Now Showing: Amityville

Amityville

Genre: Horror/Supernatural/Crime

Director: Vincenzo Natali

Writer: Jack Brown

Based on The Amityville Horror franchise Cast: Nick Robinson, Chris Bauer, Molly Ringwald, Sophie Nelisse, Violet McGraw, Julian Hilliard, Luke Dodge, Jeffrey DeMunn, Stephen McHattie, Dean Norris

Plot: Based on true events that happened at 112 Ocean Avenue.

Ronald "Big Ronnie" DeFeo Sr. (Chris Bauer) moves his family from their cramped Brooklyn apartment to a house in Amityville on Long Island. Ronnie drives a car in front of the moving truck. His wife Louise (Molly Ringwald) sits next to him, with his four youngest children, John (Luke Dodge), Marc (Julian Hilliard), Allison (Violet McGraw) and Dawn (Sophie Nelisse) crammed in the backseats. Their oldest son has promised to meet them at the new house. When they arrive at the large three-story house at 112 Ocean Avenue, Louise is impressed by the size of the house and property. When they get out of the car, the kids all run to the backyard which has its own boathouse and dock along the Amityville River. Louise asks Ronnie how on Earth they can afford such a place. Ronnie assures her that he has it all figured out and that she should just worry about turning the big house into a big home. The movers begin unloading boxes from the moving truck. Ronnie slowly grows angry as he looks at the clock and realizes his oldest son is late to meet them. Finally, as the sun is beginning to set, Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr. (Nick Robinson) finally arrives, half-drunk. Ronnie hangs up the expensive oil painted portraits he had commissioned of the family and tasks Butch with hanging a sign above the front door that reads: High Hopes. Ronnie lashes out at Butch for not centering the sign properly and makes him redo it. Butch tries to refuse, but Ronnie demands that if he’s going to be living at home still then he better do what he is told. Butch begrudgingly re-hangs the sign until his father is satisfied. Meanwhile, Louise hangs up a wooden crucifix in the living room. 

Louise gets ready to make the first dinner in the family's new kitchen. While she is filling a pot up with water to cook some spaghetti, Butch knocks the pot away after the water appears to be blood and yells at her to stop. Ronnie smacks his son over the back of the head for scaring his mother. Butch tries to say that the water looked like blood, but he stops himself when he looks at the floor and sees a normal puddle of water. Ronnie tosses Butch some towels and tells him to clean it up. Butch does a lazy job wiping up the water, so Ronnie tells him to leave the kitchen and go unpack some boxes down in the basement, including his collection of hunting rifles. Butch goes down to the basement. He takes some boxes of Christmas decorations and tosses them into a closet, knocking open a hidden door to a secret room. Butch pulls out his lighter and is about to go through the small passageway, but stops when Dawn comes down to the basement to call him up for dinner. 

After dinner, Butch goes to investigate the secret room in the basement, Butch thinks he hears whispering voices as he crawls through the small doorway. The secret room glows red from the light of Butch's cigarette lighter. Butch feels hands reaching out from the bricks, grabbing him. Butch struggles free and frantically crawls out of the "red room" and back to the main basement area. Butch grabs one of Ronnie's hunting rifles and aims it at the closet, waiting for whatever grabbed him to come out. To pass the time, Butch lights up a joint as he continues watching the closet. He eventually dozes off to sleep. Soon Butch is up on his feet, sleepwalking through the house. He sleepwalks to each bedroom. First he stands over his little brothers John and Marc, then to Allison and Dawn. However, Dawn wakes up and notices Butch’s shadowy figure in her doorway. Once he moves on, she sneaks up and watches Butch then does the same thing in their parents’ bedroom. She whispers out his name, trying to ask what he’s doing. Butch then turns around and walks right past Dawn without acknowledging her. Dawn follows Butch down to the basement. Butch goes back to sleep. Dawn thinks she sees movement in a dark corner of the basement, but can’t find anything. When she turns around to go back to bed, she is startled to find Butch standing behind her, awake. He asks her what she’s doing in the basement in the middle of the night. Dawn tells Butch that he had been sleepwalking, but he says that was just in his dream. He then gives Dawn a long hug and a kiss on the cheek, telling her to go back to bed.

