The Amityville Horror
The Amityville Horror. There’s no place like home…for bloodcurdling horror! James Brolin, Margot Kidder and Academy AwardÂ(r) winner* Rod Steiger fall prey to the powers of darkness in this spine-tingling tale ofa house possessed by unspeakable evil. One of the most talked-about haunted-house stories of all time, The Amityville Horror will hit you where you live. For George and Kathy Lutz, the colonial home on the river’s edge seemed ideal: quaint, spacious and amazingly affordable. Of course, six brutal murders had taken place there just a year before, but houses don’t have memories…ordo they? Soon the Lutz dream house becomes a hellish nightmare, as walls begin to drip blood and satanic forces threaten to destroy them. Now the Lutzes must try to escape or forfeit their livesand their souls! *1967: Actor, In the Heat of the Night
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The Amityville Horror
The Amityville Horror
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3 Responses to “The Amityville Horror”
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Still shivering.,
Finally !. I’ve been waiting an eternity to see this very underrated ghostly gem in widescreen, and now at long last it’s here. MGM may not exactly be known for superb DVD transfers, but this disc actually looks pretty good. (I had to have it no matter what though.) Brolin and Kidder make a great couple, and their acting is spot-on. They may experience some quite incredible things in their new home, but their performances stay believable throughout. -And guess what, I don’t think Steiger is hammy at all !. It’s too bad Hollyweird doesn’t make that many haunted house movies anymore, because if you know what you’re doing, they can be (relatively) easy to make. -Just keep it simple, and stay the heck away from CGI if you can. I saw “The Amityville Horror” in a theater when it first came out back in ’79, and it scared me like few other films had before it. (-It also helped sitting in the balcony, getting all the action on the big screen smack right in the face.) The friend I was with thought it was a silly movie, but I think he was just too spooked to admit it affected him. Seen with modern eyes I’m sure this movie now looks oldfashioned, but don’t call it dated. -That word (“dated”) is so easy to throw around these days, and what people really mean is “bad”. But what’s bad/dated about it ?. If it’s scary (which I think it is), it must be good and so it has served its purpose to me as a piece of entertainment. Most modern horror movies tend to leave me rather cold, but then again, I don’t see them with the eyes of 15-year old f/x nuts; I only think they’re missing out in the spooky atmosphere department. -”T.A.H.” has plenty of that, and it’s about time it got dug out of the turkeys bin, and received the recognition it so rightfully deserves. I can think of only one other haunted house movie since then with a similar kind of power; the 1991 TV movie “The Haunted”, starring Sally Kirkland and jeffrey DeMunn.
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|There goes the Neighborhood!,
The seventies were crazy times to be an American. We had just bailed ignominiously out of Vietnam, been chewed up by inflation, suffered throught the resignation of a President, brazened out the gas shortage, mobilized the Civil Defense and fought off plagues of flesh-hungry zombies stalking the Pennsylvania countryside, coped with reports of cannibalistic crazies terrorizing the badlands of Southwest Texas, slicing up tourists and wearing their faces like Halloween masks. And things were just getting started: as the decade waned, Americans had to deal with houses spewing blood and black tarlike goop, with red-eyed spectral pigs bothering good taxpaying New York homeowners, and worse—with Roman Catholic priests running around the dioceses, begging to perform exorcisms!
Yeah, you guessed it: I’ve just awakened to chunky nuggets of ghoulish delight that lair deep down in the storm cellar of “Amityville Horror”, which is an often reviled, albeit woefully flawed, fun little classic of horror and grue. I like the kitchen and the double bath—let’s MOVE IN!
