Green Jello

Ok, here is the trailer for the new version:

http://movies.apple.com/movies/mgm/t...orror_m480.mov

I know the original was from 1979, but I never saw it. Can someone give me a summary of the original and comment on how this new one relates? Prequel? Sequel?

Also, can you comment on the "Based on a True Story" thing?

Joe Molotov

A newlywed couple moves into cursed house where some gruesome murders took place. The usual shenanigans ensue. I believe the new one is a remake. And as far as the "Based on a True Story" thing goes, I think that's all been pretty much debunked as a hoax a long time ago.

Green Jello

Did you watch the new trailer? It says 1975. Is this supposed to be the original murders in the house? No that wouldn't work either because in this new movie there have already been murders in the house. My head hurts. I think your right and it just might be a remake.

Dr. DVD

I wonder if this will spawn sequels as well, like the one entitled "The Demon."

Mopower

I wonder if it will suck like the originals.

Joe Molotov

The original movie was based on events that supposedly happened a few years earlier, so 1975 would be about right.

darqleo

Yeah no kidding. I picked up the original one on DVD last Halloween and I must have watched a different movie when I was a kid because this wasn't scary at all and felt like a made-for-TV movie.

Geofferson

I'm still trying to comprehend the fact that this is actually being re-made. I don't think I'm in the minority when I say that the original was a rather poor film and a lame attempt at a horror movie. Oh well, this is Hollywood after all...

Now if the remake cast Margot Kidder again...then it may actually be scary.

jeffkjoe

THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979) - based on a true story
AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION - is a prequel to the original - about how the original family, the DeFeo family, was murdered
AMITYVILLE 3-D - with Meg Ryan and Tony Roberts - has nothing to do with anything - it's an original story, and a stupid one at that

and then there were a couple of straight to video sequels, including

AMITYVILLE: THE EVIL ESCAPES - where a lamp from the original Amityville Horror house carries a curse to the new owner who buys it.

And then there's this year's

THE AMITYVILLE HORROR - remake of the oriignal, based on the novel by Jay Ansen

Gizmo

Hopefully the new one will be better then the original. Its almost like they picked the weakest part of the book, and decided to make a movie out of that.

tasha99

There's also The Amityville Dollhouse (or something like that.)

Rival11

I'm going to have check these out again as well. I haven't seen it since I was young but I do remember being freaked out. Hopefully I will still like it when I check out again soon but with all these bad comments I'm seeing, it seems unlikely.

ROBERTCOP34

There is a book about the real story of this that has crime seen photos and there all in black & white good luck finding it...

Rival11

Here is a link as well to Arrow's site that explains a little more as well.

http://joblo.com/arrow/index.php?id=304

cactusoly

The original freaked me out when I was a kid, but I have'nt seen the whole thing since. I was kinda hoping a better edition would come out on DVD.

Mr. Salty

The book about the "true story" was a novel by Jay Anson, and a fairly entertaining one at that. It was a huge bestseller when it came out in 1978. I read it as a kid and it scared the shit out of me.

In retrospect the novel is a fairly cheesy ghost story that tries to mimic "The Exorcist" in a lot of ways, but it pales in comparison. Still, it would be nice if a movie could capture half the entertainment that's in the book.

But these days horror movies are usually little more than CGI and cheap scares built around a youthful WB Network cast. I don't have high hopes for this one.

Squirrel God

You've just put me off buying the new boxset. I have fond memories of watching it as a kid, but I wondered if I'd still like it now. I guess not.

I'm up for the remake though. Hollywood have been doing a good job lately with remakes

Duder

All the time, Hollywood remakes good movies and it's "Why remake good movies? They'll suck compared to the originals!"

Now Hollywood remakes a movie that would apparently be easy to improve upon and it's "Why remake a bad movie?"



I suppose the real question you're asking is "Why make remakes at all, ever?" Because to me, remaking a flawed but promising movie makes more sense than remaking a perfect one.

Josh-da-man

It was probably scarier back when we were kids because it the story was passed off as being true.