Upstairs, Louise finds her crucifix has been ripped off the wall. She asks the kids if they were rough housing and accidentally knocked it over. She tells them she won’t be mad if they tell her the truth. John, Marc and Allison all deny doing anything to her cross. Louise decides to hang it back up without mentioning anything to Ronnie to keep him from getting angry. She makes the younger kids promise that if they break something they will tell her first before their father has a chance to find out.

The DeFeo family attends mass at the local Catholic church for the first time after Ronnie refuses to drive all the way to Brooklyn for an hour of church.  After the service, Louise asks to speak with the priest, Father Santino (Jeffrey DeMunn). As Marc and John run circles around them playing, Louise explains to the priest that she would like to become an active part of the church there in Amityville and would appreciate it if he would bless their new home. Father Santino agrees and they schedule a time for him to come over. Santino comes over later that day, much to the surprise of Ronnie, who has had several drinks by then. He becomes angry at the sight of the priest. Louise convinces him to calm down by getting him a cigar and another drink. As soon as Santino begins the ritual, Butch walks into the house with mud on his shoes. Ronnie is sent into a rage by the sight of muddy footprints on his new floors. A full blown shouting match begins between Butch and Ronnie. Santino tells Louise that perhaps another time would be better and leaves. When Father Santino gets back out to his car and drives away, the quarter-moon windows of the house at 112 Ocean Avenue glow red like demonic eyes in the car's rear view mirror.

On another late night, Butch is once again in the basement guarding the door to the red room. Dawn comes down to the basement and asks what is really going on since he seems to spend all of his time staring at the closet in the basement. Butch tells her that she wouldn’t believe it if he told her. She tells him that the rest of the family is asleep, so he might as well show her what’s going on. Butch lights a couple of candles and leads Dawn into the red room. They both hear whispers coming from the shadows. Hands reach out from the bricks, ripping off Dawn’s nightgown. Naked and scared, Dawn looks to Butch for help, but he just stares at her intensely. The hands hold Dawn against the wall. Butch hears whispers in his head. He pulls down his pants and forces himself on Dawn as the hands restrain her. Dawn finally stops resisting and the hands release her. She takes control, climbing on top of Butch on the floor of the red room. A shadow is silhouetted on the walls from the candle light, watching Dawn and Butch as they have sex on the cold, red-stained stone floor.

The DeFeo family has a barbecue in their backyard on a warm Fall afternoon. Butch invites his girlfriend Geraldine Gates (Virginia Gardner) to meet his family. Ronnie’s uncle Peter DeFeo (Stephen McHattie) arrives at the festivities, making Louise fery uncomfortable. Sensing that people are afraid of “Uncle Peter”, Allison asks the family why. Butch lets it slip that Peter is in the mafia. Ronnie slaps Butch across the face for using that word at the house. Butch storms off to the boat dock. Geraldine follows him and asks what is wrong. Butch is embarrassed that his father would emasculate him in front of others like that. Geraldine, trying to cheer Butch up, says that he still seems plenty manly to her. When the food is done, Dawn passes out plates to everyone except for Geraldine, skipping her out of jealousy. Peter asks Ronnie how the new house is working out. Ronnie insists it is a great fit for them. Peter quietly reminds Ronnie that certain favors are expected to be fulfilled if the family is going to continue being able to pay the hefty mortgage. Butch eavesdrops on their conversation.

After everyone else has gone to sleep, Butch once again sleepwalks through the house going to each of the bedrooms of everyone in his family - this time with the hunting rifle in his hands. Above each of his siblings and his parents, he pulls the trigger of the rifle. It isn’t loaded and just makes a quiet click each time. Once has made his rounds through each bedroom, the sleepwalking Butch once again returns to the basement. 

Butch wipes down cars at the car dealership he and his father both work at. Butch clearly isn’t focused and ruins the paint job on one of the new cars. Ronnie yells at Butch that he needs to get his act together or he might as well leave for the day. Butch puts his rags away and leaves for the day. He goes to see Geraldine at the diner where she works as a waitress. He tells her that living with his family is driving him insane and that he thinks they should move to New Jersey to the apartment building her family owns. Geraldine is excited and promises to make the arrangements. Butch is in a good mood until he returns home, where it immediately sours. When he walks in the door, Ronnie is yelling at Louise because one of his work shirts wasn’t cleaned properly. Butch suffers through dinner with his family silently. As soon as dinner is over, Butch goes down to the basement and into the red room. He sits on the floor. Liquid begins dripping onto him. He looks at it, discovering it is blood. Instead of panicking and moving, Butch closes his eyes and lets the blood flow across his body. 

