ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - April 15th
"THE AMITYVILLE HORROR" released in 2005
In December 1975, George and Kathy Lutz (Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George) along with their three children move into an elegant Long Island house. What they don't know is that the house was the site of a horrific mass murder a year before, in Andrew Douglas' re-imagining of the classic haunted house chiller, The Amityville Horror!
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In late 1975, recently married George and Kathy Lutz (this marriage her second following the death of her first husband) plan to start a new life with her three children - Billy (Jesse James), Michael (Jimmy Bennett) and Chelsea (Chloë Grace Moretz). As George tries to eke out his place in their life which is not to replace the memory of their father, George and Kathy want to buy another house in which they will live. In nearby Amityville, they find what they consider the perfect waterfront colonial which they are surprised is just within their price range. After falling in love with the house, they learn that the reason for the low asking price is that one year previous, the former owners, the DeFeos, were murdered in the house. With this information in hand, they proceed to buy the house anyway, with George planning to turn the basement into an office for his contracting business. Before buying the house, they are unaware of the details of the murder, where twenty-three year old Ronald DeFeo, Jr. (Brendan Donaldson) had moved back in with his family, living in the basement. He progressively began to feel possessed when finally on his twenty-eighth day in the house, he killed his parents and four siblings in the middle of the night, hearing voices telling him to kill them. After the Lutzes move into the house, some of the family members begin to see visions and hallucinations, none of them telling the others for one reason or another. Slowly, the forces within the house start to consume them to various degrees where they know that something is not quite right. The questions become if they will figure out that there is a force overtaking them before they are no longer able to get away, or if they are doomed to the same fate as the DeFeos on day twenty-eight of their residence. If the latter be the case, there will be the next "Ronald DeFeo, Jr." who will be the one of who the rest of the family needs to be afraid of?!
[Father Callaway speaks with Kathy outside]
Father Callaway: You know the doll with one eye that your daughter is holding?
Kathy Lutz: Yes, well...
Father Callaway: Well, that belonged to the little girl who lived here before you.
Kathy Lutz: Yes, it was left here.
Father Callaway: No, Mrs. Lutz, it was not left here.
Kathy Lutz: Father, what exactly are you trying to tell me?
Father Callaway: I knew the DeFeo's very well. I presided over their funeral. Jodie DeFeo was buried with that doll.
Top: Newly married Kathy and George Lutz (Melissa George and Ryan Reynolds) decide to buy the beautiful old Victorian house in Amityville;
Above: Almost immediately after moving in, one of the Lutz children, Chelsea (Chloë Grace Moretz) begins seeing frightening visions.
After the successful release of the horror remake The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 2003, productions company Platinum Dunes - headed by producers Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller - began looking for their next project. It was not long before their were contacted by MGM, who were beginning to experience financial difficulties, to produce a remake of The Amityville Horror. Development got off to a rocky start however, after MGM claimed the remake was based on new information uncovered during research of the original events. Unfortunately, George Lutz later claimed nobody ever spoke to him or his family about the project, and when he initially heard it was underway, his attorney contacted the studio to find out what they had in the planning stages and to express Lutz's belief they didn't have the right to proceed without his input. In June 2004, the studio filed a motion for declaratory relief in federal court, insisting they had the right to do a remake, and Lutz countersued, citing violations of the original contract that had continued through the years following the release of the first film (the case would remain unresolved when Lutz died in May 2006).
Producers once again turned to their Texas Chainsaw Massacre screenwriter Scott Kosar to draft the updated screenplay, with British director Andrew Douglas chosen to helm the remake. in his feature film debut. Australian actress Melissa George and Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds were soon cast as the lead characters Kathy and George Lutz, with child actors Jesse James, Jimmy Bennett, and Chloë Grace Moretz (in her feature film debut) joining the cast as the Lutz children, Billy, Michael and Chelsea respectively. Veteran character actor Philip Baker Hall was soon cast as Father Callaway, with Isabel Conner as the spirit of the departed Jodie DeFeo, and Brendan Donaldson as the demonic Ronald "Ronnie" DeFeo, Jr. Megan Fox auditioned for the role of Lisa the babysitter originally, before Rachel Nichols secured the role.
Producers once again turned to their Texas Chainsaw Massacre screenwriter Scott Kosar to draft the updated screenplay, with British director Andrew Douglas chosen to helm the remake. in his feature film debut. Australian actress Melissa George and Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds were soon cast as the lead characters Kathy and George Lutz, with child actors Jesse James, Jimmy Bennett, and Chloë Grace Moretz (in her feature film debut) joining the cast as the Lutz children, Billy, Michael and Chelsea respectively. Veteran character actor Philip Baker Hall was soon cast as Father Callaway, with Isabel Conner as the spirit of the departed Jodie DeFeo, and Brendan Donaldson as the demonic Ronald "Ronnie" DeFeo, Jr. Megan Fox auditioned for the role of Lisa the babysitter originally, before Rachel Nichols secured the role.
