It’s either a bold, brave move on the part of a company who know how to reinvent a horror classic merely five years after the last rehash, or it’s the desperate flogging of a horse that’s not only dead but was set six feet under a few years ago.
Nevertheless the Weinstein Company and Dimension films believe the time is rife again for a return to The Amityville Horror, according to Bloody-Disgusting, and despite the 2005 remake starring a bearded be-sixpacked Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George not exactly chilling friends and unnerving people, the prospect of another visit to Long Island looks to be in our future.
Of course the project is in the very early stages and there’s little chance that this will see the inside of a cinema for a good long while, yet it points to a disturbing trend, namely the rebooting of a franchise within a very small time scale. We saw Eric Bana and Edward Norton’s Hulk smash within a similar time frame, and a while ago there were rumours of a Fantastic Four reboot doing the rounds while the corpse of the Silver Surfer movie was still warm.
Until something more concrete comes along you can file this under ‘Stupid Ideas I like to Laugh At’ (a file that is outgrowing its place on the shelf…) and watch The Real Amityville Horror on Youtube here; it’s far more interesting than any of the movies so far…
And I’m all for an effective retooling of a strong story which failed to get its due, but not within the same decade – very few cinematic ‘properties’ have that scope. And remember every time you watch a remake a young writer somewhere in the world closes down Final Draft and opens up Solitaire…
