The Amityville Horror (1979)

When I was a child and still impressionable one of the few things that truly frightened me was the story of the Amityville house.  Keep in mind I did not see the movie until much, much later.  My parents were lenient, but no way were they taking a seven-year-old to see an R-rated horror film.  Rather, my first encounter with The Amityville Horror was through a half-hour pseudo-science show narrated by Leonard Nimoy called In Search Of. 

Once the movie became a hit, and long before everyone knew that the Lutzs' story was fake, In Search Of did an entire show regarding the supposed occurrences at the house on 112 Ocean Avenue, and it was quite effective - at least to a kid.  The show featured scenes from the movie - the eyes in the window, the face in the red room, George's obsession with the fireplace, etc. - largely serving as a highlight reel of the film.  Although I was a pretty tough cookie when it came to such things, the Amityville house, with its eye-like windows and chimney looking like a demonic face, was one of the few things that got to me.  Some of my few nightmares to this day involve being in a house that is patently evil and controlled by some sort of presence; not just a haunted house, but a sentient building that is opposed to everything good in this world. 

At some point as a teenager I finally saw the movie and it would be an understatement to say I wasn't impressed.  What scared me a few years before looked cheap, and it took forever for the movie to even get to those parts.  A large part of what I remembered was not the flies or the bleeding walls, but George (James Brolin) and Kathleen (Margot Kidder) yelling at each other throughout the movie.  It seemed more like a family drama, and seeing a washed-out print on 1980s VHS didn't help.  Despite this, when I read Jay Anson's book in the early 1990s, even by that time knowing that there was nothing real to the story at all, I had the same creepy feelings I did as a child.  There was a lot I had forgot about the story, particularly that the forces in the house could actually reach out and harm others to keep them from interfering.  While as an adult it becomes obvious that all this minute plotting should have signaled early on that the story was fake, Anson was an excellent horror writer and, no matter what the intended outcome of the book was, he did his job.  The book is tense and frightening in a way that the movie is not.

In 1974 Ronald DeFeo, Jr. (not mentioned by name in the film due to legal reasons) murders his entire family in a Dutch Colonial home in the small Long Island community of Amityville.  When brought to trial he claims that voices in the home told him to do it.  Within a year the house is up for sale and George and Kathleen Lutz, looking to finally own their own home, are able to purchase it at a bargain due to the events, of which they are completely aware.  Unfortunately, it seems the house, or whatever is in it, has plans for them.  The first clue comes when Father Delaney (Rod Steiger) arrives to bless the house and is attacked by a mass of flies and told by a disembodied voice.

While Delaney becomes concerned for the Lutzes he is prevented from returning to the house as he soon becomes deathly ill and, thought to be having a nervous breakdown by his superiors, denied the right to look into it further.  Over the next few weeks that the Lutzes inhabit the house, their daughter Amy (Natasha Ryan) starts speaking with an imaginary friend named Jodie while George himself is perpetually cold and soon becomes withdrawn and violent.  As their lives quickly spiral out of control the Lutzes are forced to face the fact that they have definitely picked the wrong place to settle down. 

While the book is great and the episode of In Search Of boils the movie down to its core scenes, The Amityville Horror is an incoherent mess.  The story was well-known enough that it propelled the movie to becoming one of the biggest box offices earners of 1979 and, at the time, one of the most successful independent films.  Much of this was definitely due to the insistence at the time that the events were based on a true story, although the movie is careful to say that is based on Jay Anson's book.  Also, regionally at least, the DeFeo murders were still big news, and the Lutzs' tale was kind of a coda to a lurid story that involved potential child abuse and mafia connections.  Watching it now, however, the movie drags for most of its nearly two-hour runtime, despite Brolin and Kidder trying to put in good performances with the dialogue they are given.

Poor Rod Steiger, though, is given such horrible lines and such a one-dimensional character that he has no recourse but to overact his way through it, and that he does.  What are supposed to be emotionally wrenching lines involving his loss of faith in the Church over its refusal to investigate come out so over the top that it is hard to hold back laughter.  Same could be said for some of the effects, particularly when the entity is briefly revealed.  What was frightening as a child is now a need to remind myself that they were trying to do their best with the budget they had.  Despite that, the bleeding walls and the swarms of flies work and to this day are referenced in modern horror films. 

While the house looks similar to the one in Amityville, the movie was made in Tom's River, New Jersey.  Still, the different lighting and angles, especially when accompanied by Lalo Schifrin's score, are some of the better parts of the movie.  Stuart Rosenberg definitely knows what he is doing as a director, but the story as a whole seems chopped up, as if screenwriter Sandor Stern just picked pieces of the book that he thought would look good.  Thus many scenes happen and are never referred to again and, in addition, a good portion of what was in the movie was added for "dramatic effect" as well.

Despite the fact that the movie definitely brought in money for all involved the real George Lutz was not happy about many of the changes that were made and events that were added that he said were false.  For Anson any benefit was short-lived as he passed away the next year.  In fact, about everyone involved in writing or making the film, save Stern and Brolin and the Lutzs' children, are long gone, and that includes Ronald DeFeo, Jr. who just recently died in prison.  Unfortunately, the Amityville series lives on in an ongoing series of cheap direct-to-streaming films, attaching the subject matter to everything from vampires to Karens.  It is surprising that the story has carried on as long as it has, but haunted houses - particularly if the house itself is malevolent - seem to hold a fascination for many people, whether the haunting has any basis in truth or not. 

The Amityville Horror (1979)

Time: 118 minutes

Starring: James Brolin, Margot Kidder, Rod Steiger

Director: Stuart Rosenberg