Pay to see 'Amityville Horror' and you'll scream bloody murder

The original 1979 "The Amityville Horror," which spawned a modest movie franchise, was based on Jay Anson's book that told the purportedly true story of how George Lutz and his family were haunted after moving into a house where a mass murder had taken place the year before.

MOVIE REVIEW

THE AMITYVILLE HORROR

DIRECTOR: Andrew Douglas

CAST: Ryan Reynolds, Melissa George, Phillip Baker Hall

RUNNING TIME: 89 minutes

RATING: R for violence, disturbing images, language, brief sexuality and drug use

WHERE: Cinema 17, East Valley 13, Factoria, Gateway Movies 8, Kirkland Parkplace 6, Longston Place 14, Metro, Monroe 12, Mountlake 9, Oak Tree, Pacific Place, Redmond Town Center, Valley Drive-in, Woodinville 12

GRADE: D

- See the photo gallery

This Michael Bay-produced remake also claims to be "based on a true story," but the real George Lutz stepped forward last week and told the world it's "a purely fictional film" that "was not concerned with anything more than box-office numbers."

He might have added that the new version of his family history is so full of false beats, heavy-handed staging and unnecessarily overblown effects -- and so lacking in suspense and character involvement -- that it's about as scary as a Toyota commercial.

The new "Amityville" opens with the back story of the 1974 slaughter of an affluent Long Island family by its "demonically possessed" oldest son (leaving out that the kid was a wacko heroin addict, his father was an abusive tyrant and other non-occultish motivations).

Cut to a year later and young contractor Lutz (Ryan Reynolds), his new wife (Melissa George) and her three children are moving into the scene of the crime, a Dutch Colonial house they acquired at a bargain price because no other buyer would touch it.

Faster than you can say "boo," blood is pouring out of the light fixtures, arms are coming out of walls, the kids are having ghostly visitations, and George turns into Jack Nicholson in "The Shining," chasing the rest of the family around with a grin and an ax.

The first-time director is British video and commercial veteran Andrew Douglas, but the creative force here is Bay, a director ("The Rock," "Pearl Harbor") turned producer who also recently remade "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" in his distinctively sense-battering style.

The cast, which includes the wonderful Philip Baker Hall in the old Rod Steiger role of a Catholic priest whose exorcism goes awry, is likable and everyone tries hard, but a terrible script gives them nothing substantial to build on.

As far as these things go, the film's violence is not outrageously excessive, but the scene in which George hacks his dog to death inspired several walkouts at the Seattle press preview. I stayed on but shared the sentiments. Killing people is one thing, killing border collies is something else entirely.

P-I movie critic William Arnold can be reached at 206-448-8185 or williamarnold@seattlepi.com.