What’s scarier than The Amityville Horror? Remembering it was really good, telling all the naysayers they were wrong for years and then rewatching it to find out you were the one who was wrong all along.
“Based on true events” it’s the story of the Lutz family, who move into a big ol’ house where, a year before, the entire household was murdered by their teenage son. Soon after they settle in, weird stuff starts happening and everyone gets mighty scared.
The setup is terrific. The house itself is awesome and frightening from the get-go. George Lutz (James Brolin) is the new stepfather and he’s in over his head. New wife, three kids, a whole lot of money spent on a big house... it’s starting to get to him. You get a sense the building is starting to warp his mind, that another set of grisly murders is imminent. The actual spooky events, however... they’re not impressive.
I went into this movie ready to be not scared, but terrified. I have no idea what about it made me scream previously. This movie... it’s just ok. The problem is it sticks too close to the “real events” which inspired it. It sounds weird but hear me out. Too many - a window suddenly falling on someone’s hand or a door getting stuck - can be easily explained as un-supernatural. Anyone inside the house shouldn't be convinced there's anything demonic or ghostly going on; just a string of bad luck. Not helping is the family, all of whom under-react to what's happening. A certain discovery in the basement would have anyone who's ever seen a horror movie running for the hills, but they basically ignore it. Had the screenplay taken some liberties with the events and played up blood coming out of the walls, glowing eyes seen outside the windows, mysterious voices during the night and that kind of thing, it would've been something. As is, you wonder when it's finally going to pick up.
Many plot points go nowhere and should have been dropped to either trim down the running time (it’s nearly two hours) or flesh out the characters. Let's get to know George, Kathleen (Margot Kidder), Greg (K. C. Martel), Matt (Meeno Peluce), and Amy (Natasha Ryan) instead of George’s friend’s wife, a self-proclaimed psychic who gets several opportunities to give a bunch of outlandish, baloney explanations for what's going on in the house. That said, the relationship between George and Kathy is quite interesting. As the house and the stress starting driving a wedge between them, you feel genuine tension. There are at least two very good, very frightening scenes who still give me the chills just thinking about them. The pace is slow but I appreciate the film slowly building up the eeriness. Unfortunately, it's pointless - the opening scene tells us exactly how many days the family ended up staying in the house and constant reminders that we’re at “day 5” or “day 11”. So many things this film does well are undone by bad decisions throughout it gets frustrating.
For horror fans, I would recommend The Amityville Horror. There are some frightening scenes and that house is a terrific "villain". For everyone else, this is just an average horror movie. It just isn’t eventful or flashy enough to impress even the easily scared viewers like myself.
