Stuart Rosenberg
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The Amityville Horror (2005)
Directed by Andrew Douglas
influenced by The Amityville Horror (1979), Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Plot
That The Amityville Horror is generally considered a classic horror flick is somewhat baffling, though it certainly looks a whole lot better when compared to its sequels.
They play a couple named George and Kathy Lutz, whose experiences inspired a bestselling book named, of course, "The Amityville Horror," and who moved out of their house and left their furniture behind and moved to San Diego, fulfilling all of our dreams.
Like The Exorcist and The Omen, the real baddie of The Amityville Horror is Satan, who drove a boy to kill his parents and four siblings in cold blood, and whose wicked spirit, one year later, possesses new occupant George Lutz (James Brolin) and convinces him to do away with his new wife Kathy (Margot Kidder) and her three annoying kids.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, The Amityville Horror is pure grade B Wisconsin cheese, and for the 17-24 demographic, it works like a charm.
The original was directed by Stuart Rosenberg, a competent journeyman with two great films to his credit (Cool Hand Luke and The Pope of Greenwich Village), and at least the first film tried to follow the book.
The situation offers an opportunity for a few movie jokes, a Pixar favorite (expect lots of “Cool Hand Luke” references).
At least this one is wrapped in a fun "Great Escape"-flavored prison-break story, which features nods to "Cool Hand Luke" and "Escape From Alcatraz."
It becomes a straight-up prison-camp escape picture -- modeled very consciously on classic films like "Stalag 17," "The Great Escape" and "Cool Hand Luke," right down to the music -- with the evil warden taking the form of a good-ol'-boy stuffed animal named Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear (voiced to perfection by Ned Beatty).
(The film has all kinds of subtle Cool Hand Luke moments, with Lotso playing Strother Martin to everyone else.)
The toys' breakout from the day-care center winds up being the ballast of "Toy Story 3," which takes its cues from "Cool Hand Luke" and assorted prison-break flicks, and culminates in a scene of near-death, which, after several episodes of darkness and peril, seems gratuitously excessive.
The best of these is Mr. Lotso Huggin Bear, a lavender plush teddy who “smells like strawberries” and, as ingeniously voiced by Ned Beatty, behaves like a deranged hybrid of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof's Big Daddy and the warden from Cool Hand Luke.
Furman's movie has the throwback vibe of Paul Newman crime procedurals like The Drowning Pool and the swagger of the first installment in a continuing movie or television franchise.
When you consider what Hall did for exceptional films such as, Searching For Bobby Fischer, Marathon Man, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, In Cold Blood, Cool Hand Luke, and American Beauty , you know that his work, when combined with the right material, can be mesmerizing.
The House of the Devil (2009)
Directed by Ti West
influenced by The Amityville Horror (1979)
Themes Characters
As the tale unfolds, a debt to not only '80s horror films, but also Rosemary's Baby, The Amityville Horror , and Hammer's gothic '70s classics also emerges: food (specifically, pizza) is a source of fetid disgust; murderous mysteries are discovered in the remote mansion's nooks and crannies; and Satanism is revealed as a malevolent force with which Samantha must ultimately reckon.
College student Samantha (Jocelin Donahue), all feathered hair and mom jeans, might remind you of Margot Kidder in The Amityville Horror — which seems about right, given this film’s ’80s-set creepy-house tableau.
The Warrens would become more famous later, when they busted ghosts in a house in Amityville, the story that led to The Amityville Horror, a classic movie from 1979.
From The Old Dark House (1932) to The Haunting (1963) to The Amityville Horror (1979) to Poltergeist (1982) to recent hits like Sinister, Paranormal Activity, and Insidious — to say nothing of their sequels — audiences never seem to tire of things that go bump in the night, especially when it happens in a location that seems familiar, safe, and comfortable.
Ever since The Amityville Horror made an unexpected splash at the box office in 1979, very few movies about demonic houses have strayed far from the template.
Los Warren se han hecho incluso más conocidos gracias al caso de Amityville (véase el clásico de 1979, “The Amityville Horror”), pero muchos todavía dudan de su veracidad.
A postmodern American Gothic bouillabaisse, The Conjuring 2 opens with what seems to be a sequel to The Amityville Horror, with the Warrens investigating the house made famous by a half-dozen films, including Stuart Rosenberg's 1979 classic.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
Directed by Miloš Forman
influenced by Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Themes Plot Characters
Like Paul Newman's "Cool Hand Luke," McMurphy is an emblem of determined individualism in a world of conformity, a symbol of people's capacity to overcome odds and accomplish whatever goals they set for themselves no matter what the circumstances.
