Movie review: The Amityville Horror (2005)

[cannedmoose]

On the Hallowe'en theme, last night I watched The Amityville Horror on DVD, which is a remake/remodelled version of the original 1978 film, which was supposedly based on a real story with obvious additional elements. Have to say it was really good, excellent acting by all involved and at times very, very jumpy. It's not one of those films that leaves you numb with fear, but near enough at times (although I'm definitely not a hard-core horror fan, so it might be tame for those that are).

The film is based around the story of a family moving into a house where a person murdered his entire family in the middle of the night. The house was originally owned in the late 17th century by a priest who used it to torture, murder and bury the local indian tribes people. As such, the house remains possessed by this evil spirit who forced the person to murder his family.

In the original film, the demonic pig (I'm not kidding) has been replaced by the character of a little girl who is very spooky and has a rifle hole right through her head. Suffice it to say, the dad of the new family gradually descends into madness as he's slowly possessed by this spirit's demonic power. All sorts of nasty things appear, happen to the family, to a priest who comes to bless the house and to a very, very gorgeous babysitter (the film is worth seeing for her alone! )

I won't give away the ending, but it's a really good spinechiller.

To show you how effective it was, let me recount a story from last night. We finished watching the film about 11ish, whereupon Mrs. Moose needed to finish a paper so went to the study to finish her work. Mr. Moose fell asleep on the couch during a TV debate on removing British troops from Iraq. At about 1am, Mrs. Moose returned downstairs and found Mr. Moose asleep. She was standing at the end of the couch over Mr. Moose and was going to wake him up by kissing his forehead when Mr. Moose suddenly woke up. Without my glasses, all I saw was a figure looming over me so I shot up screaming ( ). Mrs. Moose was obviously startled at this and started screaming as well. Our dog started barking at this commotion as well... in hindsight, it was hilarious, but scared the crap out of me at the time. So obviously the film did it's job on us both.

Highly recommended Hallowe'en night viewing.

I give it 8/10

[brother]

So you was screaming like a pair of little girls.

[cannedmoose]

[brother]

[Xenos 2Fan]

Keep your glasses near re. Thanx for the review. I'll get it.