I've lived on Long Island my whole life, I lived in four different towns throughout the island. My grandparents and my Fiancée live about all but 5 minutes from the Amityville Horror House, Last month was the first time I ever got to see the house, my fiancée had been driving by it since she was a kid, and knew where the house was, though the years it's gone though many changes. The funny thing is that if you never saw the house before, your going to really have no clue which house it is unless someone you know has seen it before all the work was done to the house, I mean every single house on the block looks the same. But when I saw it not to long ago for the first time, I was disappointed, It was not scary at all, and the way it it's described in the film is blown way out of proportion. The house is no way as big as the one in this film was, and the property for that matter is probably a quarter of that shown in the film.  I guess what I'm getting at is that film does not do the real legend, and the house any justice.

   Now I went into the theater thinking the film was going to be really scary, the trailer looked good, but trailers fool everyone. The story was not bad, it had a few blunders in it, but it was not all that bad.  Now there are a few  things about the story that I'm not sure if they were fact or not, I know the killings were true, the Lutz family only staying in the house for 28 days and so on... But there was a back story that the house was once owned by some preacher in the 1800's who killed members of an Indian tribe. Now here on Long Island, there was once a health population of Indian tribes back in the day. About half the towns on Long Island are named after Indian tribes, so it could be true I have to do more research on it, but if it's not, then I think this film seriously took a lot from Poltergeist and put a spin on it.

    As far as acting goes, I though the performances where great. Ryan Reynolds has earned my respect as an actor, the man gets better with every film he's cat in. The direction was good as well, the great use of shots and  overall atmosphere worked well.  However as far as effects go, they were good, but it's not anything we haven't seen before. The dead girl named Jodie reminded me of Samara from "The Ring", and well folks the ending, the very ending for that matter was kind of lane, and yes! you guessed it; had sequel written all over it.

    Overall I enjoyed it enough to sit though it, it's a quick paced story, But I didn't really get scared at all, I had no uneasy feeling while watching the film, however as I sit here on this computer writing the film, it does feel strange to know that I can jump in my car and drive down the road and be right in front of the house.  However out of respect for the people now living there I'll be the one that does not drive by, as I'm sure there is going to be plenty of curious visitors. Someone already did donuts on the lawn a few nights ago. I say let the legend be and go buy the DVD box set of the original film and two of its sequels and get your free movie ticket to see this film.

-Horror Bob

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