong on jumps and scares but weaker on plot and character development.
While the film follows the same lines of ‘the true story’, the earlier film had an interesting Catholic sub-plot concerning the Church, priests and the experience of possession. This is much less developed here.
All in all, another scary movie where Ryan Reynolds does his best veering between affectionate husband and stepfather and diabolically violent menace.