[Trapped in the bedroom closet, Lisa is confronted by Jodie's spirit]
Jodie Defeo: Hi, Lisa. Look what Ronnie did.
[moves her hair away from her head so can see, she has a hole in her head made by the gun]
Top and Above: Visitors to the house are brutally attacked by the departed spirits; Father Callaway (Philip Baker Hall) is attacked by a swarm of flies and babysitter Lisa (Rachel Nichols) is confronted by the spirit of Jodie DeFeo (Isabel Conner)!
While the reproduction of the Amityville House's famous exterior was constructed in Silver Lake, Wisconsin, many of the interiors were built on a temporary sound stage in an empty building located in a corporate park in Buffalo Grove, Illinois. The production company took out building permits in the village of Silver Lake, Wisconsin (in Kenosha County) and spent about $60,000 to adapt the historic Rustman House summer estate on the south shore of Silver Lake at Kenosha County Highways F and SA for its cinematic debut. For the closet scene with the babysitter, the production crew had originally ordered in a rubber door. But after shooting the scene a few times, they decided it didn't look right, and they ultimately decided on using a real wooden door, so actress Rachel Nichols had to bang her hands on the door for two days straight while filming the scene!
Ryan Reynolds chose not to become close with his "movie" children. He was not mean or rude to them, just very distant. So distant in fact that the children often confided to those on the set that "Ryan doesn't like us!" Ryan said that he did not want to "fall in love" with the kids. Ryan did this so that when George Lutz started changing, he would have no trouble easing into the verbal and physical abuse. Reynolds' also wore special contact lenses in many scenes to make his eyes seem black with just a white ring around them.
Ryan Reynolds chose not to become close with his "movie" children. He was not mean or rude to them, just very distant. So distant in fact that the children often confided to those on the set that "Ryan doesn't like us!" Ryan said that he did not want to "fall in love" with the kids. Ryan did this so that when George Lutz started changing, he would have no trouble easing into the verbal and physical abuse. Reynolds' also wore special contact lenses in many scenes to make his eyes seem black with just a white ring around them.
TRIVIA: Chloë Grace Moretz did most of her own stunts, despite only being eight years old!
Top: Director Andrew Douglas on set with Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George;
Above: Producer Michael Bay on location
The Amityville Horror was the last picture Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released as an independent company, with the studio being acquired by several companies, including Sony, in the middle of the promotion for the film. The Amityville Horror opened on 3,323 screens, grossing an impressive $23,507,007 on its opening weekend (ranking first in the domestic box office), and eventually grossing a total of almost $43 million at the US box office, plus an additional $65 million gross in the international markets (totaling over $108 million against a relatively small $19 million budget).
However, The Amityville Horror remake received mostly negative reviews from critics, with Peter Travers of Rolling Stone rating the film one star and commented, "First-time director Andrew Douglas crams in every ghost cliché, from demonic faces to dripping blood. This house springs so many FX shocks it plays like a theme-park ride. Result? It's not scary, just busy. For the real thing, watch Psycho . . . The Shining . . . The Haunting . . . or The Innocents . . . What all those films have in common is precisely what the new Amityville Horror lacks: They know it's what you don't see in a haunted house that fries your nerves to a frazzle." Manohla Dargis of the New York Times said, "Low-key creepy rather than outright scary, the new Amityville marks a modest improvement over the original, partly because, from acting to bloody effects, it is better executed; and partly because the filmmakers have downgraded the role of the priest, played in all his vein-popping glory by Rod Steiger in the first film and by a considerably more subdued Philip Baker Hall here." Ruthe Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle gave a slightly more positive review, writing, "the truly shocking thing about the new version is that it's not bloody awful . . . The decision to use minimal computer-generated effects, made for monetary rather than artistic reasons, works to Amityville's advantage. It retains the cheesy look of the 1979 original, pure schlock not gussied up to appear to be anything else."
However, The Amityville Horror remake received mostly negative reviews from critics, with Peter Travers of Rolling Stone rating the film one star and commented, "First-time director Andrew Douglas crams in every ghost cliché, from demonic faces to dripping blood. This house springs so many FX shocks it plays like a theme-park ride. Result? It's not scary, just busy. For the real thing, watch Psycho . . . The Shining . . . The Haunting . . . or The Innocents . . . What all those films have in common is precisely what the new Amityville Horror lacks: They know it's what you don't see in a haunted house that fries your nerves to a frazzle." Manohla Dargis of the New York Times said, "Low-key creepy rather than outright scary, the new Amityville marks a modest improvement over the original, partly because, from acting to bloody effects, it is better executed; and partly because the filmmakers have downgraded the role of the priest, played in all his vein-popping glory by Rod Steiger in the first film and by a considerably more subdued Philip Baker Hall here." Ruthe Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle gave a slightly more positive review, writing, "the truly shocking thing about the new version is that it's not bloody awful . . . The decision to use minimal computer-generated effects, made for monetary rather than artistic reasons, works to Amityville's advantage. It retains the cheesy look of the 1979 original, pure schlock not gussied up to appear to be anything else."
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 23%
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