Amityville : La Maison du diable

I sat down in 2022 to watch the classic 1979 horror movie "The Amityville Horror", for what I believe is perhaps the third time I've watched it now. Funny, how I remember this movie as being a rather scary and disturbing movie when I watched it during my childhood in the early 1980s.

And having just sat through director Stuart Rosenberg's 1979 movie now, I have to say that my memories of the movie were a bit more vivid that what the movie actually turned out to be. Sure, "The Amityville Horror" is a watchable horror movie, but it is actually a bit on the tame side, as nothing much really happens throughout the course of the nearly 2 hours the movie ran for. Don't get me wrong, because "The Amityville Horror" is not a boring movie, but it is a somewhat uneventful movie.

There is a good atmosphere in the movie, so thumbs up to director Stuart Rosenberg for that accomplishment.

The acting performances in the movie are good, and lead actor James Brolin and lead actress Margot Kidder definitely carried the movie quite well with their performances on the screen.

Ultimately, then "The Amityville Horror" is a bit too mundane for my particular preference, especially since I recalled it as being a far more scary movie back from my childhood. But hey, I guess a lifetime of watching horror movies might have seasoned me up a bit.

Watchable enough for what it is, an atmospheric pseudo-thriller, "The Amityville Horror" lands on a six out of ten stars rating from me.

Saw this on a VHS in the mid 80s. Revisited it recently on a DVD. To be honest, i found the movie to be tedious n tame then. Now i jus forwarded some boring scenes. The film opens on a dark and stormy night as we hear gunshots and see flashes of light through the home's famous eye-like upstairs windows as an entire family is killed. A new family moves in after a year n unsettling things begin to occur. Ther are scenes where the walls drip blood. Was it blood or tar i don't know. Whose blood it was or where it came from was never explained. There's a hidden room in the house the dog always barks at. In one scene James Brolin climbs the stairs above that room, only to fall through them and into a pit of the same blood/tar. Was that suppose to be comedic? Also the scene involving Rod Steiger with the flies wasn't scary at all. The movie was boring considering the length n nothing happens. Somewhere around 01.16, Josh Brolin breaks open a wall n his facial expressions n eyes r epic scene man. What he sees that makes him so startled, we never come to know n we don't get to see also. The film is helped by an extremely creepy score composed by Lalo Schifrin n Brolin delivered a good performance. Margot Kidder did a decent job.

George and Kathy Lutz are looking for a place to anchor down and raise a family. The Lutz's and their children (Kathy's from a previous marriage) settle on an impossibly cheap, large and beautiful shore house. But 28 days later the macabre and scary happenings force them to leave…leaving all their earthly possession behind. During the course of those 28 days, the family goes through all kinds of hell a room full of flies, demonic voices and a pig with glowing red eyes. What kind of past does that house have that would make everything horribly wrong. Based on a true story.

Real or hoax, you decide but "The Amityville Horror" has all the trappings of an excellent haunted house story. Too bad that the filmmakers falter a bit with a lack of character development that also ends up stifling the actors in the film, that would have helped out immensely. A creepy music score (the one rejected for "The Exorcist") and several good set-pieces help out but the end of the second act kind of gets stale. A good supernatural thriller.

After a gruesome mass murder takes place in a big house in a nice neighbourhood, the house is sold for a very affordable price to the Lutzes, an average stepfamily of five. Soon after moving in, strange things start occurring: doors, windows and furniture move by themselves, strange sounds are heard and the family members start behaving oddly. Especially George (James Brolin), the stepfather, becomes sullen and brooding over a couple of weeks, upsetting his wife Kathy (Margot Kidder) and her kids. A local priest (Rod Steiger) also notices something gravely wrong about the house, but doesn't seem to be able to help the Lutzes despite his efforts. As the eerie incidents keep getting more and more distressing, how will the Lutzes cope with the situation?

Based on Jay Anson's book about the experiences of the real-life Lutzes, the movie maintains a somewhat down-to-earth approach to the supposedly true story. It begins so slowly that I was already becoming quite disappointed with it, even though I'm generally supportive of creeping atmosphere in cinema. However, after a while it becomes obvious that it's actually better seen as a character study as opposed to horror: George's menacing change of nature can be seen as a reaction to the stressful life situation he's going through: raising a family, running a business, moving into a new house and getting the bills paid. The bearded James Brolin captures George's emotions very effectively, essentially carrying the whole film with his performance. Rod Steiger's character Father Delaney goes through an even more drastic phase of anxiety and Steiger plays the role with all the necessary intensity, especially during his desperate call for help in a degrading church. Margot Kidder's character receives less attention, but she does her job decently too.

The film quickly leads thoughts to other religious horrors of the era, such as The Omen and The Exorcist, but also bears a resemblance to The Shining, even though the latter only came out after it. A theme of a family man slowly losing his mind and, more obviously, an axe-swinging finale are more fascinatingly handled in Kubrick's film, but The Amityville Horror reaches a decent amount of suspense at its best too. The music by Lalo Schifrin is perfectly in tune with the atmosphere and when it finally starts in the last minutes of the movie, the action looks OK as well. The very ending comes across as rather abrupt though, even though the last shot of the family's car from afar suits the mood well.