Seemingly in a trance, Butch exits the red room and grabs a hunting rifle. He is joined by Dawn with an identical hunting rifle. Butch and Dawn walk up the stairs to the second floor of the house in silent unison. Butch goes to their parents’ bedroom while Dawn goes to Marc and John’s bedroom. Together they shoot. BANG! John and Louise are dead. BANG! Marc and Ronnie are dead. Allison hears the gunshots and hides under her bed. Allison sees two pairs of feet enter the bedroom. Dawn calls out for her, insisting that it is safe to come out now. Allison comes out from under the bed, only to be immediately shot by Dawn, who then snaps out of her possessed state. She cries in horror at what they have done. She pleads with Butch to kill her too as she does not want to live without their younger siblings. Butch obliges and shoots Dawn, killing her. Butch silently goes back down to the red room and sits until morning. When Butch comes upstairs in the morning, he is surprised to see that nobody else is awake yet. He goes upstairs and is horrified when he sees that every single member of his family has been shot in the middle of the night. Butch panics when he sees specks of blood on his clothing. He goes down the street to the neighborhood bar. He uses the payphone there to call Geraldine. He tells her that he hasn't heard from his family and that he's worried. She tells him that she is on her way to Long Island immediately. Butch then calls his own house, hoping everything was just an illusion and someone answers the phone. It keeps ringing and ringing. When Geraldine arrives at the bar, she and Butch go over to his house together. Once Geraldine sees the entire family shot to death she tells Butch to call the police immediately. Butch freezes, so Geraldine calls them.

When the police arrive at 112 Ocean Avenue, they immediately begin to question Butch on his whereabouts. Butch admits that he must have been doing drugs and passed out somewhere the night before because he doesn’t remember much. He tells them that he usually keeps to himself in the basement and can go days without actually seeing his family. They ask Butch if his family had any enemies. Butch tells them that his father recently purchased the house, but that he can’t afford it, so he borrowed money from family connections in the mafia. With that one word, the police place Butch in protective custody under the assumption that the murder of his family was mob-related. The police question Uncle Peter DeFeo, but he has an alibi as police were watching him on other matters at the time, so he couldn’t have been involved. While searching the house, the police find the rifles that match the murders. Butch is questioned down at the police station. He is told that all of the evidence points toward him being the murderer and the police ask him if someone in the mafia forced or coerced him into killing his family. Butch puts his head in his hands and begins to tell the detectives that he heard voices that told him to kill his family. Butch tries to say that if he was going to kill someone in his family, that it would just be his parents, not his younger siblings. With that the police arrest Butch for the murders of his family members. Butch begins crying out that he was possessed by something in his house. He frantically urges investigators to search the basement and find the secret room. 

Uncle Peter visits Butch in jail as he is the closest living family member. He asks Butch what the hell happened. Butch begins going through his stories, including mentioning that Dawn was the one who killed the younger siblings, but Peter tells him to shut up and stop trying to drag anyone else through the mud. Peter tells Butch that he has arranged for a lawyer, but that nobody in the family wants anything to do with Butch going forward. Peter then leaves as Butch’s new lawyer William Weber (Dean Norris) replaces him in the visitation room. Weber suggests the two go with an insanity defense based on Butch claiming he heard voices. Butch goes further stating that the house itself was possessed by a demon that he encountered in the basement of the house in the secret red room. Weber is feverishly taking notes for the case as Butch rambles. Weber is drinking a cup of coffee. Butch looks inside the mug and sees blood instead of coffee. He begins screaming “I am the demon!” repeatedly. Weber leaves the room with a smile on his face. He announces that no sound jury is going to think Butch isn’t insane.

The belongings of the DeFeo family are removed from the house at 112 Ocean Avenue and the house is put up for sale again, this time at a heavily discounted price.