Film Review: MY AMITYVILLE HORROR (2012)

It is safe to say that the horror film The Amittyville Horror (1979) is a quintessential must see for horror fans whether you believe the story of the Lutz family as they are menaced by the house or not.  The 2005 remake is a whole lot less believable as it was simply made to cash in on the horror film remake trend.  After the remake made a ton of money (not to mention the countless number of sequels) the question of whether or not the original film is really “Based on a True Story” is up for debate.  What isn’t up for debate is whether or not the members of the Lutz family believe it or not.  My Amittyville Horror (2012) is the story of what happened in that house to the Lutz family from the perspective of the youngest son Daniel who is speaking about the incident for the first time in 35 years. 

It must be stated that Daniel Lutz believes that the film version is his father George’s version of what happened in the house as he was too young to fully understand all that was going on at the time.  Thirty-five years later Daniel has lived with the infamy of the story and had time to reflect on its impact on his life.  Daniel has never forgotten what happened and has never been able to get his story out until now.  Director Eric Walter is not a timid film maker as he gets to the heart of the controversy surrounding the whole incident.  Even when Daniel gets defensive with Eric in regards to some of the questions being asked Eric never backs down and doesn’t allow Daniel to get away with not answering the questions despite the fact that on many occasions Daniel would rather just kick Eric out of his house.

This is one of the aspects of the film that is most successful as Eric refuses to let this film be simply Daniel telling his story about the events without any confrontation.  If Daniel was simply allowed to tell his story audiences would not get a reference for what to believe may be the truth verses what Daniel only wants us to believe is the truth (or the truth as seen through the eyes of a young child now grown up and telling his story through reflection).

The infamous Amittyville story may never be fully exposed but this film does paint a clearer picture of its effect on one of the people directly affected by what went on in that house so many years ago.

Movie Review: APARTMENT 143 (2011)

With the success of the Paranormal Activity franchise and such films as The Devil Inside (2012) and The Last Exorcism (2010) the found footage or documentary style film has become very popular not only with big budget Hollywood films but with the low budget indie horror films as well which is where Apartment 143 (2011) fits.

The film concerns a parapsychologist team who are asked to investigate what seems to be a genuine haunted house in the White family residence of apartment number 143.  The White family has just experienced the tragedy of losing their matriarch and now the father Alan (Kal Lennox) must contend with the possibility that the house he just moved his family into might be haunted.  Unlike more subtle films of this nature very little time is spent building up to whether or not the house is haunted because this is made clear almost immediately upon the parapsychology team first entering the apartment.  The rest of the film is spent finding the reason why and how to stop it if they can.

One of the elements in this film that I do not believe add to the believability of the film is the fact that the team sets up cameras everywhere as if they have an unending supply of cameras and that all the action can be seen from any and all angels.  I believe that this was a mistake.  The reason why the Paranormal Activity franchise works so well is because very few cameras are used and the suspense is created from what the audience cannot see that is right out of the eyesight of the cameras.  In Apartment 143 the audience sees everything so there is very little suspense.  Instead, the film tries to overuse the haunted house angle by having something crazy happen every ten minutes.  Some of these “haunting” moments are convincing while others are not.

As directed by Carles Torrens the film is not that bad (he does have lots of camera angles to choose from) and is one of the better low budget films of this ilk but even at 80 minutes the film drags a little but this is more because of the lack of a suitable setup for the parapsychology team than anything else.