The Amityville Horror (1979) - For God's Sake, GET OUT!

The Amityville Horror - Horror? Bull!

The only thing worse than a lousy horror movie, is a lousy horror movie based on a "true story". One of the sure-fire ways to make sure that your horror movie based on a "true story" is lousy is to make all the characters stupid. As with any film "based on a true story", certain liberties have been taken with the facts. In this case, The Amityville Horror seems to be based on the fact that there are probably people living in houses somewhere at sometime, the rest is in question.

As the film opens, newlyweds George & Kathy Lutz (James Brolin and Margot Kidder) and her three children buy a house in Amityville on Long Island. Actually, I'm guessing at the number of children, there may have been seven or possibly two children. Suffice to say there were some children involved at some point in the Lutz family and I'm pretty sure they had a dog too. The family, children included, move into their dream house, a big scary looking old barn, complete with big scary eye-shaped windows and a creepy child-chorus soundtrack to boot.

In no time, the Lutz family begins to find that their dream house comes with some features the realtor didn't mention. For example, and in no particular order, they find a secret red-room in the basement. Now all horror movies require the viewers to suspend disbelief, but even that has its limits. What realtor isn't going to mention a "bonus room, good for storage or human sacrifice" in the listing? Also, the walls start to "bleed" black gunk, there are pigs in the attic, the toilets back-up, rooms tend to fill-up with flies, and so on. You might be asking, "Well why don't they call Orkin or better yet, just get out of the house?" Good question. Especially after a spooky disembodied Satan-voice tells them to "GET OUT". At this point, I'll tend to agree with comedian Eddie Murphy who had the following to say about stupid white people in horror movies.

Eddie Murphy: You know what I was wondering about movies? I was watching movies like...Amityville Horror. Why don't the people just get the hell out of the house? See, white people, you all sit on the toilet, see blood in the toilet, and you all go get Ajax. ... brothers won't sit on the toilet. ... Movie be just like this:
"Wow, baby, this is beautiful. We got chandelier hangin' up here, kids outside playin', it's a beautiful neighborhood, I really love - this is beaut--"
[demonic whisper] "Get out!"
"Too bad we can't stay."

Eddie Murphy is right. The number one thing that can ruin a horror movie is white people acting stupid. Keep in mind that demonic whispers aren't the only horror these stupid people encounter. Even after they invite their priest, Father Delaney (Rod Steiger) over to bless the house and even after he goes blind and becomes desperately urpy they still don’t leave. Hey Lutz family, do you get it yet? GET OUT! No, they don't get it. It still takes George Lutz getting possessed by the house's former mass murdering resident to drive them from the house. Oh, did I forget to mention the former resident murdered his entire family in the scary house? So did the realtor apparently!

So ultimately, after numerous weird, but not all that scary events, the Lutz's flee their dream house and the horror is ended. Of course, it isn't really ended, because as anyone who is familiar with bad horror movies knows, bad horror movies never end. They just get made into a series of ever increasingly bad sequels. In the case of The Amityville Horror, an even more demonic turn has been taken. The Amityville Horror has been remade with new actors and new effects to torment an all-new generation of moviegoers.

So, the only advice I can offer is this. If you happen to find yourself in a darkened theater and any version of The Amityville Horror is being shown, do the smart thing. For God's sake, GET OUT!