The Amityville Horror scared the crap out of me in 1979, but then again I wanted my own R2D2 robot butler and I spent too much time in the basement playing Dungeons and Dragons.

It’s amazing what 26 years will change.

Ok… I still want the R2D2 robot butler, but “The Amityville Horror” sucked then and it still sucks now.

I was shocked to learn that there were 9 sequels after the original. It just goes to show that nothing is scarier in Hollywood than an appalling lack of imagination.

It makes me wonder how stupid the 9th family who moved in was?

“Oh, ignore that sprawling field of tombstones in the back yard with all the recent deaths chiseled in. There was a bad batch of tuna salad making the rounds.”

Shall I refresh your memory about the back story? In 1974 Ronald Defeo Jr. killed six members of his family while they slept. It would have ended there except whomever designed the house decided to put two windows near the roof that look like sinister eyes and thus a legend was born.

Never hire Charles Manson to be your architect. You’ll end up with a rose garden shaped like a severed goat’s head.

Back to the Defeo family.

Right before Ronnie snuffed his family he started scribbling in a book in the usual way that crazy people do in movies. What is it with that scratchy handwriting anyway? Between “Suspect Zero” “The Ring” and “Seven”, there always seems to be some book filled with disturbing drawings, poems or hundreds of obsessive notes in the margin. Is there a crazy scrapbook section at White Rose that I missed? To me this kind of behaviour should be pretty easy to notice. Your kid is rocking back and forth while clutching a book? Hide the silverware and sleep with one eye open.

Well, they didn’t and now they’re dead.

DEAD I tells ya!!

Serves them right for living in a house shaped like a jack o’ lantern and letting their son spend all of his time in the basement cleaning his shotgun.

Along comes Ryan Reynolds and he thinks to himself, “I don’t care if there was a massacre in this house, I’m getting a great deal on the real estate.” I do the same thing with mattresses at Value Village. You can hardly notice the big yellow stain if you flip it over and besides, the damn thing is 50% off!!

Within a day of moving in, the youngest step daughter starts talking to an “imaginary” friend as she bunks down where the last little girl had her head blown off.

“Look mommy, I found a chunk of meat in the floorboards”… (shudder)…

Sigh… Like every freaking horror movie out there you have to prepare yourself for the inevitable “bathroom” scene.

You know the scene. Let’s all say it together.

Father/Mother/Daughter/Son has to get something out of the medicine cabinet. Any idea on what they’ll see when they close the mirrored cabinet door? Well, it’s not an original idea that’s for sure.

I’d like to see a sign that says “insert bleeding corpse here.”

Listen people, Alfred Hitchcock perfected the horrific bathroom scene. Can we agree on this?

Jamie’s first rule of horror movies… no one goes into the bathroom!!

I’ll kill you in the laundry room.

Want to scare a man? Give him a basket full of dirty laundry and watch him try to figure out what to do with your bra.

THEN impale him.

Ok, so back to the movie. We’ve got the daughter playing with a ghost while the dad goes slowly insane. What does this sound like? Uhhhh…. the Shining perhaps?

Give yourself a cookie!!

The reason that “The Shining” was scary was because the family was trapped in a resort during a snowstorm. It’s just hard to feel bad for some idiots when it’s a lovely summer day and you live beside a lake. Here’s an idea. LEAVE!! They don’t even have car trouble for crying out loud. The only reason there isn’t a Wal Mart across the street is because it takes place in the 1970’s.

Where’s the guy in the wheelchair? I miss the gimp who gets stuck in the mud while trying to flee evil. At least he had an excuse for sticking around.

The last straw for me was the appalling lack of a floating pig’s head in this movie. That was the best scene in the original! It’s like remaking the story of Moses and forgetting about the whole parting of the red sea bit.

This movie is better than “The Grudge” but only marginally. It’s like me asking you if you’d prefer a kick in the nutsack or a punch in the throat.

Go rent “The Shining”