The Amityville Horror
Short description
George and Kathy Lutz buy a large Victorian house in Amityville on Long Island at a price far below what such a property should cost. They move in with their three children, unaware that a young man murdered his parents and siblings in the house about a year earlier, and that his defence at trial rested on voices he said had ordered him to do it. Strange and frightening things begin happening to the family. Kathy asks a priest she knows, Father Delaney, to bless the house, but he is taken ill before he can finish, and other priests who take an interest fare no better. After roughly four weeks the Lutzes abandon the house.
This is the first screen version of the Lutz case, released in 1979 and running just under two hours. It is Stuart Rosenberg's fifth film as director, coming between Voyage of the Damned and two further features. Sandor Stern wrote the screenplay, and Elliot Geisinger and Ronald Saland produced it for American International Pictures. James Brolin and Margot Kidder play George and Kathy, with Rod Steiger as Father Delaney and Murray Hamilton, Don Stroud and John Larch among the priests. Made for about five million dollars, it took around eighty-six million worldwide.
On IMDb it holds 6.2 out of 10 from roughly forty-nine thousand votes, and on TMDB 6.3 from about a thousand. A critics' rating of 5 out of 10 from forty-eight reviews places it below the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Due to the notoriety that Jay Anson's 1977 novel and Stuart Rosenberg's (1927-2007) 1979 film brought to the house in Amityville, the current owners have replaced the windows with standard rectangular glass.
- The film's budget was relatively modest, and James Brolin took a smaller-than-usual advance, but with the condition that he would receive 10% of the box office revenue. The film unexpectedly became a blockbuster, and Brolin ultimately received $17 million. In 2014, adjusted for inflation, that amount would be $55 million.
- When first offered the role of George, actor James Brolin initially hesitated about filming. He was told that there was simply no script, and that he just needed to read the source novel. Brolin began reading it around 7 PM, and at 2 AM was still engrossed. Before this, he had hung a pair of trousers in his room, and at the moment of reading a particularly tense plot point, the trousers suddenly fell to the floor, causing Brolin to jump in his chair as if stung. It was then that he realized that “there was something to it,” and agreed to star in the film.
- James Brolin's brother appeared in the basement scene with the bearded man from the 'red room'. The studio wanted someone who resembled the actor, so his brother came in handy (and his beard was fake).
- James Brolin became quite close with George Lutz and his children, but he treated their stories with a degree of skepticism.
- To attract flies to Rod Steiger's character (1925-2002), his hair was smeared with honey.
- For a long time, rumors circulated that the film would be shot in the very house in Amityville that the novel was about, but the filmmakers were afraid to shoot inside the house. Furthermore, American International Pictures did not receive permission from city authorities to film in the town (city officials decided the town didn't need that kind of notoriety). As a result, the filmmakers found a three-story house in a town in New Jersey, which they used for filming. They added a fourth-story facade and crescent-shaped windows to the sides. Some interior scenes were filmed inside this house, including the one where George returns in the middle of the night from the barn, goes onto the porch, and lights a cigarette. At that moment, you can notice that the living room is missing a door and wallpaper, while the sets built on the studio lot have both wallpaper and a door near the bookshelf.
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