The Amityville Horror

1979 • Dir: Stuart Rosenberg • St: James Brolin, Margot Kidder, Rod Steiger

Premise: George and Kathy Lutz move into their new home, but no sooner than they do, than the usual raft of 'my house is possessed by satan' phenomena begins occurring. This is based on a true story. Though the truth of the story is more than a little dubious...

Analysis: The Amityville Horror is the scariest movie in the world... about mortgage fraud. Like Altered States, I saw this film when it first came out when I was a kid. I was 8 when I first saw The Amityville Horror at a drive in, and at the time it scared the living shit out of me.

But I'm 30 years older and wiser now, and The Amityville Horror just seems kind of... hokey to me now. Let me first say, that I don't get 'house haunted by satan' films. Why? If you're the 10,000-odd year old rebel Lucifer, why in the name of all that's shitty would you want to haunt a house and scare the bejeezus out of a surveyor, his wife and her 3 kids by a previous marriage? Why would you appear to the little girl as a walking on two legs pig motherfucker called Jody? Why would you manifest to a priest as the strong scent of feces? I would credit the Devil with a little more integrity than that.

Of course, the house was never haunted. Yes Ronnie DeFeo did kill his family. Yes, he did say he heard voices in the house telling him to kill. But snorting all that coke, like 'Butch' DeFeo did provides an alternate reason. Satan or drug psychosis? Why not let Occam's Razor decide kids!

The families who've lived in the Amityville house since have never had a problem, apart from incessant armies of gawkers and amateur exorcists and ghost hunters wanting to 'investigate' the house. It's up for sale now if you're curious, at the sweet price if 1.5M US$.

Here's what many believe to be the true story of the Amityville house. Drugfucked, bullied son Ronnie DeFeo decides to kill his mum and dad one night, with help from the older sister. She kill their younger siblings as well. Ronnie cracks, kills his sister as well. Ronnie gets dragged off to the booby hatch. Here's a hint kids, don't push for an insanity plea if you're actually crazy. Someone might believe you and sling you in a rubber room for the rest of forever.

Sometime later, George and Kathy Lutz move in to the Amityville house, now with a nice price reduction due to the 'a multiple murder happened here' discount. George, whose business is doing poorly, and has just taken on the expense of a new wife and family, ever so wisely massively over-extends his finances with a crippling mortgage as well.

George and Kathy want to default and bail after a month, but Mr Bank Kill-Joy says 'No'. With the help of their lawyer and several rattan-covered bottles of 1970's chianti, they concoct the 'my house is haunted, so, er... by the way, I shouldn't have to pay off the mortgage' story.

The end.

There's really a lot that's terrible about this film. James Brolin's limp attempt at crazyeyes, Rod Steiger's ferocious, hammy scenery-chewing acting, and just the sheer nonsense of most of the phenomena - 'Hey there's a glowy eyed pig standing in the window waving at me, better axe it to death! Who wants bacon?' - makes The Amityville Horror a film that massively suffers from a nostalgic re-viewing. Do yourself a favour and watch instead the documentary that comes with most versions of the original film, the documentary that makes out what big-ass LIARS George and Kathy were.

Stars: 1 out of 5