I have lived on Long Island my whole life, I lived in four different towns throughout the island. If I were to go up the road, make a quick right, drive about 6 miles, make a quick left and I can be sitting in front of the Amityville Horror house in about ten minutes. 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. Every single house on the block looks the same. However when I saw the house not to long ago for the first time, I was disappointed, It was not scary at all, and the way it is 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.
I saw this film in theaters five years ago. I was impressed by the trailer, yet the film did not impress me, but the story was not half 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 healthy population of Indian tribes back in the day. About half the towns on Long Island are named after Indian tribes, and there are a few towns where Indians were driven away and even killed by religious zealots. However, from what history tells us the house was actually built on hallow ground, and the story in the film is that of fiction to make the story seem more appealing.
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 cast 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 the very ending for that matter was kind of lane, and yes! you guessed it; had sequel written all over it.
The Blu-ray/ DVD combo pack has many features. The Blu-ray features include just the film with Smart Menu Technology and Lossless Audio. The DVD includes features such as two featurettes such as Super Natural Featurette – Discussion of the Defeo Murders and what really happened, there is also a making of featurette titled The Source of Evil. There is also audio commentary with actor Ryan Reynolds and the films producers, a multi-angle on-set peek, photo gallery and deleted scenes.
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. Recently the current owners have sold the home and open the house to the public for one day as they auctioned off the contents of the house. I do find it weird that this house tends to change hands about every five to ten years. Yet nothing has been reported since The Lutz family lived there. The Blu-ray disc is worth the buy if you really liked the legend that is The Amityville Horror.
– Horror Bob
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
