MovieChat Forums > The Amityville Horror (2005) Discussion > God, why?

God, why?

posted 16 years ago by marshallaver
26 replies | jump to latest

Once upon a time, there was a spooky-looking house, where a tragedy occurred. A young man killed his entire family as they slept. He was judged to be mentally unstable and imprisoned.

Later, another family moved into the house, and moved out shortly afterwards claiming it was haunted. A best-selling book was written based on their account of their time there. It was a cracking good read, but it has been fairly clearly shown since that it was wildly exaggerated- both the family's story of what happened, and the author's imagination playing a part in this.

A film was made in the 1970's based on the book- it added some more exaggerated touches, and left out some rather good bits. The film did pretty well.

Then, a remake was announced. Some hoped it would stay a little closer to the book, and be the film which the original wasn't. After all, the book had been so successful- why not return to that winning formula?

Instead, a genuinely nasty film was produced- although claiming to be "based on a true story", it had almost nothing in common with the original case or the book. Hysterical and unpleasant horror movies full of dodgy, hackeyed CGI effects are commonplace now, but this had something going on which most of those don't- it made a grotesque mockery of the original case of the family murder. These were real people, and their relatives and their friends are real people- still alive, and already having gone through the experience of having a terrible event turned into entertainment for the masses. Any of them unlucky enough to have watched this film will have seen a sordidly glamorised version of the mass murder carried out on screen, and seen one of the murdered children portrayed as a vicious, black-lipped ghost with a bullet hole in her forehead, trying to kill the new owners of the house.

It doesn't even work as a good scary movie. Nobody should ever watch this. I just can't say enough bad things about it.

The people who made this film should be ashamed of themselves. And yes, I'm looking at YOU, Michael Bay.

[–] Conan-1982 8 years ago

"Nobody should ever watch this"

I already did, unfortunately.

But I don't regret it: it was so unmemorable I don't remember a thing about it.

All I remember is that I was pissed. All I know is not to watch it again.

What's best in life ?

[–] rascal67 8 years ago

This one is pretty average compared to A HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT-09'. It had some good horror scenes; but the presentation and acting wasn't up to par as Connecticut, and it didn't have the same emotional resonance by my gauge.

Exorcist: Christ's power compels you. Cast out, unclean spirit.
Destinata:💩

[–] Creasy47 8 years ago

I hadn't seen it in a decade and couldn't remember any details. Saw it was on Netflix, figured I'd give it a go, and wow, while I don't remember many details, I don't recall it being THIS awful and not scary in the slightest.