Groucho

In a nutshell, here's what happened (in real life, not in the movie):

1. Crazy guy kills his entire family (the DeFeos).

2. Another family (the Lutzes) overextends their budget and buys the house, even though they can't really afford it. They end up having to move out after only a month due to financial difficulties.

3. Lawyer for DeFeo gets together with Lutz with a win-win proposition: they pretend the house is possessed, he uses that to get his client off, book deal, movie deal, everybody gets rich.

4. Book is written, movies are made. Everybody gets rich.

5. Thirty years later, deluded public still thinks the whole hoax is a "true story."

Mr. Salty

Siskel and Ebert used to discuss this from time to time, and I agree with them: It makes a lot more sense to remake a movie that had a lot of potential but didn't turn out well than it does to remake a classic that was done right the first time.

Remaking "The Thing," "The Fly" or "Ocean's Eleven"? Good idea, with good results.

Remaking "Psycho"? Are you kidding me?

If I were a hotshot moviemaker who decided to do a remake, I think I'd remake "Plan 9 From Outerspace." Shorten the title to "Plan 9" and make it a straightforward big-budget sci-fi horror thriller, like "The Thing" or "28 Days Later." You couldn't make it a spoof or a comedy, because the original is already funnier than anything you could come up with.

Buttmunker

I must be in the minority on DVDTalk.com, but I loved The Amityville Horror. My first memory was eyeing the paperback novel in my parents bedroom - it had the redish house on it, and the H in Horror had a distended devil's tail. I was about seven or eight when I spied the novel, and my mother took it out of my hands and told me: "it will give you nightmares."

Fast forward two years later - 1979 - and my stepmom takes me to the movies. What's the movie? The Amityville Horror. By the time oil is spitting out and over the toilets, I'm cowering in my seat, begging to leave the theater. I was nine.

Ever since then, the image of the house has been an obsession. Even to this day, whenever I'm driving in my car and I drive by a house with those Amityville windows, I get a morbid chill down my spine. I wonder what it must have been like for kids who were scared by The Amityville Horror and lived next door to a house that had those Amityville windows staring back at them.

As an adult, I still very much enjoy 95% of the original movie. The sum of all its parts are greater than the whole, for sure, and that's why it endures. Elements like George losing his sanity - chopping wood with a dead stare, not showering, not going to work. Elements like Kathy's dream of waking up and finding her husband standing over her daughter with an axe in his hands and her daughter in bloody pieces, then watching helplessly as her husband charges at her with the axe raised high above his head. Elements like the eerie musical score.

You know, it is even more impressive when they didn't actually show what was chasing the Lutz family at the conclusion of the film, ala Jaws. The director left the horror to the viewer's imagination.

I get the feeling that I might be disappointed with the remake.

Amel

The original bored me to tears. The new one looks like it could be good. I'll check it out. I love haunted house movies. They almost always scare the crap outta me.

baracine

I highly recommend the latest issue of British magazine Fortean Times, which has an article on this very subject. It's a very complicated, multi-layered question. Don't have time to fill in the names but here are the several layers of the story:
1. A real crime is committed in the house, where a son inexplicably kills his family (the De Feos) (in the sixties).
2. Another family, the Lutz family, buys the house knowingly. Strange things happen. Father becomes homicidal. Family leaves house. They alert the media.
3. Novelist Jay Anson gets hold of story and "fictionalizes" it. It becomes a hit.
4. Bad movie gets made. This bad movie and this bad novel inspire "The Shining" by Stephen King (which is a rip-off by a good novelist), which inspires the film by Kubrick (which is a rip-off by a good director).
5. The Lutz family is still around to defend its story, which is strange enough on its own and has many verifiable points. The haunting has followed them.
6. Bad remake is on the way.

Here is the blurb from the original novel (most of which is lies):

Also see this Skeptical Enquirer review of the book Written by Ric Osuna, titled The Night the DeFeos Died: Reinvestigating the Amityville Murders.

http://paranormal.about.com/gi/dynam...mityville.html

fnordboy

In some ways I am looking forward to this remake. I just recently rewatched the original and it just did not hold up over time. The acting in it is just horrendous. Like someone said above. It felt like a made for TV movie.

What I have seen of the new version looks to be quite interesting, I will definitely check it out on DVD.