It is quite similar in plot and theme, to Cool Hand Luke, which predates this movie by eight years but was based on a novel that was most likely influenced by Kesey's.
There, like Randall McMurphy of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Luke will inevitably fulfill and face up to his nature as an existential hero with a countercultural bent.
It actually has a lot in common with the much-rewarded One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which came a decade later.
Whannell’s script ties together a number of tropes that will be familiar to anyone who has seen The Exorcist (1973), Don’t Look Now (1973), The Amityville Horror (1979), and Poltergeist (1982), but let’s be honest: We don’t go to horror movies for originality.
For another thing, while skipping school is exhilarating, I'd have much rather seen the same situation applied to an adult, the way Yves Robert did in ''A Very Happy Alexander" (1969), which had Phillipe Noiret shocking his neighbors by taking to bed after his wife dies and staying there, and as Stuart Rosenberg did in "The April Fools" (also '69), in which Jack Lemmon forsakes his suburban home and family and flies off to Paris with Catherine Deneuve.
In a scene lifted from “Cool Hand Luke,” she also washes cars in a pair of mini-shorts, under the eyes of salivating males, yet she fails to win the love of the new teacher, Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake), who prefers Miss Squirrel.
There's a theatrical quality to the writing here, from the prisoners' communal emotion (reminiscent of, say, Stalag 17) to the rich actor's duet played by Newman and Jo Van Fleet as his visiting, dying mother.
There’s something faintly disappointing about the way that Flanagan turns the indefinable terrors of the Overlook into a mashup of 13 Ghosts (1960), The Amityville Horror (1979) and American Horror Story: Murder House (2011).
The Last Castle (2001)
Directed by Rod Lurie
influenced by Cool Hand Luke (1967), Brubaker (1980)
Plot Themes
Mr. Lurie, who seems more at home in the political world of last year's "The Contender", working from a script by David Scarpa, never creates the emotional tension necessary to propel a story like this to the height of a "Great Escape" or "Cool Hand Luke".
The Last Castle happily trots out a string of clichés familiar from movies such as Cool Hand Luke (Winter makes Irwin repeatedly carry rocks from one end of the prison yard to the other) and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (organising a rebellion against authority, some of the characters etc), yet, to his credit, Lurie makes them work and the pacing of the film carries you along nicely - it’s only later on, after you’ve left the cinema, when you find yourself wondering things such as why, in a prison full of convicts, is everyone so damned nice?
After accidentally insulting Col. Winter's prized collection of military artifacts ("Only a man who has never seen a day of battle collects stuff like this"), Gen. Irwin goes through the obligatory prison movie chestnuts: the scene where the loner sits at the new guy's table; the scene where the jailed bang their cups against the bars in a show of Dead Poets' Society solidarity; and the Cool Hand Luke scenario of digging a hole all day only to fill it in all night.
“Cool Hand Luke” and “Shawshank Redemption” did that too, only doing it much more effectively than “The Last Castle.”
There are similarities to " Cool Hand Luke " and its battle of wills.
The indolent script labors all over the place in the way it owes its nod to countless other flicks ranging from Redford's own "Brubaker" to "Stalag 17".
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
Directed by David Leitch
influenced by Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Dialogue
As for Mr. Statham, his performance can be best summarized with a line from Cool Hand Luke (1967): “What we’ve got here is… failure to communicate.”
Stranger Things (2016)
Directed by David Champion
influenced by The Amityville Horror (1979)
Visuals
Goo pours down walls, as in “The Amityville Horror.”
The Passion of the Christ (2004)
Directed by Mel Gibson
influenced by Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Characters
Like Cool Hand Luke stripped of irony, Rocky or Rambo without the slurred stoicism, Max or Martin Riggs with wisecracks omitted, James Caviezel as Jesus is a two-hour whipping boy, a botched bullfight and walking butcher shop whose miraculous teeth remain evenly intact.
He’ll stand up to the bullies because he’s no doubt seen “Cool Hand Luke” or “Rebel without a Cause.”
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)
Directed by W.D. Richter
influenced by Brubaker (1980)
The character of Buckaroo started as a sprig of an idea in the mind of W.D. Richter, who found a screenwriting hot hand in the late 1970s with reinventions of “Dracula” and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” as well as the Robert Redford prison drama “Brubaker.”
Encased in an almost claustrophobic 1.33:1 Academy aspect ratio, Ramsay’s film begins much like a horror film, not dissimilar from The Amityville Horror.