Haunted Homes: The Amityville Horror
The Amityville Horror - 1979. Dir. Stuart Rosenberg. Screenplay Sandor Stern, based off of the book by Jay Anson. Starting: James Brolin (George Lutz), Margot Kidder (Kathy Lutz), Rod Steiger (Father Frank Delaney), Natasha Ryan (Amy Lutz), K.C. Martel (Greg Lutz), Meeno Peluce (Matt Lutz), Michael Sacks (Jeff), Helen Shaver (Carolyn), Amy Wright (Jackie the Babysitter).
A family moves into a house too good to be true. A beautiful Dutch colonial located by the riverside, with its own private boat house and conservatory, and plenty of room for the three children of the house to play to their heart's content. It’s not perfect though. There is a bit of a draft, the banister for the staircase needs constant fixing, and there is a demon living in their home that wants them all dead. But $80k for this house. It is tempting.
The Amityville Horror is a cornerstone haunted house film. Not only has this film had forty (40!!!) sequels and a remake in 2005 with Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George, it has also inspired most of the structure of modern haunted house films since it came out. Going further, the best selling book this film is based off of by Jay Anson (itself based off of the true events of the Lutz family) inspired a whole host of paranormal cases being written about and later made into films and television series. It also launched the careers of two paranormal investigators named Ed and Lorraine Warren, who we will have to talk about later on in this series but for now all that needs to be mentioned is that the Warrens investigated the house after the Lutzs left and felt that the place was haunted.
Back to the film!
The Lutzs are a new family, George and Kathy (played by James Brolin and Margot Kidder respectively) were married just before the start of this film. Kathy has three children from a former marriage that seems to have ended in a presumably difficult divorce. We see Kathy doing her best to live up to what she feels George wants. She mentions on their first night in the new house that she wants the two of them to work more than anything. She also, later, mentions her relationship with local priest, Father Frank Delaney (Rod Steiger), grew while he was helping her through a dark time in her life. It’s logical to assume she was referring to her divorce. Kathy is a loving mother and is striving to be a dedicated wife. She is also under a fair amount of stress throughout the film, ghosts aside. She has three very energetic children, and is doing more than her fair share of lifting when it comes to creating cohesion between George and the children.
George undergoes several changes as the film progresses, but at the start of the film he is delightful. He wants to be a good father to Kathy’s children, he reassures her that she doesn’t have to try hard to make him happy as he “feels like a high school kid” whenever they are together. He runs a seemingly successful land surveying company. I mean at the start of the film we find out that he can afford this house, but also has at least one business van, a fairly decent sized staff, he owns a speed boat AND a motorcycle, in the mid 70s when those were the peak of coolness. He is also played by James Brolin and is a hunk. As the film progresses and the ghost or demon starts to take hold of George he becomes more distant and agitated. Easily prone to anger and frustrated outbursts, and constantly grumpy due to the physical coldness he feels. He regains himself towards the end after getting confronted by his business partner over the fact that in less than one month of moving into this house he has almost completely tanked his company. Yes, there is that final night where he almost chops up his family but that was a relapse/final push from the ghost/demon. When confronted by familial love/a vision of Kathy in old lady make up he snaps out of it.
Separately, Kathy and George try to figure out what they can about their house. They know that a man murdered his whole family in the house a year before they moved in, but they both feel like there is something more to the house. Kathy tries over and over again to reach out to her friend Father Delaney but everytime she does the house reaches out its evilness and causes pain and suffering to the priest. Kathy even does some investigative research into the house by going to the library and scanning microfiche for news articles on the house and the murders at the house. This is how we learn that the ghost/demon has a type. They enjoy handsome bearded men with wild looks in their eyes, as one of the previous residents of the house who killed his entire family, Ronnie Defeo, looks exactly like George.
George also goes to the library to do some research. However, his research is more, find a book on the occult and steal the book… from the library… that would have let him take it out for free anyways. The two don’t do their research together, which seems a bit of a shame. Kathy probably would have been able to explain how libraries work to George. George does rely on his business partner Jeff and his significant other, Carolyn (who can see auras and is open to spirituality), to do his research. They find out that the area was originally a Shinnecock burial ground and was also once owned by John Ketchum who fled from Salem after being accused as a witch. I would like to take a moment now to just say all of that was made up for the film. Sadly I think the bar they are doing their research in, the Witches Brew, was also added to the film. Regardless of all this all research and psychic feelings points towards the basement and a room that was bricked up as being the heart of all the evil in the house.
It should also be noted that their dog, Harry, figured this out well before anyone else. Midway through the film Harry is seen constantly going into the basement and trying to dig through the bricked up wall. Harry is a very good dog.
