The Amityville Horror

For those who are bit squeamish when it comes to ghost stories, I'm on your side. They kinda freak me out too. But that's why we read them though, right? Just to get that little bit of fright out of the way for the day! Right? Okay, sorta. But this time I wanted to hear the full story of The Amityville Horror and see if the new movie is up to par. So far, it isn't. You really can't focus on the different emotions that the characters are going through in the movies, unless if you know what you're looking for specifically.

To begin, this young couple (the Lutz's) decide to move into their dream home together. Four days into the new house they begin to notice a few peculiar things, such as strange smells, odd emotions, weird things that make you wake up in the middle of the night, things like that. What they don't know is what's causing it. The house has been blessed (as it is in the movie) but what the movie doesn't show is what happens to the poor priest after he leaves the house and what he REALLY saw. Darn guy had no idea what was happening in the house, didn't even know who lived there before the new family (the Lutz family by the way) had moved in and had to be told by other priests who lived in the area. Shesh. This sort of throws the movie off of the track. Maybe they wanted to 'spice it up' a bit. Bleaugh. Stupid idea.

If (and WHEN) you read the rest of the book, and compare it to the most recent movie of The Amityville Horror you will understand how much time Hollywood has put into reading the actual books or scripts of the movies that they are doing these days. The most annoying bit while I was reading the documentary was that there were TWO characters that the youngest daughter was talking to, a little boy and a fairly large PIG. Yes, a PIG and the PIGS name was Jodie. Not the little girl that appeared in the newer movie. It was a little BOY that haunted the house and a male PIG that frequently talked to the alive child. Frustrating to read that and reflect back on the movie. And in one part of the book the little girl follows the pig out of her window with no explanation as to where she went. In the movie to again 'spice it up a bit' she walks out on the roof and needs to be rescued by her step father and her mother. And get this, the step father never goes crazy, he just becomes extremely frantic and ... can't say much more, other than Hollywood screwed it up again!

Sure, the family stayed in the home for 28 days, at least that bit is correct. The names and the scenarios are fairly accurate, including the dog Harry, a few of the situations are pretty much on the dot, but like the author says, ghosts cannot be asked to appear on command and appear or act, they do as they please because they are stuck between worlds, or so we think. We may never understand their predicament. We cannot show a movie to the world of how ghosts preform because there is no proof of them acting this way. If you look very carefully most of the time in the movies you can see the cables, bright lights or the CGI or what ever it is called to make the ghosts and what not appear "out of thin air!"

I enjoyed the book, because the book is more accurate than the movie, but I am excited to watch the original movie, just to see the originality in the movie scene, and compare it to the original book.