In this rendition, Ryan Reynolds takes the role of George Lutz, a man who not only married into a new wife, but three kids as well. Melissa George (30 Days of Night, Dark City) plays his new wife, Kathy, while the oldest kid, Billy is played by Jesse James (The Butterfly Effect and Jumper), the youngest boy, Michael, is played by Jimmy Bennet (Shorts, Star Trek and Orphan) and the family's daughter, Chelsea, is portrayed by Chloe Moretz (Kick-Ass, (500) Days of Summer, Diary of a Wimpy Kid).
The family decides to move into a beautiful old house, and while the parents learned of the place's recent murderous past, the deal is too good for them to pass up. You see, a little over a year ago, an entire family was murdered by the eldest son who claims that the house told him to kill his family. The crazed son went from room to room, shooting each of the other Defeo family members, and none of them moved from their beds the whole time. It was as if they were being held down, but the only one involved in the killings was the oldest son.
I give major props to Reynolds in this film as we see his character slowly driven mad. At first, little things like the family's dog waking him up start to disturb the man, but as one of the house's ghosts starts to become more involved with little Chelsea, George's grip on reality starts to slip more and more. There were numerous times when The Amityville Horror felt like another telling of Stephen King's classic The Shining, and Reynold's portrayal of a character in a similar situation was really powerful. Of course, the rest of the family's reactions and responses to George's actions helped to sell the scenes even more.
This particular home video release of The Amityville Horror comes with both the DVD and Blu-ray versions of the film. The high-definition version is noticeably cleaner, and scenes that overlook the lake, or show off the gritty underbelly of the house are helped out a lot by the higher definition. The odd thing is, in most DVD/Blu-ray combos, all of the special features are included on the newer media, while the DVD contains just the film. The idea being that this would go in the car, or on a trip or other places where a Blu-ray player might not be handy. Instead, this package comes with the original DVD release's disc, including special features, and a Blu-ray disc with just the movie on it. This meant switching discs when I actually wanted to watch the extras, but I guess it made production of the combo pack cheaper on the makers since they didn't have to remake the DVD version, just reprint the existing one.
As for those special features, The Amityville Horror contains two lengthy featurettes, a slew of deleted scenes, a photo gallery and a multi-angle feature for the film that lets you jump to some behind-the-scenes footage mid-film.
Of all of these extras, the gems are the featurettes. One discusses the original Defeo murders and the various strange facts that surround that event, while the other is a half-hour making-of that covers everything from the inspiration for remaking the film, to how the various actors got into their roles, to how the creators decided what to take from the previous film and what to take from the original book.
One of the most interesting aspects of this featurette concerned Moretz's training for a scene she does on the top of the roof, and the work that Action Coordinator Kenny Bates put into developing a trust with her and getting her ready for the stunt. While she was on wires while walking along the building's peak, she still had to be able to perform from several stories up.
The Amityville Horror doesn't win any awards, but it does a good job of getting the blood flowing in several places. It is a great movie to watch with the lights off and get creeped out over, so if you are looking for a good scary movie to watch, this is a solid choice, but it really isn't worth buying the Blu-ray/DVD combo if you already own it on DVD. You will quite literally get the same thing but with an additional disc that boasts a higher visual and audio quality.