While there are three children the film largely focuses on the youngest child, and only daughter Amy. Her two brothers, Greg and Matt, look very similar and the only thing that helps you tell the two apart is that one is prone to falling down. One of those boys just falls down constantly. Falls down the basement stairs, falls down the main staircase, falls as the family escapes the house at the end in the rain storm. The other boy does not fall. They both have a nice bond between them though. They share a room, they both team up to annoy their little sister. They seem to have a grand time through most of the film falling and window pane accidents aside. Amy is special. The ghost/demon visits her and says its name is Jody. Amy is not the first spooky little girl that talks to ghosts in films but she definitely made an impression as so many haunted home films after included a small, adorable child that made friends with something horrible and unseen. There’s a slightly sad scene midway into the film, shortly after George and Kathy both yell at Amy for not helping her babysitter get out of the locked closet in her room (a scene that is very frightening despite having no effects at all, just a teen pleading to be let out) we see Amy outside reprimanding her dolls for something they did. She seems to be working through the stress of getting yelled at and the general high tension that is going on in the house. Her brothers during this are trying to scare her with a rubber spider on a fishing line. Jody has her back though and slams the window down on one of the boys’ hands.
What this film is at its core, taking away all the ghosts and demons, is a family that is under a severe amount of stress. Largely financial stress which starts to taint George and Kathy’s relationship and causes both parents to lash out at the children, and their good good dog Harry. It is scary to see a family fall apart. It’s especially sad whenever Kathy drops her brave face and starts to get visibly upset. She does this only a few times in the film in front of George, once on their doorstep after the ghost/demon tears the front door off its hinges and she admits that the house is wrong, and again when during a fight over the house and whose fault moving there was George slaps Kathy across the face. Aside from those moments when Kathy is with her family you can see that she is trying so hard to put on a brave face for her children, and to an extent George. When she is alone and dealing with the ghost by herself she is a mess, and that is fully understandable. Margot Kidder is just amazing in this role. She covers such a wide range of emotions throughout the film and still keeps the core love her character has towards her children and her husband front and center.
An interesting way this film veers away from the majority of the films we will examine throughout the Haunted Homes series, is that the family has a strong foundation around religion. Kathy is Catholic. So Catholic she counts an old priest as a dear friend and her aunt is a nun. George’s business partner even mentions that when he got married to Kathy he changed his religion for her. Most films involving ghosts and demonic possession tend to show the family targeted have little to know connection with religion. This is why in these films the church tends to refuse to help these families. Even with all their connections to the church the Lutz get no support aside from Father Delaney. It is fascinating to see the argument that takes place in Father Delaney’s office with the heads of the local parish. Father Delaney is pleading with his superiors to help the family and they berate him and break him down into tears. The church, as an institution, is fine with abandoning this family, which lines up with the growing sentiment during the late sixties and seventies of people drifting away from the church. After the Vietnam war the country went through a period of disillusionment both in national identity and religious viewpoints. The New Age movement was starting to take off and we were still a few years away from when religion clapped back during the Satanic Panic of the 80s and 90s.
The Lutz family is lost and left to their own devices. Another thing that separates them from other haunted families. They don’t have the option of having a paranormal team of experts to come into their house and attempt to remove the spirits. George and Kathy go through the house themselves and bless the house from room to room. The family makes the decision of finally getting out of the house when things hit the highest point in activity. Which inspired a rule in my life when deciding how much I was willing to deal with in any given situation, “When the walls start to bleed, it is time to leave.”
In a placard that pops up as the family speeds away in the rainy night we learn that the family never returned even for their possessions, and ended up moving two states away. Which when you think about the ramifications of that it also means George abandoned his company. A company that up until he bought the house seemed to be doing just fine. I’m still amazed that he destroyed his company in one month. In reality the family did get their possessions back, they sent a moving company to clear out the house as they wouldn’t set foot in there. The movers did not notice anything spooky while in there. Sad thing about this real life note? It means there probably wasn’t an estate sale for the house where a haunted lamp would be bought and sent across the country to cause all the fun that is Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes with Patty Duke (this is the Amityville sequel to watch, this and when they send the house into space. Yes, Amityville in Space is a film made in 2022).
Scarewise this film goes from subtle to loud in a fun way. From the lack of anything actually being seen to happen in the closet with the babysitter to the booming voice that tells Father Delaney to “GET OUT!” This film has some effective scares to go along with the baseline tension of watching a family fall apart. It also has a giant pig with glowing eyes. It ALSO has a nun vomiting violently on the side of the road in her car which after many, many viewings of this film, still is kind of hilarious.
The first time I watched this film by myself I was living in a house that was very similar in style to the Amityville house. This was not helped by the fact that we all believed the house we were living in was haunted. I was absolutely terrified throughout the film. On rewatch many years later I still find parts of this film scary. It has such a high level of seriousness to the film, and the acting of Brolin and Kidder are so solid you get emotionally invested in the family early on and your heart breaks as they start to get worn down mentally and physically. It holds up and holds its own against any of the films we are going to cover over the next few weeks.
