“Houses don’t have memories.”
On November 13, 1974, Ronald Defeo Jr. killed his entire family – four siblings and both parents – with a shotgun. A year later, the Lutz family moved into the murder house. Within weeks, they were slinging dubious tales of haunting and possession. Whether their story is true or not – and it probably isn’t, considering it was delivered by noted fabulists Ed and Lorraine Warren – the impact it had on the horror genre is undeniable. Beyond spawning several sequels, The Amityville Horror paved the way for the films in the Conjuring series, which now number seven films (from the sublime first film to the wretched spin-off showcase Annabelle Comes Home), and over a billion dollars in box office money. Any moderately successful horror film in the ’70s got a a number of sequels, so that’s not exactly a good metric by which to judge quality. But there has to be a reason for the enduring status of The Amityville Horror.
The film has a solid opening. We see Defeo going from room to room, slaughtering his family (Defeo is curiously never named in the film, but I’m going to use his name here). Shot from outside, the lit-up windows of the house look like angry eyes, the trim like the teeth of a grinning skull. It’s a bravura opening, and one that sets the tone of the film: for better or worse, there is always something happening in this movie. At the end of the massacre, bodies are being trundled out, and Detective Gionfriddo mumbles ruefully, “Jesus Christ, it gets worse all the time.” It’s basically the thesis statement of the film.
A year later, the Lutz family moves in. We first meet George (James Brolin) and Kathy (Margot Kidder) as they check the place out. They’re both fine in their roles, but Kidder handily outshines Brolin. With her expressive eyes and lips, she can effortlessly evoke sympathy for Kathy; George, by comparison, is seemingly written as a deadpan smartass, but because of Brolin’s sedate, leaden performance, he just comes off as unnecessarily hostile. Beyond that, he seems selfish. He wants the house to save money; for instance, he rents office space instead of working from home, and he pays mooring fees instead of selling his boat. It’s hard to root for him, which is a stumbling block, because he is ostensibly the main character. (Side note: the 2005 remake did a good job in casting Ryan Reynolds; with a beard, he looks just like Brolin does here.)
Amityville‘s B-plot – and it really is a B-plot, intersecting with the main storyline only occasionally – involves Father Delaney, played nicely by Rod Steiger. Delaney arrives to bless the house and finds himself alone. In a nicely unsettling series of images, Delaney first sees a window covered in flies, which make their way into the house and crawl all over his face. A sinister voice whispers “Get out…GET OUT!” It’s the eeriest part of the movie.
As good as Steiger is, especially in Delaney’s quieter scenes, the character introduces a lot of plot holes. He has a personal relationship with the Lutzes, but they’re never painted as particularly religious (Kathy is divorced, which is a Catholic no-no, and while unpacking, George picks up a cross and dismissively asks, “Where do you wanna put this thing?”). Moreover, Amityville can never really decide on the nature of the haunting. Is the slain Defeo family haunting the house? Possibly; one of the Lutz children talks about an unseen friend called Jodie. Is George being possessed? Yes, in a way, but the movie never makes much out of this. Multiple people point out to George that he bears an uncanny resemblance to the killer, but this is ineffective because a lot of men looked like George in the 1970s. Later, it’s revealed that the house was built by John Ketchum, who was ran out of Salem for being a witch. A mystic says that people were buried in the house, and it hides “the portal to hell.” The Amityville Horror seems to take a shotgun approach (no pun intended) to horror, and as a result there are just too many hanging plot threads. This might work better as a miniseries, in the spirit of The Haunting of Hill House.
That’s not to say that The Amityville Horror is bereft of scares. Director Stuart Rosenberg (Cool Hand Luke) has an eye for staging, and avoids anything overly showy. One of the most effective shots is that of a horrifying doll seated in a rocking chair. There’s no musical sting or hokey close-up; Rosenberg lets the horror exist naturally. And it’s worth mentioning the tropes in the film that were arguably established here. There’s the choir of creepy kids singing on the score, and the blood dripping from the walls. George and Kathy wake up at 3:15 AM, which is when Defeo killed his family, over and over. As George spirals farther into madness and possession, Brolin’s performance improves and becomes genuinely compelling. The possession is short-lived, but memorable.
The Amityville Horror has too much on its plate to deliver a satisfying ending. There’s so much mythology and backstory at work here that a two-hour movie isn’t enough to contain it all, and as a result it’s tantalizing but cluttered. The movie earns its length, but it’s one of those rare films that actually wants to be longer. As a film, Amityville is hit-and-miss, but as a cultural object, its impact can’t be denied. Forty years after its release, we’re still seeing its effects.
10/1: Hellraiser / The Invitation
10/2: Splice / Banshee Chapter
10/3: Jennifer’s Body / Raw
10/4: Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist / Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
10/5: Kill List / A Field in England
10/6: Halloween II / Halloween III: Season of the Witch
10/7: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge / A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
10/8: Ginger Snaps / Creep
10/9: Cube / Creep 2
10/10: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) / The Ritual
10/11: Hell House LLC / The Taking of Deborah Logan
10/12: Re-Animator / From Beyond
10/13: Beetlejuice / Sleepy Hollow
10/14: Idle Hands / The Lords of Salem
10/15: The Ring / Noroi: The Curse
10/16: I Know What You Did Last Summer / The Monster
10/17: Night of the Living Dead / Train to Busan
10/18: The Devil’s Backbone / Southbound
10/19: Event Horizon / Dreamcatcher
10/20: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari / The Bad Seed
10/21: Eyes Without a Face / Goodnight Mommy
10/22: The Strangers / The Strangers: Prey at Night
10/23: In the Mouth of Madness / The Void
10/24: The Amityville Horror / Honeymoon
10/25: Gerald’s Game / Emelie
10/26: The Monster Squad / Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
10/27: Veronica / Jacob’s Ladder
10/28: High Tension / You’re Next
10/29: The Innkeepers / Bug
10/30: The People Under the Stairs / Vampires
10/31: Saw / Saw II
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