Rod Steiger’s portrayal of Father Delaney is, honestly, the highlight of the movie. He goes from calm to histrionic in seconds flat.
The Amityville Horror is based on the 1977 book by Jay Anson, which has been the subject of controversy since its publication as a “true story.” Both the book and the movie tell the story of George and Kathy Lutz (played in the movie by James Brolin and Margot Kidder), who buy a house in Amityville, New York in 1975. Ronald DeFeo, Jr. brutally murdered his father, mother, and four siblings in the house the year before. George and Kathy move in with little concern about the murders. “Houses don’t have memories,” George declares when Kathy asks if the house’s history bothers him.
Of course, there wouldn’t be a book or movie if that was all there was to the story. Soon after their arrival, the Lutzs start experiencing bad dreams, things disappear without a trace, doors close by themselves, and their daughter, Amy, strikes up a friendship with an invisible pig she calls Jody. The Lutzs call Father Delaney (Rod Steiger) to come over and bless the house and he is warned by a disembodied voice to “get out” before extreme nausea forces him to do just that.
My biggest problem with The Amityville Horror is that there’s no real narrative to explain the reasons for any of these occurrences. We can assume that the murders were caused by the house or that the house is haunted by those that were murdered. Or both. But that doesn’t explain the pig who visits the daughter or the discovery the family makes in their basement or much else that happens. Things happen to the Lutzs and they’re weird and unexplained. That’s it. There’s a feeble attempt at rationalizing the house’s bad juju midway through the movie but it still doesn’t account for the random nature of the Lutzs’ experiences.
Rod Steiger’s portrayal of Father Delaney is, honestly, the highlight of the movie. He goes from calm to histrionic in seconds flat. In fact, his character seems to be the only one who takes the evil he senses in the house seriously. It’s too bad director Stuart Rosenberg and writer Sandor Stern couldn’t channel what he was seeing to the audience. It would have been nice to know what was happening and why.
Lalo Schifrin’s score is worth mentioning as it is appropriately creepy and nominated for an Academy Award. The iconic house, with its eerie, eye-like upper windows, is probably the scariest thing in the entire film. Those are the only two things The Amityville Horror has going for it.
Because the movie was a box-office hit, probably due to curiosity about the “true story” aspect, it spawned a multitude of sequels. With the original this film being this dull, I can’t imagine any of them being more interesting.
2.0 out of 5.0 stars
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