In Defense of . . . The Amityville Horror
- carriebee
- Dec 3, 2023
- 13 min read
Updated: Jun 2, 2024
I think haunted houses are terrifying. Most people must agree with me, because all cultures seem to have some version of the haunted house, complete with culturally specific reasons for the haunting and the type of ghost. We in the United States are particularly fond of the “Native American burial ground” origin of a haunting, but we’ll also accept murder, suicide, or demon infestation as credible causes.
It seems like the Native American burial ground idea would be as old as the country itself, but according to Colin Dickey, author of Ghostland: an American History in Haunted Places, this idea actually seems to come entirely from the 1977 book The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson.
This ostensibly true story tells the tale of the Lutz family who moved into a house in Amityville, New York where the DeFeo family had been murdered the previous year. The Lutzes moved out of the house one month later claiming they were the victim of an intense paranormal attack. If there was any house that could plausibly be haunted, it was this one: the highly dysfunctional DeFeo family had lived there for nine years until the oldest child, Ronald “Butch” DeFeo, shot all other members of his family in the middle of the night. He was a drug addict and sociopath, as well as the victim of years of abuse at the hands of his father.
The murder really happened, as did the Lutz family moving into and out of the house, but it’s become increasingly clear in the subsequent 45 years that the haunting did not. Both George and Kathy Lutz are now dead, but enough information has come out, about George in particular, to lead reasonable observers to conclude the story was made up - either to get out from under a mortgage they couldn’t afford or they had bought the house expressly for the purpose of fabricating the haunting story and cashing in.
Despite having the prose stylings of a precocious 6th grader, Jay Anson’s book was a huge hit, eventually selling around 10 million copies. The book blames the paranormal phenomena on a few things: the ghosts of the dead DeFeo family, demons, and a Native American burial ground™. It’s offensive to blame a fake haunting on a real tragedy, but it’s even more offensive to claim, as Anson does, that the land under the Amityville house was not your garden-variety burial ground: it was a place where the Shinnecock people would imprison community members who were mentally ill or had developmental delays and would leave them to die of exposure. There is no evidence that any North American tribe ever did this and certainly no evidence that the Shinnecock did, so this idea must have come from the lively imagination of Anson.
Demons loomed large in the cultural consciousness of the 1970s, so either Anson or the Lutzes added demonic imagery to the story. They were likely influenced byThe Exorcist, the 1974 best picture nominee, which made demons and the healing power of the Catholic Church common horror tropes for decades after. Anson’s The Amityville Horror showcased both of these themes (although in a more middle-class fashion) and so it was only a matter of time before someone decided this was a story that needed to be made into a movie.
Samuel Z. Arkoff, who Wikipedia describes as “an American producer of B movies,” purchased the movie rights not long after the book was published. In addition to being a producer, he was vice president of American International Pictures, an independent production company that (up until 1980) made mostly low-budget films. Jay Anson wrote a screenplay of his book, but it was wisely rejected by Arkoff and a new script was written by Sandor Stern. I can only imagine what an Anson-penned script would have been like, but my guess is something akin to Beverly Hills, 90210 with more hooded demons and fewer love triangles.
Originally, the idea had been to attempt to film the movie at the actual house on Long Island, but the town of Amityville vehemently opposed the idea. Also, the house had been purchased by another family in 1977 who weren’t interested in giving their home over to a movie production crew for a few months. Instead, the movie was filmed in Toms River, New Jersey in a house that was altered to resemble the real Amityville house. A fake “Dutch colonial” roof line was added and a boathouse was constructed on the Toms River. The movie house doesn’t particularly resemble the real house in Amityville, but its image is what has become iconic, eclipsing the more modest (yet spookier) original.
The Amityville Horror, released in 1979, has the grim and dreary earth tone palette that seems common in the movies and photography of the late ‘70s, including the interior of the house. Interestingly, this is in direct contrast to what the real house looked like, something I found out while looking at the DeFeo crime scene photos (below). The house in Amityville was smaller and much more ostentatious than the movie version - it looked like an Italian restaurant decorated by Liberace. The family who had lived there, the DeFeos, had recently come into some amount of money and were clearly interested in broadcasting this fact to the world. The house is almost Victorian in its aesthetic, with overstuffed rooms and heavy velvet furniture and gilt-framed oil paintings. Every room has a bold wallpaper print and shag carpet and piles of possessions belonging to the four children who lived there.
The interiors of the movie house were filmed on a set, which may be why the quality of the light is what it is. Everything seems worn and in need of repair, unlike the real house, but is a nice stylistic touch. In the children’s bedrooms and the “sewing room” the wallpaper is shown as half-peeled off, a nod to the post-muder clean up that must have occurred. The furniture is spare and well-used, a subtle detail to illustrate that the family is out of their depth financially. The book takes place during the winter, and the movie doesn’t specify when it takes place, but George feeling cold is a major plot point. The exteriors seem to show early fall and the weather doesn’t look particularly cool, but the house effectively gives the impression of being persistently chilly. Cold spots in houses have long been associated with hauntings, although I suspect what influenced Jay Anson (and possibly George Lutz) was the description of the nursery in The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (1959). It’s described as the “heart of the house,” the center of the haunting, and the location of a dramatic cold spot.
The movie stars Margot Kidder and James Brolin as Kathy and George Lutz and Rod Steiger as Father Delaney (Father Mancuso in the book). Margot Kidder had starred as Lois Lane in The Superman Movie the year before and saw this (correctly) as a movie that would be popular and a good career move. James Brolin was a minor star and heartthrob and had starred in relatively unknown (although still awesome) movies in the ‘60s and ‘70s like Westworld. He was the less famous of the two leads, and although they apparently didn’t get along during filming, they have a nice, mellow chemistry. Rod Steiger had had quite a long and lauded acting career by this point and his performance in this movie could be charitably described as overwrought. The supporting cast is capable and is populated with two (!) actors who would later appear in Back to the Future (Mr. Strickland and the “Save the clock tower!” woman from the beginning), but a real standout is Helen Shaver who plays George’s friend’s psychic girlfriend Carolyn. She chews the scenery just as intensely as Rod Steiger (and weirdly, as Rod Steiger), but the effect is scary instead of funny.
The events of the movie follow the book closely, including the date titles at the beginning of each scene. Jay Anson would have struggled to write a nonlinear narrative, so the movie begins with the night of the DeFeo murders, a shot of the house with its lighted “eye” windows under a blood red sky. As the sky turns to black Lalo Schifrin’s lullabye score plays on. In terms of pure visceral creepiness and iconic images there are few better horror openings. Then we transition to a thunderstorm and are witness to the murders, mostly watching them from the outside of the house in a relatively tasteful manner. After the bodies are removed by the police (including an interesting shot from the inside of the car with the bodies) we get our first title card letting us know that a year has passed.
We’re introduced to George and Kathy Lutz standing in the sunshine and admiring the boathouse. Their real estate agent (“Save the clock tower!”) appears, excited to show them the amenities of this large house. They take a tour and as they’re looking at the bedrooms the present is intercut with scenes of the murders, not so tastefully presented this time. It’s hard to show the murder of children without descending into sleaze, but director Stuart Rosenberg valiantly tries. In this version of the movie, the Lutzes already know about the DeFeo murders, so they retreat to a 3rd floor bedroom to discuss a.) if they can afford this house and b.) if they want to live in a house where six people were murdered. I think we know what they decide.
We then cut to the Lutz family moving into the house, unpacking boxes, laying shelf paper, deciding where the crucifix should be hung, the usual things you do in a new home. After what seems like a solid ten minutes of work, they decide to take their speedboat out for a ride and leave the house unattended. They must have forgotten that their priest, Father Delaney, was supposed to stop by and bless the house (Is this an actual thing? I’ve never heard of a preemptive blessing, but what do I know? I'm not Catholic.) so he arrives to an empty and unlocked house. He proceeds inside anyway and heads to a bedroom at the top of the stairs. This is one of the iconic scenes in the movie, which has a surprisingly high number of iconic scenes, but this always struck me as nonsensical. Would you really go into someone’s house when they’re not there? And if you did, why start the ceremony in a random bedroom upstairs? Why not the kitchen or something? Regardless, he’s blessing away in what the movie shows us is the most haunted room in the house. Hordes of flies appear on the window and a raspy “demonic” voice tells him to “Get out!” He runs down the stairs and throws up outside his car. There’s more vomit in this movie than you would expect. This sequence is famous, and definitely not the scariest in the movie, but works better than it should because it’s relatively quiet and there’s a hint that this could all be in the priest’s head. He seems a bit unstable and like someone who could see demon possessions in all kinds of places.
A series of mild supernatural incidents follow: weird black goo in the toilets, the boathouse door opening by itself, phone calls with static, lost money, George waking up repeatedly at 3:15 a.m., Kathy’s aunt (who is a nun) feeling unsettled by the house and leaving after only a few minutes (and throwing up as well). I’ve seen lots of criticism about this aspect of the movie - that nothing really happens - but I think that’s actually the most effective part of the book and the movie. In real haunted houses, and I do believe that there are such things, most paranormal activity is subtle. If it was overt, people would be terrified and move away and we would have proof of ghosts. The Amityville Horror is one of the few movies that captures the feeling of unease one gets in an actual haunted house.
One of the most effective scenes isn’t explicitly supernatural at all: Kathy is home alone and someone knocks at the back door. She finds a man who looks disheveled, with a runny nose, holding a six pack of beer. He says that everyone wanted to come over and welcome them to the neighborhood. The phone rings and she steps away for a few seconds. When she comes back he’s gone. There’s no explanation for this experience and he’s never mentioned again. This scene is in the book as well, also with no explanation, although Kathy does think about the fact that he doesn’t look like someone who would live in their wealthy neighborhood. This is an uncanny scene and something that the book surprisingly excels at. There are a few parts of the book that could have been added to the movie that would have increased this feeling of unease, like when a neighbor boy comes over to play with the two sons and insists on playing in the front hall with his coat on. Or the smells that they experience in different rooms (perfume, blood, shit) - there’s a brief shot of Kathy sniffing the air, but no dialogue describing why.
