When it comes to horror, I have learned to degrade my aspirations. Regardless of what could be done in a genre that has no boundaries theoretically, I'm already satisfied if a movie manages to make me jump every now and then these days. In the first two thirds "The Amityville Horror" delivers just that, fast pacing and some pretty effective jumps by using some cheap shock effects. Since this is a remake it is forgivable that it doesn't come up with anything remotely new or original. There's the ever so familiar haunted house, Dad losing his mind, heads shaking à la Jacob's Ladder, weird shadows moving fast and making insect sounds and the more than overused spooky little girl (really, having such a kid in another horror movie is idiotic and didn't even make much sense in this particular movie). Still, all that makes for an uneasy atmosphere and there's one scene in the bathroom that's set up gloriously, toying cleverly with a classic childhood fear (going to the toilet in the middle of the night in a dark and spooky house).
So far the movie would get a straight 7 from me. Then somebody decided to add a background story, an explanation that's so silly and underdeveloped, it virtually ruined the whole movie (Ketchem, my ass). Characters start to act all weird (Kathy Lutz is a bit too patient with her raging husband, the kids go back and forth from being close to madness to feeling very comfortable in the house, Kathy continues to ask Father whatshisname for advice after he has run away from the house crying like a girl), which makes the whole third act seem as if it had been rewritten more than once and then edited into a mess. That's more than a tiny flaw and it keeps the movie from being anything better than a 6.
