Reviewed by Alicia Glass

Studio: MGM

MPAA Rating: R

Director: Andrew Douglas

Review Rating: 7.5

Remade any number of times, The Amityville Horror is at its roots your more basic haunted house story. But did you know, the inspiration for the story came from real life? In Amityville Long Island in 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr., known as “Butch”, murdered both his parents and 4 of his siblings, and there were wild rumors of “paranormal influence” behind it. Jr. has made several different confessions over the years, and a lot of them contradict eachother in startling ways, but nothing (so far) has been mentioned about any kind of occult or paranormal influence – just a lot of familial strife and hate.

The Amityville Horror, the original story, involves the Lutz family and a period of time inside a house that terrorizes them with paranormal influences, forcing them to finally flee. The idea being it being, that the house was built on an ancient Indian burial ground (another one?) and hooboy are those natives angry. In the 2005 remake starring Ryan Reynolds as patriarch George Lutz, a character named Jodie DeFeo was introduced as having been a previous tenant of the house who died miserably and who now haunts the youngest Lutz daughter. It’s actually fairly good for a remake, largely in part due to Reynolds performance of a man going maddd. Melissa George is Kathy Lutz, she does fairly well for the retro time frame of the movie. Jesse James is Billy, Jimmy Bennet is Michael, and hey a very young Chloe Grace Moretz as Chelsea rounds out the Lutz children. Isabel Conner is Jodie DeFeo, and boy does she get the best Silent Hill-style makeup for her haunting. Having endured for many long years despite potentially being just a myth, The Amityville Horror is a classic Halloween haunting Horror story.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5Maq9H1lZ8]