The Amityville Horror (2005) Blu-ray Review

[Although we just barely missed Halloween with this one, our thanks to author and online columnist Alex Rodrik of Working Title for this review.]

I've never written a Blu-ray/DVD review before so, as they say, let's just jump into it! Last night the wife and I curled up to watch The Amityville Horror--the remake, not the Jodie the pig one. To start off, I gotta say that in the way of remakes, this one was the first I actually liked. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) became a trite mess of over sexualized angles and cheesy pop-out "horror", so I was relieved to see an updated adaptation that really was capable of maintaining the essence of the original.

While the movie does add more to the back-story of the house itself than the original, I understand that this generation of moviegoers is not content with lingering mystery. (Not that that in any way is really a positive quality, but it is just my observation...) So, due to that fact, it comes as no surprise that they'd've added in some horror fluff to satisfy the needs of the new gen of viewers. I will say this though: I thought it was skillfully added. It wasn't an overbearing addition and was confined to just enough of the movie to get the point across without over saturating an already great mechanic.

Andrew Douglas' feature film directorial debut proved a winner for this viewer. It was a well paced, well acted film that captured the honesty of the situation. It's a tricky feat making a house the "monster," but it was a challenge Douglas met and nailed.

I thought the casting for the film was excellent. Ryan Reynolds was really just getting himself going when this film was released and I think his stellar job in the way of George Lutz really helped to push his career forward. His performance was constantly connected and offered a frightening look into a man who was psychologically breaking down. His cadence and nuanced performance really created a man the audience could connect with (whether they wanted to admit it or not...don't worry it doesn't make you that scary if you agree...). Reynolds' performance quickly establishes layers and likeability that are slowly and painstakingly pulled away until we're left with his madness.

Melissa George also does a wonderful job as Kathy. She played the love as opposed to the fear which was a treat to watch. Too often women in horror movies fall quickly into the "damsel in distress" role. What George does with Kathy is create a woman who is genuinely afraid, but it is all connected through love. There's no cheesy, shock-n-awe to her performance; it was more important to create a character that loved her family and desired that storybook life. That is what allows her character to overlook the things that were clearly developing in front of her. The chemistry between Reynolds and George really pulls in the viewer.

Onto the Blu-ray/DVD itself. The packaging was simple, same flimsy blue case that most Blu-rays come in. The cover art was menacing and offered a similarly haunting perspective of the house as the original promotions--which is a plus. The home screen of the Blu-ray was okay, not that I really have any sort of affinity for home screens, but it was spooky and most wonderful of all...you could skip the beginning animation and get right to the menu! The home screen on the DVD was more alive and offered more of an experience for the viewer, but I was unable to skip the opening animation which proved to be quite the pain as I dealt with all the technical issues I had with the DVD.

The Special Features:
I was disappointed with the lack of Special Features offered with the set. The Blu-ray offered nothing but the trailer, which was disappointing. The DVD offers more features such as Producers/Actor Commentary, deleted scenes, photo gallery, On the Set Peeks, and some featurettes. Unfortunately, the DVD didn't work very well and I wasn't able to watch most of them.

I was able to see half of the deleted scenes which, like most deleted scenes, would have proven useless in furthering the plot... So, good call on canning those.

I was unable to watch the "Supernatural Homicide" featurette, so no comment on that. (But I hear it's a mini-documentary about the actual events that happened...which would've been nice to see.)

I was able to watch the "Source of Evil" featurette which was rather interesting. It delved into the technical aspects of the film and provided some insight on the actors, their process, and the overall experience of shooting the film.

The commentary with Reynolds and the producers was interesting enough, offering some insight on the changes made to the story and some of the themes and angles they wanted to explore in their retelling.

The "On Set Peeks" didn't work for whatever reason, so no comment on those.

And last, and probably least for me, the Photo Gallery was nothing special, same as you've seen and would expect from any DVD.

Overall, the movie is killer! The Blu-ray/DVD set is okay. The Blu-ray Features are lacking and due to the technical issues, the DVD didn't offer much more in the way of "great" features (although I did enjoy the featurette I did get to see).