The Amityville Horror story is an American horror tale that grew out of one family's lived experience, and it's been told in a number of films, including 2005's The Amityville Horror, starring Ryan Reynolds. Ryan isn't known for horror films. In fact, this is the only true horror flick he ever appeared in, before or since. This is partially due to experiences had by himself and the rest of the cast in crew while filming the movie. To say that things got a little creepy — and in one case, out of control — is a bit of an understatement. Let's gather around the campfire and talk about a film that's now notorious for those who made it. This is how Amityville Horror changed Ryan Reynolds forever.
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00:00 The 2000s were a little tough on Ryan Reynolds.
00:03 "But why?"
00:06 Though he starred in some truly fun comedies during that era of his career, he also had
00:10 roles in numerous critically panned and commercially unsuccessful films, one of those being the
00:15 remake of The Amityville Horror.
00:18 "Oh, thank God!
00:22 Damn it!"
00:24 Not only was the film's critical reception a bummer for Reynolds, but the actual filming
00:28 process as well, thanks to genuinely spooky things that kept happening on set.
00:33 He hasn't done a horror movie since, and has only dipped his toes back into creepy territory
00:38 once for the 2015 black comedy The Voices.
00:41 "So you think I'm evil, Bosco?"
00:44 "I'll turn it up."
00:46 So clearly, the Amityville experience left its mark.
00:50 You might even say he's haunted by it.
00:52 There have been many stories over the years about strange things happening on horror sets,
00:56 and the amount of weirdness on the Amityville set was hard to deny.
01:01 Given the film's basis in the allegedly real experiences of George and Kathy Lutz and the
01:06 murders of the DeFeo family in 1974, the incidents were enough to spook anyone.
01:12 Early on during filming, a body washed up on the shore of the lake near the set, causing
01:16 production to shut down for a few days.
01:18 The real-life Kathy Lutz died at age 58 of emphysema while filming was still going on,
01:24 which some rightfully found to be ominous.
01:27 Some of the crew also experienced bizarre coincidences, like waking up at exactly 3:15
01:33 a.m., a time relevant to the events in the film.
01:36 Reynolds told MovieWeb,
01:37 "I think a lot of people make that stuff up to sell their movie.
01:41 But there was some weird stuff that happened.
01:43 A lot of the crew were waking up at 3.15 in the morning, which was when all these atrocities
01:47 in the house took place each time.
01:49 I think it was a subconscious thing.
01:51 You read a script and suddenly pop awake at 3.15 in the morning."
01:55 One thing that wasn't just subconscious was Reynolds' feelings about the house.
01:59 Which was a real home from the 1800s, retrofitted to look more like the original Amityville
02:04 house.
02:05 Though the original home still stands in New York, the film used a house from that era
02:09 in Salem, Wisconsin.
02:11 Reynolds said the location was deeply unsettling, even though it didn't have the Amityville
02:15 house's haunted history.
02:17 It's terrifying.
02:18 There's something about the house that's upsetting.
02:21 In the Amityville horror, family patriarch George Lutz starts slowly losing his mind
02:26 as a result of the angry ghost of the murdered DeFeo family.
02:30 His downward spiral has been compared to Jack Nicholson's Jack Torrance in The Shining,
02:34 as he starts becoming violent and unhinged as his mind slips further into madness.
02:38 "No!
02:39 No!
02:40 No!
02:41 No!
02:42 No!
02:43 No!
02:44 No!
02:45 No!
02:46 No!
02:47 No!"
02:48 Chloe Grace Moretz and Jesse James played the Lutz children, and during one of the scenes
02:53 where George is upset with his son, Reynolds got a little too into his character.
02:57 At one point while filming, he actually slapped one of his young co-stars, even though it
03:02 wasn't in the script.
03:03 "Put your hands up there.
03:06 Put your... we're friends.
03:10 We're having fun, right?"
03:12 He told MovieWeb,
03:13 "I didn't mean to do it.
03:15 It wasn't hard or anything.
03:17 He looked up like he just won the lottery.
03:19 It was just so cool to him.
03:20 And I look over and the script supervisor's crying, and I'm trying to apologize to her.
03:25 I don't know what's happening."
03:26 Thankfully, James handled it like a pro, and his parents and everyone on set chalked it
03:30 up to the intensity of the sequence.
03:32 But it was a little unnerving for Reynolds.
03:34 "In a perverse way, I was sort of excited by the fact that something happened on film
03:38 that was just totally unplanned.
03:40 And it just came out organically enough, and not so organically, that it actually hurt
03:44 anyone.
03:45 So everyone walked away from it, but it was definitely disturbing."
03:49 Following the intense shoot, The Amityville Horror was released and panned by critics
03:54 and audiences alike.
03:55 It's a rare performance for Reynolds, where he's not playing a version of himself.
03:59 And it's surprisingly layered, given that it's an otherwise lackluster movie.
04:03 Maybe we'll see Reynolds return to scary movies one day.
04:06 But with The Amityville Horror as his only experience so far, it's hard to blame him
04:11 for holding off.
04:12 "I don't know.
04:13 I don't know what to say.
04:14 I don't know what to say."
04:15 "I don't know what to say."
04:16 "I don't know what to say."