The Amityville Horror

The Amityville Horror (1979)

So I consider myself a big horror nerd, yet somehow I’ve never checked out The Amityville Horror, or any of it’s sequels. So I decided to sit down recently and begin to rectify that. The movie is supposedly based on the true story of the Lutz family that moves into a beautiful old home. The year before they moved in the eldest son of the previous owners went on a murder spree and killed his family in the house. When the Lutz’s move in strange things begin happening. A priest begins to suffer from strange ailments after being chased from the home while blessing it. A babysitter gets locked into a closet and terrified while watching the Lutz’s young daughter. Another time a window seemingly “attacks” on of the Lutz’s sons, sending him to the hospital. This is all in addition to the personality change suffered by George Lutz, including a nasty temper and the obsession with keeping a blazing fire going. Eventually one night the entire family flees the house leaving everything behind.

So I don’t get it. For the last, well almost 30 years, I’ve been hearing how scary and terrifying this movie is. I suppose I could be jaded, but this movie didn’t scare me at all. With the exception of a rocking chair that moves by itself there wasn’t anything the least bit scary or creepy about this movie at all. I suppose an argument could be made that this is all “real”, which of course given the intervening years and admissions from the family it isn’t. But in the end this is a movie and I will judge it against other films. With those standards The Amityville Horror is not very good. In addition to not being scary I found the movie to be slow and boring. I love a good ghost story, but the ones that work have to create an atmosphere or be shot in such a way that they are interesting. This movie fails to be at all interesting and generates little atmosphere. Plus real or not the ending in this movie is very anticlimactic and boring. The only reason this movie isn’t completely worthless are the performances from James Brolin and Margot Kidder. As the leads in the film they are asked to carry it, and they do a decent job. The other star of the movie is Rod Steiger as the priest chased from the house. When he was younger Steiger was a pretty decent actor, but by the time he was cast in this part he had fallen into the emoting equals yelling trap that plagued most of his later roles.

If ever there was a movie that could benefit from some creative camera work ala Dario Argento or Mario Bava this is it. Hell just the look of the house has made it an icon of American pop culture and the filmmakers should have made the house a main character by lighting and shooting it creatively. Also would it of killed them to put some effort into the sound, perhaps emphasizing the creaks and groans that all old homes have? This movie is shockingly average in the way it was made, which is a damn shame.

I won’t say this is a terrible movie, only because I’ve seen much worse in my time as a reviewer. But this is one of those movies that clearly doesn’t live up to it’s reputation and billing. My only hope is that the sequels or perhaps the remake are better.

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer