The Amityville Horror (1979)

Plot Outline: George and Kathy Lutz, a newly married couple with three children, move into their beautiful new house in Amityville, New York. The house was the scene of a brutal mass murder the year earlier when a teenage boy murdered his family with a shotgun. Once they're inside, weird things begin to happen such as the walls begin to drip blood and George begins to slowly loose his mind.

The Review: This is one completely overrated film which is neither scary nor spooky nor interesting. It's dull from the very get go and doesn't pick up at all, even when it shifts into The Shining mode when Brolin has snapped. The problem is that the film doesn't really show any continuity. A lot of different things happen inside the house, such as the walls dripping blood, the sudden appearance of a swarm of bees or money going missing. What is the connection between all of this? Who knows? And by the time is finished you won't care either. What was the deal with the Indian burial ground in the basement? Other films and programmes have spoofed this scene (including one of the The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror episodes) and if you saw that you'd think it was a big deal in the film. But it isn't and seems to be a cheap way to explain what has happened for the previous hour and a half. Even the menacing development of Brolin's character from loving father to possible psychopath is shelved without explanation. Perhaps they should have just gone with convention and come up with some cookie cutter ending. At least Brolin and Kidder do themselves no harm with some decent performances, it's just a shame the rest of the film is a mess. Rod Steiger completely overacts in his small role as the priest called in to exorcise the house. It's just another bad highlight in such a dreary film.

Final Verdict: The Amityville Horror spends too much time in trying to go somewhere fast but it only goes nowhere. Less focus on minor events and scares and more focus on the overall plot would have done this film no harm. As it stands, I'm hard pushed to give it anything more than what I have.

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