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The Amityville Horror (2005)Rating: 1 1/2 Stars (out of 4)The Big Maul HouseBy Jeffrey M. Anderson Buy The Amityville Horror on DVD.
The new Amityville owes a great deal to both The Exorcist and The Shining but lacks both Friedkin's attention to detail and Kubrick's supreme patience. Making his feature directorial debut, Andrew Douglas rushes through everything, building a monotonous, anxious hum without mixing it up or giving the audience a break. Still, The Amityville Horror has its moments. When the youngest boy (Jimmy Bennett) makes a late night bathroom visit, Douglas makes it known that he is about to scare us. But during this one sequence he takes his time, letting the tingles and prickles build for an extra moment before cutting loose. And Rachel Nichols has a star-making turn as the world's best/worst babysitter. Slinking around like a hippie sex kitten, she stretches and arches and purrs while frightening the children with murder stories. "I suck at babysitting," she muses, as an afterthought. Alas, the film's final third sinks into horror techniques so tired that even the later, straight-to-video Amityville sequels would have edited them out. How many times do the filmmakers expect the "it-was-only-a-nightmare" thing to work, anyway? Audiences will be better off staying home with MGM/UA's new DVD box set The Amityville Horror Collection. It includes the first three films, plus a fourth bonus disc, Amityville Confidential. DVD Details: It took me a while to check out the aforementioned DVD box set, and sadly, the old movies really aren't much better than the new ones, though they do contain better acting and are less headache-inducing. James Brolin, Rod Steiger and the underrated Margot Kidder star in the first one (1979), which runs an excruciating 2 hours. Amityville II: The Possession (1982), a prequel, is widely considered one of the worst films ever made, and stars Burt Young. These first two films, ironically, are presented with extraordinarily high-quality picture and sound. Amityville 3-D (1983) does not fare so well; mashing the 3-D presentation down to 2-D leaves smudgy lines around everything. Even so, this PG-rated film improves slightly on the second film, featuring veteran Richard Fleischer (The Narrow Margin) at the helm, and Tony Roberts and a young, cute Meg Ryan in the cast. Finally, the bonus disc comes with two History Channel specials, neither of which really prove anythign one way or the other, and a short look at the 2005 remake. Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Melissa George, Philip Baker Hall |
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