The Amityville Horror (1979)

What's scarier than reality? If a movie about an psychopath slicing and dicing dozens of people with various sharp objects at some secluded summer camp was based on a real killer, wouldn't that scare the hell out of you? A number of movies have pulled the "true story" angle, and many people believe they're real to this day. Sorry to burst your collective bubbles, but quite a bit of these true stories are extremely loose interpretations at best. Let's use The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as an example. Tobe Hooper’s horror opus was purported to be a true story when it was released in 1974, with Michael Bay's 2003 remake using that to its benefit with the tagline "inspired by a true story."

But somewhere out there is a horror movie with a firm grasp on more than a few thin slivers of reality. It's not content to just use certain personality quirks used for original characters, instead using real names and addresses. Taking information from Jay Anson's best-selling book and the stories of those who lived it, the tale of a troubled Long Island family becomes a movie that raises more questions than it could ever think to answer.

On November 13, 1974, the quiet village of Amityville, New York, was rocked with the news that Ronald DeFeo, Jr. had shot and killed his entire family as they slept. After sitting on the market for a year, the house is finally sold to the newly-married George (James Brolin) and Kathy Lutz (Margot Kidder). The Lutzes pack up Kathy's three kids and the family dog and move in, hoping for the best.

Understandably a bit dismayed by the house's history, Kathy calls up a local priest, Father Delaney (Rod Steiger), and asks him to bless the house. That doesn't go too well, however, as a swarm of flies nearly overwhelms him during the blessing. It's all capped off with a very angry disembodied voice that tells Father Delaney in no uncertain terms to leave. The house even assaults him after he leaves, making him gravely ill, nearly killing him in a car accident, and even rendering him blind.

The warning to leave the house that had given to Father Delaney turns out to be one that the Lutzes should listen to as well. Breezes blow through the house with no discernable source, the dog angrily barks at what appears to be nothing, the plumbing backs up with a noxious black liquid, doors and windows start opening and closing by themselves, and the furniture moves around on its own. Kathy starts having nightmares about the murders, while her daughter creates a rather disturbing imaginary friend that may or may not be a spirit within the house. Perhaps the most negatively affected, though, is George. Each passing day sends him further down the road to madness, and he begins looking more and more like Ronald DeFeo as time goes on. George's gradual decent into insanity begins to look like the very unhappy house the Lutzes call home just might cause the events of one year prior to repeat themselves.

Of all the different sub-genres that horror has to offer, haunted house movies don't seem to be brought up all that much. Even with the recent success of Paranormal Activity, you don't really hear people extolling the virtues of haunted house movies. But one of the few that everyone knows is The Amityville Horror. When it comes to haunted houses, it's one of the big guns. It's not a particularly great movie, but considering that it was inspired by real people living in a real house in a real town, it'll definitely get your attention.

Speaking of the story's reality, let's touch on that for a minute. If you've read my review for either the 1974 or 2003 versions of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you know how I feel about movies that spin the "true story" angle without there being any actual truth involved. There is no Leatherface, there is no cannibal family in Texas, there's only Wisconsin murderer Ed Gein. But the thing with The Amityville Horror is that some of the events actually happened. Did Ronald DeFeo, Jr. really murder his family? Yes. At the time of this review, he's in prison serving six consecutive 25-to-life sentences for each of the murders. Did George and Kathy Lutz really move into the DeFeo house? Yes. Was the house really haunted? The general consensus is "no."

Many believe the Lutz family fled the house after twenty-eight days just because they were financially strapped and couldn't make their mortgage payments, concocting a story about a haunting to justify it. The majority of the statements made by the Lutzes ended up contradicting themselves, and William Weber, DeFeo's attorney, actually came out and said he helped the Lutzes make up the story to correlate his client's defense in court. It also doesn't help that DeFeo had a violent temper anyway, and regularly used heavy drugs like heroin and LSD. With that kind of drug use, one could assume that any "voices" he heard were not ghosts, but hallucinations he experienced due to being really, really high. Nobody had tried debunking the book when the movie was released, so technically, saying that the movie was based on a true story was a reasonable claim. But now, it just covers the Lutz family moving into a house where an unspeakable crime occurred one year earlier. There's no fiction to that.

But enough about the so-called facts. We're here to talk about a movie, aren't we? So let's start with the work of director Stuart Rosenberg. Watching the movie, I got the feeling that Rosenberg didn't quite know what he wanted to do. He seems to intermittently lose his focus and momentum, never really building any suspense for more than a little bit at a time. Instead, Rosenberg goes for every cheap scare in the book, from jolting musical scares to things popping up when you least expect them. It's manipulative, and not even in a good way.

He does, manage, though, to get an excellent score to back him up. Composed by Lalo Schifrin, the music — long rumored to have been rejected for use in The Exorcist — is creepy, frightening, and just plain awesome. It was even nominated for an Oscar, ultimately losing to A Little Romance. But as just plain mediocre as the movie is, at least Schifrin's music is amazing.

But the fantastic music just can't help the rest of the movie. I've already touched on Rosenberg's direction, so let's move on to the script, penned by Sandor Stern. The writing is choppy and inconsistent, and if Rosenberg had trouble building momentum, Stern did him no favors. Things come across as silly a lot of the time, especially during the climax when George rushed back into the house to save the family dog. There's no need for that scene that I could surmise, and it just feels unnecessary.

And I'm also unsure of why the subplot with Father Delaney needed to take up so much time. It feels tacked on so the movie would jibe with all the other religious horror movies that were so prevalent in the '70s. If I'm going to watch a movie about a haunted house, I want to see the haunted house go after the people that live there, not some priest who was only in the house for a few minutes.

Last on my plate is the acting, which is so over the top that it just blows my mind. While Rod Steiger spends the whole movie chewing the scenery, James Brolin and Margot Kidder's performances made it hard to take them seriously. They have a believable chemistry together, but I'm just flabbergasted by their work here. There's that moment where Brolin pulls at his hair and shouts, "I'm coming apart!" It's just so laughable that I can't believe it was meant to be taken seriously. Kidder, on the other hand, goes through the movie with what appears to be a look of doe-eyed confusion on her face, as if she's thinking, "I was just in Superman, how did I end up here so fast?"

To sum it all up, The Amityville Horror is mediocre schlock that hasn't really held up all that well over the years. And I'm still surprised that it ended up with seven sequels and spin-offs between 1982 and 1996, along with that remake a few years ago. But The Amityville Horror is ultimately a weak movie that just happened to find an audience. But me, I'm going to give it two stars. At least the remake was an improvement.

Final Rating: **