‘Amityville’ remake is a real horror

JIM ERWIN

Saying the remake of “The Amityville Horror” is better than the 1979

original is kind of like saying a new Britney Spears song has lyrics

with deeper meaning than her previous work. It’s not like that’s much

of a benchmark to use as a measurement of success.

The reimagining of “The Amityville Horror” has a few entertaining

moments, but overall, this is strictly fodder for the diehard

B-horror fans. This isn’t a movie that anyone should rush to see in a

theater.

“The Amityville Horror” begins in 1974, when Ronnie DeFoe murders

his family as they sleep. Ronnie claims that evil spirits in the home

drove him to kill.

A year later, George (Ryan Reynolds) and Kathy Lutz (Melissa

George) purchase the DeFoe’s oceanfront home at a bargain price. They

learn about the DeFoe murders from the real estate agent, but decide

not to let the tragedy dissuade them from buying their dream house.

Almost immediately after the Lutzes move in, the evil lurking

within the home impacts their lives. George is clearly being targeted

by the same spirits that drove Ronnie to kill. He becomes domineering

and abusive toward Kathy and their children. He hears the same voices

Ronnie heard, urging him to kill his family. It seems like just a

matter of time before history repeats itself.

The Lutz’s youngest daughter, Chelsea, becomes friends with a

little girl who lives in her closet. She’s Ronnie’s younger sister,

Jodie, and the closet is where Ronnie murdered her. It’s always hard

to find new playmates after you move, but generally speaking it’s

better to avoid hanging out with angry dead little girls.

The formula bares a slight resemblance to Stanley Kubrick’s “The

Shining,” but that’s a much better movie than this. You’re better off

renting “The Shining” than going to see “The Amityville Horror.”

As a horror fan, I’m used to forgiving problems with writing and

acting. Unfortunately, the problems with this movie are so deep that

it takes a lot of work to stay in the groove and go with the flow.

The biggest problem with “The Amityville Horror” is Ryan Reynolds.

It’s hard to imagine someone giving a more wooden performance than

James Brolin in the original “Amityville,” but Reynolds manages to do

just that. By casting him in the lead role, director Andrew Douglas

must have pictured George Lutz as an uninspiring dullard.

Reynolds isn’t menacing, and he’s not even interesting. Because

the core of the movie is built around Reynolds, his lifeless

performance keeps the story from gaining any momentum. The scares

never gel together or build on each other.

The scares in “The Amityville Horror” are mostly jump scares. It

can be fun when menacing ghosts pop out of the dark, but a good

horror movie has a lot more than that. There’s only one really fun

scene where the excitement is driven by the characters and the story.

When the DeFoe’s old babysitter Lisa (Rachel Nichols) comes to sit

for the Lutz children, she gets a lot more than she expected. Lisa

and Jodie never really liked each other, but Lisa doesn’t know that

Jodie’s ghost is still in the house. This is what makes a horror

movie as much fun as riding a roller coaster. People in the theater

scream like mad, and then start laughing at themselves for letting

the movie get to them.

The story is based on a novel by Jay Anson, whose book claimed to

be based on the true story of the Lutz family. I nearly choked from

laughing when the movie’s closing credits included a legal disclaimer

that the movie is based on a true story.

The Lutz’s claims of being driven from their home by evil spirits

have been debunked by numerous sources. Ronald “Butch” DeFoe murdered

his family and then told the police he believed the mafia had

committed the murders. After the police and prosecutors put together

a truly slam-dunk case, DeFoe changed his story to insanity, and then

to demonic possession.

DeFoe’s attorney, William Weber, later admitted that he and George

Lutz cooked up the story of the house being haunted by evil spirits

while chatting in a local bar. Lutz needed a way to walk away from

his mortgage and Weber needed a new angle for his client’s defense.

The home in Amityville is still there, and the current occupants have

never been bothered by anything except throngs of tourists curious

about their home.

The story of the real “Amityville Horror,” how a spoiled rich kid

was possessed by greed and murdered his family in cold blood, and how

a financially challenged homeowner disrespectfully used that tragedy

to create one of modern history’s biggest hoaxes, would make a much

more interesting movie than the dreck that is showing in theaters.

* JIM ERWIN, 40, is a technical writer and computer trainer.

Neither ‘Melinda’ very appealing

A friendly discussion between friends during dinner leads to a

debate about the best way to tell a story: comedy or drama. Which one

best captures the human condition? To prove their opposing points of

view, the friends create both funny and tragic stories about a

beautiful woman named Melinda (Radha Mitchell), in Woody Allen’s

“Melinda and Melinda.”

The two versions revolve around Melinda and the married couple she

barges in on during a dinner party. In both versions, Melinda shows

up on the couple’s doorstep with an overdose of emotional problems.

In the dramatic scenario, she literally arrives homeless, having

recently been acquitted of murder. In the funny version of the story,

Melinda crashes the dinner party and throws up.

Melinda is somewhat manic-depressive. Just the idea of going on a

blind date has her envisioning getting married, having children and

living happily-ever-after with the man she hasn’t yet met. Compliment

Melinda on her figure and she will go into a tailspin about how fat

and overweight she has become.

The married women in both stories manage to keep their emotional

and physical distance from Melinda. The men, however, respond to

Melinda much like sailors being called to sea by sweet singing

sirens. It is a perfect Woody Allen situation.

Director/writer Allen’s fixation on the subject of the male libido

continues to be the focal point of his movies. In Allen’s films, men

are flighty, highly emotional and incapable of monogamy.

“Melinda and Melinda” is no exception. Men leave their marriages

for beautiful women and cheat on their girlfriends in the

comedy/drama. The characterization works better when Allen himself

plays a role.

Now in his 70s, however, Allen is wise enough to stop playing the

romantic lead in pursuit of twenty-something women. A suitable

replacement, however, has yet to be found. Even the talented and

funny Will Farrell falls flat as Allen’s replacement.

Part of the problem may be that Allen’s creation of a whiny,

skinny, over-intellectualizing nebbish has fallen out of fashion. Men

and women are more open about talking to people, even strangers,

about their problems. Short-term relationships and marriages have

become the norm, and, therefore, no longer a source of curious

entertainment.

Even worse, “Melinda and Melinda” meanders. Melinda has left a

terrible and/or hilarious past behind her, but she has nothing to do

or place to go in the film. The audience is left without a sense of

direction. Events happen -- such as partners changing partners -- but

there is no specific event the audience can anticipate happening.

And while “Melinda and Melinda” is a type of boy-meets-girl story,

both the tragic and comic versions turn into a boy-meets-girl-loses-

girl-goes-after-another-girl- comes-back-but-she-has-

begun-dating-another-boy, etc. story line. After a while, it is

difficult to remember which Melinda version is the funny one or the

sad one, and eventually it is impossible to remember which characters

belong in which story.

“Melinda and Melinda” would work better as a daytime soap opera

because the major focus of the overall story is talk. The characters

all talk about their feelings, talk about what happened in their

recent past and talk about what is going on in their heads. Movies

are action-driven and filled with buses leaping over a missing chunk

of pavement on the freeway, or outrunning the sandstorm and/or

falling into a vat of smelly dead fish while chasing a thief.

“Melinda and Melinda” is about a bunch of coach potatoes --

characters who move from sitting in the living room to sitting in the

dinning room to sitting in the den and back again. And that describes

the high action sequences.

So feel free to sit this one out and wait for the DVD.

* PEGGY J. ROGERS, 40, produces commercial videos and

documentaries.