In summary, I think The Amityville Horror is a watchable movie, but more so as a character study than a flat out horror. What the film loses in action and gore, it wins back in the actors' performances and music. When watched with this in mind, it may prove out to be an enjoyable experience, even if it's not ultimately quite as great as the horror classics mentioned in the previous paragraph.

George (James Brolin) and Kathleen Lutz (Margot Kidder) buy a "dream house" in Amityville, New York for a "dream price". Unfortunately, the price was low because just a year before, the house was the location of the Ronald DeFeo Jr. murders--he killed his entire family while they were sleeping. As a priest, Father Delaney (Rod Steiger), blesses the home, he realizes with horror that something evil is lingering there. The dream house is turning into a nightmare.

Sometimes our affection for or aversion to an artwork that we've been exposed to a number of times over the years is inextricably enmeshed with our historical, emotional experiences, whether we admit this or not. For example, I strongly dislike soap operas, or indeed any dramas that resemble soap operas. This is probably due to the fact that for years my only exposure to soap operas was when I was home sick from school as a kid. These were the days before cable television and home video. In the middle of a weekday afternoon, you either watched soap operas or you didn't watch television. Subconsciously, I associate soap operas with a feeling of illness.

Likewise, Jay Anson's Amityville Horror novel appeared when I was still a teen. I loved it. I can still remember reading it in one long sitting--something I rarely did--in the family car as we drove from Florida to Ohio to visit relatives. I was excited when the film appeared, and liked it a lot at the time.

So although I can see many faults with Amityville Horror now, I still have a deep affection for it that triggers my brain to go into an apologetic mode and defend the film. I just can't bring myself to give it lower than an 8 out of 10, and even that seems low to me. But I can easily see how audiences lacking a history with the film might dislike it. It is relatively slow, uneventful and meandering--with a modern perspective, the pacing and "subtlety" are reminiscent of some recent Asian horror. At the same time, maybe paradoxically, scenery chewing has only rarely had a greater ally.

Just a couple days ago MGM released newly remastered widescreen versions of Amityville 1, 2 and 3. I haven't seen the film look this good since seeing it in the theater in 1979, and it probably didn't even look this good then. The first thing that struck me was how incredible much of the cinematography is. Director Stuart Rosenberg had an amazing knack for finding intriguing angles for shots and imbuing them with beautiful colors.

Unlike recent trends, Rosenberg's colors are not narrowed down to a single scheme. For example, in some shots, such as some of the interiors of the famed Amityville house, we get fabulous combinations of pale greens and yellows. In others, such as many exterior shots near the house, we get intense combinations of fall foliage colors. There are also a number of beautiful shots of the famed "eye window" exterior of the house in differently tinted "negative" colors.

Rosenberg evidences a great eye for placing his cast in the frame and shooting scenes to create depth and symbolism via objects that partially block or surround the frame. He also has a knack for creating winding, receding patterns of objects that enhance depth through perspective. My affection for this aspect of the film has little nostalgic attachment, as I didn't pay attention to such things as a kid (I didn't start noticing them more until I started painting, far into my adult years), and the positive aspects of the cinematography were hardly discernible on the previous, ridiculously bad pan & scan VHS release.

Of course, most people aren't watching a film like this for the aesthetics of the visual composition. This is one of the most famous haunted house films, after all. The horror is handled somewhat awkwardly, occasionally absurdly, but it still works well enough for me, as understated as it is (I'm not referring to the acting, just the horror "objects"). Aspects such as the ubiquitous flies reminded me of similar motifs, such as water, in Hideo Nakata's horror films (such as Ringu, 1998 and Dark Water, 2002). The beginning of the film, showing the Defeo murders, still has a lot of shock value, despite its relative post-Tarantino tameness. Most of the horror elements are more portentous, but they're regular and interesting enough to hold your attention, as long as you don't mind subtlety.

Subtlety, however, was the furthest thing from the cast's minds. Brolin, Kidder and especially Steiger shout their lines more often than they speak them. "Overacting" is not in their vocabularies. Kidder comments on an accompanying documentary that the horror genre walks a fine line between intensity and camp. That may or may not be true in general, but in Amityville Horror, camp is frequently broached. For me, it has a certain charm. I'm a fan of camp and "so bad it's good"; Amityville's performances often attain both.

The commentary on the new DVD is amusing given the 1970s publicity that the book and film depicted a true haunting and the subsequent, thorough debunking by persons such as Stephen Kaplan. Hans Holzer, a parapsychologist who has been involved with the story since the early days, and the author of a book upon which Amityville II was based, provides the commentary. He presents himself as an academic, but he obviously seems to have little concern for "objectivity" or skepticism. He not only still talks about the story as true, he invents supernatural excuses for the DeFeo murders and then some, barely mentioning detractors such as Kaplan.

If you haven't seen the film yet, you should base your viewing decision on whether you have a taste for deliberately paced horror as well as a tolerance for extremely over-the-top performances. The film is historically important in the genre, as well.