The Amityville horror (1979)

Amityville Horror, released in 1979 is a horror film based on Jay Anson's novel of the same name. The film is supposedly based on true events, about the Luntz family that moved into a house in Amityville Long Island NY, where a family had been murdered there a year before, and it is supposedly the accounts of what happened to the family in the short time that they were there. The film starred James Brolin (father of actor Josh Brolin), and Margot Kidder (famous for starring as Lois Lane in Superman).

The film, was a huge success and one of the most successful independent films for many years until it was surpassed by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1990. The film was a box office success, however it wasn't well received by most critics. Stephen King described the film to be a financial nightmare, as the film's dialogue seemed to continually focus on financial issues that the family was struggling with. The film has been described as a blunt and effective horror film. My personal experience is that as a kid this film scared the shit out of me when I watched it as a kid, especially because it was supposedly based on a true story. I avoided re-watching this film for a long time because of how much it scared me as a kid. While reading Stephen King's Danse Macabre, he criticizes the film, and so when I watched it again, as an adult I realize what scared me so much as a kid really isn't that great of a film. This is a classic, but honestly the critics are right on this one, it is slow, it is dull, it is not a particularly well done film.

One of the things I hated most about the film, is that it is guilty of one of my biggest pet peeves, which is blaming horror on witchcraft, and saying that witchcraft is devil worshiping. Witches do not believe in the devil, and are not evil, so anything that equates the two come across as being ignorant. The effects are minimal and unimpressive. The acting is not convincing and admittedly a bit dull. The sets are dull and drab, there is nothing in the film that is particularly pleasant to look at. Even the actors didn't believe the Lutz's story, and felt that it couldn't possibly have happened. Also I felt that the film had one of the most anticlimactic endings I've ever seen. I don't always agree with the critics, but on this film, they are pretty dead on in their criticizing of it.

The film was not actually filmed at the actual house in Amityville as the city would not allow them to, so instead the external shots were done at a house in Toms River NJ that was made to look like the actual Amityville house. The internal shots were all done in a studio at MGM studio lot in Los Angeles CA.

Would I recommend this film? Honestly, I suppose you should watch it because it is a classic, but honestly unless you really feel the need to watch it for it's place in history as a successful independent horror film, you could easily skip it and be fine. The film was just okay, but there are far better films that you could spend your time on, there are far lower budget films that are better to watch even that this one. Not a terrible movie, but when set up against all of the hype that it has received over the years, it really just doesn't hold up. I still appreciate how much this film scared me as a child, and I wish I could watch it again for the first time as a kid, so that I could experience that fear all over again, as an adult I found my brain wanting to do something else instead, and found myself scrolling through facebook while watching it. Not a bad film, please don't get me wrong, but it is not the film I remember it being, and that honestly made me sad. The Exorcist scared me shitless as a kid, and it retained it's horrifying magic over the years, sadly the same is not true for the Amityville horror. Though I will say this as a concluding remark. I would like to the drive by the actual house, because their must be a ring of truth to the story, and I would like to go there and see if I can feel anything.