Release Date:
04/15/2005
Attention homeowners: If you think property taxes are driving you crazy, be thankful that it's not a persuasive bullet-riddled ghost of a 13-year-old girl guiding you toward killing your family. Unfortunately for George Lutz (Ryan Reynolds), his beautiful wife (Melissa George), and their three spuds, the girl's ghost is alive, (relatively) well, and not receiving visitors. This is the "true" story of the horrors faced by the Lutz family who unwittingly moved into a haunted, grisly crime scene just a year after Ronald DeFeo Jr., obeying the voices in his head, shot six members of his family in their sleep. From day one, things start to go grump in the night for George, and it's not long until the girl, the voices in his head, and his schizoid dreams conspire to send him down the path of an insomniac, bloodshot madman. Will he fall victim to the demonic presence in the basement? Will he end up killing his family? Will he ever get around to fixing the leak under the sink? Although it does cop out with some predictable horror clichés (fending off bloodied arms in the tub, fridge magnets rearranging themselves into spooky threats, Seattle weather), this unrelenting remake of the 1979 classic does provide enough frights, blood-splatterings, and subliminal effects to make the rest of Long Island appear inhabitable by comparison.