Let's t with the good news: The house looks great, especially at night with a storm rattling its windows. Or is that noise coming from ghosts moaning inside? Everyone loves a haunted-house movie. That's why the first Amityville Horror, in 1979, was a hit despite being boring, stupid and excruciatingly overacted (the scariest element was Rod Steiger hamming it up as a priest). The remake, also called The Amityville Horror, as if the earlier movie never existed, isn't much better. Except for jacked-up special effects, it's the same old story based on Jay Anson's allegedly factual best seller about a Long Island family who move into a Dutch colonial in Amityville, only to learn their dream house has a history. Just a year earlier, in 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. shot his parents and four siblings in their beds, claiming the house made him do it. No wonder George Lutz (Ryan Reynolds) got a deal on the place. Undeterred, George, his wife, Kathy (Melissa George), and her three kids by a previous marriage (hubby died) move in. "There are no bad houses, just bad people," says George. Has this dude never seen a horror flick? Then he ts seeing things. Feeling cold, he chops wood, which requires an ax, which is not a good tool to have handy if your stepkids really irritate you. First-time director Andrew Douglas crams in every ghost cliche, from demonic faces to dripping blood. This house springs so many FX shocks it plays like a theme-park ride. Result? It's not scary, just busy. For the real thing, watch Psycho to see where Norman Bates shacks up with his mom. Or The Shining, which shows how a deserted hotel can freak out Jack Nicholson. Or The Haunting, the 1963 film of Shirley Jackson's story about a house you can feel in your bones. Or The Innocents, the 1961 screen take on Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, with a mansion that gives off menacing erotic vibes. What all those films have in common is precisely what the new Amityville Horror lacks: They know it's what you don't see in a haunted house that fries your nerves to a frazzle.

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.