The Amityville Horror

What I love about the new ?Amityville Horror? is its unbridled affection for the slash-em genre. Director Andrew Douglas spurns the recent spate of lackluster, overly-intellectual horror films we?ve suffered lately (?The Ring 2,? anyone?) and delivers a scream-a-minute, lighthearted thriller that?s sure to please. Despite its lack of character development and its intelligence quotient in the low double-digits, ?The Amityville Horror? will scare you right out of the theatre.

The film - and its progenitor - are both based on true-life events: on November 13, 1974, Ronald Defeo Jr. murdered his entire family as they slept in their beds at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, Long Island. When questioned by the police, he offered the mob, then his sister, as scapegoats ? but eventually claimed he was told to kill his family by mysterious voices he heard in the house. One year later, the Lutz family moved into the house for 28 days, leaving hastily due to apparitions and voices they claim they heard throughout the house.

Voila! Urban legend gives way to Hollywood blockbuster.

In the 1979 retelling, George Lutz (who is still alive) proceeds from nice guy to psychopath, the voices real enough to begin pervading his sensibilities in the same way they were said to affect Defeo. The film was an iconic haunted house film that echoed the Lutz lore, augmenting the tale with the ritualistic burial ground in the basement, a priest who attempts to ?clean? the house but ends up insane, and the haunting figure of Defeo, who ironically was not (and still is not) dead ? the man is in prison serving multiple life sentences.

The updated film departs from the testimony even further than did its predecessor ? and despite what I?m sure are a host of imminent lawsuits from the equally-alive-and-well Lutz family, it?s a ripping good time. Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George play the intrepid Lutzes ? therein end the known actors apart from a cameo by Philip Baker Hall as Father Calloway. Their performances are perfunctory but appropriate to the occasion ? Reynolds appears to have been cast as much for his physique as his acting acumen (nobody was that pumped in the 1970s, of course, but then, nobody cares about that when he?s running around with his shirt off), and George produces the right blend of fright and protective determination. But everyone knows that house is the star?

And Douglas delivers a perfect 10 with that character ? the tagline of the movie gives it away: ?For gods sake, get out!? There is tremendous tongue-in-cheek homage at work here, from the grisly images lifted from ?The Ring? to the television-possession of ?Poltergeist? to the dark, shadowy photography of ?The Exorcist? to the ?lightning-flash reproduction of the Defeo tragedy borrowed from virtually every suspense film in the 90s. And he wastes no time in the picture, working in a fright every 2.5 minutes from the start of the picture to the punchy post-plot conclusion ? you?ll love each one for its shameless deliberation.

?The Amityville Horror? might seem to be a pointless remake, ill-timed and risky. Not so. MGM is pitching out a welcome change to the genre ? the bellbottom fad reinvented as a horror film. Grab your popcorn. Go.