Among the sequel craze that started in the 1980s with Halloween and Friday the 13th, many might be surprised to learn that
the modern-day horror film franchise with the most films to its name is The Amityville Horror. With a canon of
21 associated films (including sequels, reboots, and in-name-only knockoffs), The Amityville Horror franchise has
eclipsed both Halloween (with 11) and
Friday the 13th (with 12).
So it might come as a bit of a surprise when noted genre veteran
Daniel Farrands—whose credits include screenplays for Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers and the 2007 adaptation of
Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door, directorial
work on a number of notable documentary features on film franchises like A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, and Friday the 13th, and numerous producer gigs—would mine
the Amityville archives for his
feature film directorial debut.
The Amityville Murders,
which Farrands also wrote and produced, goes back to the real-life events that
led to the original horror: The six gunshot murders at 112 Ocean Avenue,
Amityville, carried out by Ronald DeFeo on the night of November 13th,
1974. DeFeo, in court testimony, claimed that voices coming from within the
house drove him to kill every member of his immediate family. Although DeFeo
was sentenced to (and remains in) prison, a mythos developed around the house
itself when the Lutz family, who moved into the titular residence in late 1975,
fled after less than a month because of the alleged supernatural events that
served as the source material for Jay Anson’s bestselling 1977 book of the same
name, which was based on about 45 hours of tape-recorded recollections from the
Lutz family. The book became the ’79 film starring James Brolin, Margot Kidder,
and Rod Steiger that went on to gross $86.4 million on a $4.7 million budget.
In one of the longest-running acts of source material cannibalism, The Amityville Horror story has been artistically
excavated, twisted and reconfigured, retold, and expanded upon for nearly four
decades—with varying results.
Enter Farrands. Wisely, he opts to return to the scene of
the crime—literally and creatively. Rather than add to the convoluted Amityville mythos, he chooses to revisit
the story of Ronald DeFeo in what amounts to a proper prequel to the ’79 film.
Diehard Amityville aficionados will
note that 1982’s Amityville II: The
Possession also attempted to loosely prequelize the pre-Lutz events, but Farrands’
outing is a more faithful retelling, coated with a nice period piece sheen.
The 1974 DeFeo’s are a suburban Long Island family whose outward picture-postcard
success belies the dysfunction within. Patriarch Ronnie (an excellent Paul
Ben-Victor) is the quintessential abusive husband and father, offering
intimidation and beatings in private and paternal hugs in public. Wife and
mother Louise (Diane Franklin) is that typical abused spouse who walks a fine
line between trying to keep Ronnie’s rage at bay while facilitating some
semblance of normalcy for her children. Eldest son Ronald (nicknamed “Butch”)
is a directionless slacker and drug user while eldest daughter Dawn (Chelsea
Ricketts) is smart, pretty, and protective of her older brother. There are
three other siblings—Alison, Marc, and Jody—but they’re largely relegated to
the periphery here, with Farrands choosing to focus his narrative on the DeFeo
parents and their two oldest offspring.
Farrands spends time painting his cinematic picture of the DeFeo’s and
their dysfunction—from Ronnie’s shady mafia dealings to Ronald Jr’s drug
use and the especially volatile relationship between the two. At some point
early on, both Lainie Kazan and Burt Young (who, in a nice wink to franchise
fans, was also in Amityville 2 with Franklin) show up as Louise’s
parents—with grandpa Brigante gifting Ronald and Dawn new cars on their shared
birthday and Nona getting her hackles up when Louise casually mentions a
possible West Coast relocation. “You’re going to sell my house?” she
asks, practically drooling ill-omen. These early scenes are outstanding, even
if the Long Island accents are a tad too exaggerated and the family’s Italian-Americanness
bordering on caricature at times.
It’s revealed that Ronald Jr. and Dawn also mess around with the occult
down in a little basement crawlspace with red cinderblock walls (aka the
infamous “Red Room”). At some point, the dark forces within the house (it’s
purported to be built upon land where the local Shinnecock Indian tribe had
once abandoned their mentally ill and dying, an idea rejected by local Native
American leaders) start their whispering through the walls and take possession
of Ronald Jr. that culminates in the murders. The supernatural foreplay is
effective although most of the visuals and set pieces will ring familiar to
anyone who’s seen a Paranormal Activity film. Recycled but competent
scares abound as the tension escalates.
Overall, The Amityville Murders hits its marks. Caveat: I’ve not
seen a single Amityville film since the three-dimensional third so I may
not be as jaded or franchise-weary as many reviewers seem to be. Farrands’s
direction is solid, his pacing tight, and he really knows how to strikingly frame
his shots. He also gets some major props for giving Diane Franklin a role
befitting her talent. She’s been too-long relegated to shorts and subpar
material in recent years for an actress of her stature and talent.
The standout here is John Robinson who does most of the film’s heavy
lifting as Ronald Jr. He convincingly portrays a man slipping into madness,
seamlessly shifting from anger and rage to vulnerability and melancholy with all
the requisite raw emotion. It’s actually in considering Robinson’s performance
where one might realize that Farrands missed a golden opportunity to muddy the
waters a bit and aim higher with his franchise contribution. Instead of presenting
the audience with a predetermined supernatural origin to Ronald Jr’s slip down
the rabbit hole, layer in some ambiguity to suggest it might have been the
drugs or PTSD from years of mental and physical abuse or even an undiagnosed
mental illness like schizophrenia (the onset of which would correspond with the
character’s age)—perhaps a combination of all these internal and external
factors. When you make a movie based on real-life events and your audience knows
the story’s ending from the outset, you need something else to make your mark. Leaving
the audience pondering—and ultimately deciding for themselves—the origin of Ronald
DeFeo’s eventual murderous snap would have added a decidedly cerebral element
that would have elevated The Amityville
Murders beyond the limits of its well-trodden zip code.
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