Ryan Reynolds is Terrifyingly Well Built

When we were back in school, one of our hippier teachers told us of that semi-art semi-political semi-fun grandfather of performance art known as "Happenings" that swept the nation in the 60s. When we heard what was going down at the Alamo Drafthouse on Thursday night, we knew it was a happening, and we knew we would be there.

As part of the premiere of the new old movie The Amityville Horror, the good folks at the Drafthouse constructed a miniature house and filled it with 25,000 flies. Those brave enough to enter and remain in the house for 30 seconds were rewarded with tickets to the movie and a fancy t-shirt. Some of the gut churning horror and revulsion of the house of flies was lessened as we chatted with the amicable fly tamer in the house while hundreds of Austin bred insects attempted to nest in our hair. After that we proceeded into the theater...oh alright we had a few drinks first to kill time...then we went into the movie.

For those of you who aren't aware, The original Amityville Horror is a "true story" based on the experiences of George and Kathleen Lutz who claimed their house was haunted after some rather unpleasant things happened there. The remake takes the story in a new , more culturally relevant direction as the story of one man's struggle with steroid abuse. Seriously. You won't believe how cut Ryan Reynolds looks in this movie. Every scene of terror was muddied as we pondered exactly how much he could bench, or if they had the same sports shake technology in the 70s.

While our memory of the original movie is based on seeing it at four in the morning when we were twelve, we believe that Ryan Reynolds stayed fairly true to the character established by James Brolin, in that they both had beards (as did three out of every four men in the 70s, don't believe us? Ask for pictures of your dad.) Beyond that we're pretty hazy, though it seemed fairly clear flies played a part in both movies.

As the movie begins, Reynolds is adjusting to life with his new wife Melissa George and her kids (two guys, a girl). Though contemplating moving into a pizza place down the road, they instead find a wonderful deal at the murder house in Amityville. Being naturally suspect with the ginormous house's tiniscule price, they enquire, "What's the catch?" Informed that a man murdered his entire family after hearing voices that came from the house, they breath a sigh of relief and sign the lease. Honestly. What kinda catch were they looking for to make them not take the house? Being just outside of the good school districts coulda been a dealbreaker, but being a demon house of hell is just fine?

The movie winds through a number of scares in a somewhat slapdash, throw everything at the wall and see what sticks manner. Ghosts appear, things move around, people are possessed, swarms of flies pop up, walls bleed. You can almost hear the SFX crew running up to the director, "Hey what about an Indian burial ground chamber?" "Great! We'll toss it in in the last ten minutes for the hell of it!" It has a certain amount of charm to it, like a kid brother who keeps trying to make you laugh despite his limited comedic abilities and terrible speech impediment.

Reynolds adequately portrays a man torn between the insane desire to kill his family and the insatiable need to blast his quads. It is clearly his best role since Van Wilder, another movie we have barely seen but we believe was also a remake of PCU, which was of course a remake of Animal House, which not many people know was a remake of Chinese legend Tian-Lin Wang's 1957 film Unproud Beast Domicile.

After the movie, the crowd was treated to a Q&A session with Ryan Beefcake and two of the film's producers who also brought us the Austin-filmed remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The group offered both humor and insight which we have already forgotten. As a final treat, audience members were invited to recite haikus based on the movie to win commemorative Amityville snow globes. The Austinist rep'ed big time pulling in one of those sweet ass trinkets for their efforts.

All in all, if you are looking for a few decent scares or ideas on how to bulk up your abs, we at the Austinist heartily recommend The Amityville Horror.