‘Half the killers in this country say the same thing – the voices told me to do it…’
On the 13th of November, 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered his parents and his four younger siblings at their home in Long Island, New York. For reasons that are not entirely clear, this tragic and admittedly alluring tale of murder has led to 59 films (and counting) that feature the word ‘Amityville’ in the title (highlights include Amityville Emanuelle, Amityville Death Toilet and Amityville Bigfoot). This all started with the publishing of Jay Anson’s book The Amityville Horror in 1977 and the subsequent film adaptation of the same name released in 1979. Let’s dive in…
George (James Brolin) and Kathy Lutz (Margot Kidder) begin to experience some strange phenomena after moving into the Amityville house where the DeFeo murders took place years earlier. A demented Rod Steiger also appears as Father Delaney – a character who shouts all of his lines as loud as he can.
The problem with The Amityville Horror, and this surprised me, is that it’s pretty dull. It doesn’t need to be two hours long, the plot is dreary and predictable and the third act is, for want of a better word, rubbish. Brolin commits to the role of George Lutz (at times he overcommits) but neither he nor director Stuart Rosenberg (Cool Hand Luke) ever really convinced me why I should care about this character or this family. Kidder, horror royalty at the point this film was made having already appeared in Black Christmas and Sisters, fares better, and she at least brings something other than the gruff intensity of Brolin to the film, but ultimately, I had lost interest in the film by the time the disappointing conclusion rolled around.
The Amityville Horror is something of a cult classic in horror circles and while it has clearly been influential in terms of the haunted house subgenre generally, and the design of the house is iconic, I actually preferred the Ryan Reynolds-led remake that dropped in 2005 – sacrilegious perhaps but true nevertheless.