Another noteworthy scene, which isn’t in the book, is the babysitter sequence. George and Kathy and the two boys head out to her brother’s wedding (which is in the book), but the daughter, Amy, stays behind because she’s sick. A teenaged babysitter (with headgear!) is there to take care of her (and has her work cut out for her because Amy is a complete brat). When it’s time for Amy to go to bed, the babysitter goes into the closet to get her nightgown and an unseen force closes and locks the door behind her. The camera is in the closet with the babysitter and you see her transition from irritated to hysterical, pounding on the door so hard her hands are bloody. And then the light goes out. It’s so effective because most people can imagine how scary it would be to be locked in a pitch black closet while a child outside ignores you. It’s irrational to freak out (to some extent) because you know that the parents will show up eventually and let you out, but the primal terror of the situation is real.
Once the movie starts ratcheting up the intensity, as horror movies tend to do in their final act, it loses a bit of its steam. George has a horribly misogynistic and violent weirdo of a friend/co-worker who stops by occasionally throughout the movie. He and his psychic girlfriend Carolyn offer to babysit one evening, and she makes her way down to the basement where she finds the Lutz’s dog Harry scratching at a brick wall under the stairs. She picks up a pickaxe and starts hitting the wall, to the embarrassment of her shitty boyfriend. George appears and realizes she’s right to think that there’s something behind the wall and continues breaking it down and they find the infamous red room. Carolyn seems to go into a trance and starts speaking in the voice of Father Delaney, saying the red room is “. . . the passage to hell! Cover it!” (Serious question: Could you cover a passage to hell? Like if you nailed a piece of plywood over it, would it have any effect? Or would it require concrete?)
This scene in the movie is another thing that has become a bit of a cliche, but the red room in the book is quite scary. Kathy is storing canned goods in a closet under the basement stairs and discovers that the rear wall is actually a door. Behind it is a concrete-walled space, 5’x5’, painted red. This was a real feature of the house and I’ve seen pictures of it. Why it was ever built is beyond me, but it was probably just like a crawl space - too low to be used for anything practical, so the closet wall was built on top of it. In the book it’s described as smelling like blood - maybe a little too on-the-nose of a detail, but effective. There’s another scene in the book where George is in the “Witch’s Brew” bar and the bartender, who doesn't know he’s the new owner of the house, tells a story of being hired to tend bar for a party thrown by the DeFeo’s and discovers the red room. He says that he had nightmares about the room and dreamed that people were killing dogs and pigs in the small space. I’m 99.7% sure that the story is bullshit, dreamed up by Jay Anson, but it’s a nice touch because it’s just a dream. If Anson had tried to claim that this sacrifice scenario was true (in the context of the book) it would have taken its power away because it’s too ludicrous a tale. But as a dream, it leaves lingering questions and a sense of dread.
The red room in the movie is much more sensational, painted a shiny blood red with the literal portal to hell that erupts in the final sequence. George becomes possessed, I guess by the same demon(s) that possessed Butch DeFeo, and tries to kill his family with an ax. He comes to his senses and the family escapes but then realize that they left Harry the dog in the house. And not just in the house, in the basement. This poor dog has been left next to the gateway to hell for probably days and George (finally) goes back to rescue him.
As he descends the basement stairs they collapse and he falls into a pool of the same black goo that had filled their toilets earlier. Harry pulls him from the hole (that’s a good dog, these people don’t deserve him) and the family escapes in their van. End credits.
The Amityville Horror was the most successful independent film from its release in 1979 until 1990, when it was knocked off the top spot by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Wow. So a lot of people saw it, but it’s never been a particularly beloved horror movie. Despite this, it began a movie franchise that has more entries than any other (31), but the movie and series are not respected or given the serious (re)consideration of other originally maligned horror films.
The main criticism I hear about the original Amityville movie is that it’s boring and not scary. I would disagree and argue the pace and the naturalism is what makes it scary. Movies of this time period were not afraid of silence, unattractive actors, or scenes that didn’t move the plot forward. It’s a ‘70s movie through and through and has the shaggy quality that many movies from that decade do, focusing on economic despair, showing mundane aspects of domestic life, and allowing sequences to naturally unfold. I’ve always thought that was the most effective style in which to make a haunted house movie. Unlike serial killers or monsters, most of us have experiences with the paranormal and ghosts. Almost everyone I've met has been in a house they find creepy. The modern horror movies with slick production and beautiful actors and loud jump scares remind you every few seconds that you’re watching a movie, diminishing whatever fear the movie had accrued. The Amityville Horror succeeds precisely because of its leisurely pace and low-key scares.
It’s not a perfect film, but its enduring popularity shows that it had an impact on America’s collective psyche and its influence is felt in almost every haunted house movie (and book and TV show) that’s been made in the last 40 years. A sordid murder followed by a made-up haunting inspired a badly-written book which led to a better movie, a truly scary sequel (more to come on Amityville II soon), and then 30 increasingly grim and unrelated entries in the series. It’s an interesting cultural trajectory of a crime that has taken on a life of its own.
