Expelled Grey Matter

I will admit that I have been harsh on George Lutz for the fact that he pretty much dedicated his life to protecting what was, in essence, a made up haunted house story that would have fallen apart long before coming to the big screen if not for Jay Anson's wonderful job of turning it into an effective horror novel.  Still, the way he pricked up his ears and swooped in on any project as if he was a huckster Grither was as hilarious as it was disturbingly obsessive. In one case, however, I can see where he was right.  2000s horror, despite a few exceptions, was like 2000s music: derivative, shallow and devoid of any inspiration.  That is why so many older properties got remade in such a short period of time, and The Amityville Horror was one of those.  Despite the fact the series had continued in the 1990s, not one of the films had received a theatrical release since Amityville 3-D , and they barely had any connection with anything that came before them.  Instead...

Most fraudsters like to make their money and run.  George Lutz, however, made a career of suing anyone who tangentially tried to do anything with The Amityville Horror .  Supposedly a lot of it was because of people doing what he did - making things up.  It's to the point where I wonder if, at some point in his life, he convinced himself that a series of things did happen, because a lot of his complaints seemed to be people embellishing a tale that had already been thoroughly picked apart.   Thus, the first run of Amityville movies were plagued by his lawsuits.  Couldn't say this, couldn't do this, couldn't even reference the Lutzes in the sequels.  At least by this third one referencing the Defeo murders by name was allowed, probably because by that point Ronald Defeo Jr. was unquestionably going to be spending the rest of his life in prison, so there was no longer any "allegedly" about it.  Also, Defeo was never going to see one red cent of anyt...

The Amityville Horror was one of the most successful horror films, as well as one of the most successful independent films ever made.  It's hard to understand that now, years after the book has unfortunately been largely forgotten and the the claims made by George and Kathleen Lutz have been disproven.  It made for a lot of hype, as well as a popular haunted house story, but over the years became quite the joke.  Buried under the weight of its sequels and spinoffs it seems like anything that could be milked from it has. Still, with all the money the first made, it was inevitable that a second would show up at some point.  Problem was, no one after the Lutzes had any troubles with the house, despite the fact that Ronald Defeo, Jr. murdered his entire family there.  Of course there was one direction to go as no one had made a movie about the Defeo murders themselves.  Unfortunately, although Defeo claimed he heard voices as one of a number of attempts he mad...

The one thing that disappointed me about the first two Spider-Man films was that Sam Raimi, at least on paper, didn't write them.  I came to find out later that a good portion of both stories, as well as the key action sequences, were his ideas.  Still, I missed the good old days when Sam and his brother Ivan would come up with a wild script full of stuff that one would think definitely shouldn't work, but did.  Darkman was the perfect example, with over-the-top corny dialogue and violence.  The fact that they were more involved with the actual writing of the third installment gave me some hope that a bit of the weirdness would return.  It did, but unfortunately it came with a lot of studio interference.  And, to make matters worse, the parts that were pure Raimi did not fit at all with the rest of the movie.  Instead, Spider-Man 3 became quite a mess, and spelled the end of what was supposed to go on at least another three films.  Spider-Man 3 be...

When I was a child and still impressionable one of the few things that truly frightened me was the story of the Amityville house.  Keep in mind I did not see the movie until much, much later.  My parents were lenient, but no way were they taking a seven-year-old to see an R-rated horror film.  Rather, my first encounter with The Amityville Horror was through a half-hour pseudo-science show narrated by Leonard Nimoy called In Search Of .  Once the movie became a hit, and long before everyone knew that the Lutzs' story was fake, In Search Of did an entire show regarding the supposed occurrences at the house on 112 Ocean Avenue, and it was quite effective - at least to a kid.  The show featured scenes from the movie - the eyes in the window, the face in the red room, George's obsession with the fireplace, etc. - largely serving as a highlight reel of the film.  Although I was a pretty tough cookie when it came to such things, the Amityville house, with its eye...

I am going to get an elephant in the room dealt with quickly, and it is the same thing that I had to mention in my review of Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects .  Singer is a creep - an entitled ephebophile who managed to hide his crimes due to the fact that he is bisexual and could, in most cases, brush away accusations as homophobia.  It didn't help that some of the early accusations were false, but it just happened that ironically solid ones started pop up after the release of Bohemian Rhapsody .  That, unfortunately, has put a stain on him and the movies that he has made - a number of them, arguably, cultural touchstones of the late '90s and early 2000s.  That said, long before Disney bought out both Marvel and 20th Century Fox, X-Men was one of the first superhero films to take the subject matter seriously.  Other than the first two Superman movies and the Tim Burton Batman films the legacy of superhero films prior to X-Men was spotty at best.  Singer w...

Despite what a number of critics might think - with quite a number of them feeling the need to virtue signal after the abject failure of the 2016 version of Ghostbusters  - there is really no way of doing a proper Ghostbusters sequel at this point without triggering nostalgia.  There may be also be some deep-seated idea, still, that if that nostalgia does not apply to Boomers or '90s kids that it is somehow invalid.  While there is a lot from pop culture of the 1980s - and the 1990s, for that fact - that hasn't aged well, it seems that attacks specifically on Gen X touchstones are the norm.  But, while everyone else tends to wring their hands, truth is Gen X is a tough bunch and we really never expect other generations to like what we like.   The 2016 version of Ghostbusters was not a disappointment because women were playing the precious roles that we imagined men should be playing.  The problem was it had everything that was bad about modern film ma...