Full Disclosure: Had I not been subject to American Movie Classics Amityville Triple Feature—including the impossibly sick and twisted Part II (Possession) and the amusing but derivative Part III (in glorious 3-D!)—I would never have appreciate this little bauble of depravity for what it is. I first caught it on VHS a decade ago; already unimpressed with the cheesy cross-cut edits in the intro massacre, I decided to part ways with the ‘Horror the moment James Brolin’s bushy Chewbacca face popped into the picture—I was thoroughly grossed out by an excessive, whopping overdose of sheer seventies cheese, and flipped the tape off. What a mistake my young self made! With that, Moral #1 of The Amityville Horror:
MORAL #1: NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF JAMES BROLIN. Yah he’s a hairy Wookie, but the guy really grows on you, especially as he starts upping the quality time with an Axe. Brolin plays unlucky homeowner George Lutz, who spots a great deal in a charming Long Island colonial mansion and moves in with wife Kathy (Margot Kidder, fresh off mega-stardom in “Superman”) and his lovely little family, not knowing that another charming little family was blown to atoms just a couple of years before in this very house, not realizing that gaping Hell awaits, and not even noticing that the House looks like a big hungry monster with those nasty windows leering at passerby like forlorn eyes!Wake up, you Walkin’ Carpet!
That said, Brolin really gets into this flick and admittedly the big guy grows on you, flexing those mighty thews, chopping wood like a Greek god, and crackling with hostile energy (he even unnerved me when he and a nervous employee had a little face-to-face and Brolin wouldn’t part ways with that wood-chopper)with latent hostility. Brolin owns “Amityville Horror”.
MORAL #2: IF PRIESTS AND NUNS RUN SCREAMING FROM YOUR HOUSE, IT’S TIME TO MOVE. Nuns and priests don’t think the Lutzes got a steal. Rod Steiger (Father Delaney)is really just unforgivably awful in this film, presaging his complete meltdown as an actor in the excremental “Mars Attacks!.” His only real task in this role is to cover his face with his hands and look critically constipated. He succeeds wildly. Also, the scene in which he’s grilled by Hal Holbrook-lookalike Murray Hamilton (also the Mayor from “Jaws”) goes on forever. Hit fast forward—the Mercy of Christ compels thee!
MORAL #3: IS IT JUST ME, OR IS THE STUFF MARGOT KIDDER IS WEARING JUST A LITTLE TOO PRE-TEEN TO PASS MUSTER IN POLITE SOCIETY? C’mon, folks—pig-tails and fake school uniforms? Anyway, Kidder handles her role of screaming and bugging out her eyes just fine for me. Though I do have some ethical questions about the nature of Mr. Lutz’s attraction for Mrs. Lutz—all those kiddie dresses, for pity’s sake, man!!!—, but those are outside the scope of this review.
MORAL #4: WHEN YOUR HUSBAND NAMES THE HOUSEHOLD AXE, IT’S TIME TO GET COUNSELING. Look, director Stuart Rosenberg was an old hand at helming a movie: he was 52 years old when he directed the flick and had been in the business for 25 years. He directed “Cool Hand Luke”, for God’s sake! And for all that experience, he turns out a pretty ugly film, let’s be honest. It’s all very seventies: the point and shoot camera-work, the incessant shots of the House’s admittedly freakish windows, ugly overexposure and miserable lighting, sets that look like ugly sets, and tons of pancake make-up.
And yet, for all of that—”Amityville Horror” has a delicious little horror vibe all its own that raised my hackles. The dark circles around Brolin’s eyes, his apelike surliness, my absolute certainty that if his hapless employee asked him just ONE MORE QUESTION he was going to bury that chopper up to the hilt in the guy’s forehead, the spooky red-lit House, the huge…
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|Amityville Horror, Long Island,
The first time I saw this movie, ‘after reading the book, and under the impression it was based on a true story,’ it scared the heck out of me. Not quite as scary as The Exorcist, but just the thought of going through what the Lutz’s did, was enough to give me nightmares.
Being raised by a very superstitious family, growing up with ghost and demon tales, made it all the more scarier.
After reading feedback, especially the 1 & 2 stars, many people were put off by Amity’s sound effects. IMO, the sound effects weren’t over-done, nor placed in every scene like some claimed. Besides, what’s spookier than sleeping in a big, old house, not long after murders were committed, on a dark, windy night, with roaring thunder and striking lightning?
Considering the year Amityville Horror was released, I think it was well-done. Not my favorite, which is the reason I gave it 4 stars, but definately one of the top 20. It’s much better than the remake, which I didn’t like. In fact, we watched the remake on DVD, as soon as it hit the video stores, and I can’t remember one part..Reason: One word.. BORING.
Whether or not AH is deemed a classic makes no difference. It’s a very good, scary movie, and anyone who enjoys horror should buy the DVD. I did.
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