Tag line : Based on a True Story (yeah, right)

What with the current abundance of remakes doing the rounds at the cinemas, some bright sparks had the idea of re-making the Amityville Horror, thinking they could get some extra mileage out of it being a "true" story (AHEM!!!!).

What follows is your typical haunted house plot, with a few elements based on Jay Anson's novel about what supposedly happened to the Lutz family. The basic plot remains the same as the original, in this we see newlyweds George and Kathy Lutz (played here by Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George) moving into a new house with their 3 kids, only to find the house isn't very receptive to them.

George becomes extremely bad tempered and starts seeing strange things, they ask the local priest to come over and bless the house, except he runs out shortly after. The babysitter manages to lock herself in the cupboard (again) despite the fact there's no lock on the door and the younger daughter claims to have an invisible friend. The walls start to drip blood and worst of all someone keeps leaving the windows open.

In the end, it all proves too much, but although deciding to bail out, George decides he has other plans in a surprise twist that goes against the book and earlier film.

Although I've been fairly critical here, to be fair this isn't half bad and certainly proved entertaining viewing. Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George certainly handle their roles well, and the film is visually very impressive. The teenagers will love it, although horror aficionados my find find it a touch clichéd.

Overall marks : 5/10.

Other Information.

• Alternate tag line "Katch'em, Kill 'em".

• The house used for filming the external shots was specially constructed at Silver Lake, Wisconsin. Many of the internal rooms were actually filmed on a soundstage in Illinois.

• As mentioned in my review of the original Amityville Horror movie, the film claims to be based on a true story but this later proved to be a hoax. Apparently the Lutz's confessed to this during a court hearing in the early 90's after Ron DeFeo's lawyer said he'd helped them concoct the story. Afterwards though, they then went back on this, claiming they hadn't actually made it up, but certain elements of the media had exaggerated their original claims.

• Ryan Reynolds got the part of George Lutz owing to his role in "Blade Trinity".

• The films budget was $18,000,000

• Melissa George used to be a full time cast member in the long running Australian soap-opera "Home and Away" (YUK!!!)

• The real George Lutz actually considered suing the film makers for defamation, as he was unhappy with how his character was portrayed.

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