The Amityville Horror film review

certificate_15

THE AMITYVILLE HORROR

A worldwide phenomenon during the 1970s, Jay Anson's story of the macabre goings on in an ordinary American house spawned a hugely successful movie in 1979 and a string of lesser sequels. A generation later Michael Bay's production arm Platinum Dunes has followed the same route it took in 2003 (when it remade The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and brought a notorious horror film up to date for a new audience. With the reworking of TCM taking $80m at the American box office, there's no reason why the formula shouldn't work again second time around.

A brief refresher for anyone who may have forgotten or isn't old enough to remember a story that was the staple diet of Sunday tabloids in the 70s. In 1974 a young man named Ronal De Feo Jr murdered six members of his family in their Long Island home. He claimed the house spoke to him and told him to do it. The case became a notorious cause celebre one year later when a new family moved into the residence. George Lutz and his wife and children fled the house 28 days later, again claiming that mysterious and upsetting things were happening.

Andrew Douglas's film, set firmly in 1975, examines the Lutz's story. Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George play the happy couple who can't believe that they have found such a bargain home (despite the obvious jitters that the estate agent displays upon entering the building). It's not long before George himself is showing symptoms akin to The Shining's Jack Torrance: shutting himself off from his family, believing he is hearing voices and being powered by a force inside the house.

There may yet be life in the haunted house tale on screen, but this remake exhibits very little of it. It's a non-stop assault on the senses with the director and screenwriter using every trick in the book to scare the wits out of the audience. And while one or two of the jump shock moments may initially work, their overuse becomes jarring. Spooky kids appearing and disappearing, dead animals, blood creeping out of the walls all form a familiar recipe that has been used countless times before.