Editorial Reviews

Bad guys are great. There's nothing quite like a malevolent presence that implacably wishes evil on everyone in town. A guy with a sneer and a moustache and an upset stomach. A guy totally unlike the evil entity in "The Amityville Horror."

The horror in this movie, alas, isn't a bad guy at all. Doesn't have a shape or a face or a personality. May not even be a guy. Is a presence that causes the worst sorts of things to happen. Who upsets the dog and causes the doors to bang open and makes the house too cold all the timeÑand, in short, makes things just like Chicago.

The presence persecutes a family played by James Brolin and Margot Kidder and a bunch of kids, who have to scream and quake on a regular basis for 28 days in the book and for 21 days, if I counted correctly, in the movie. They play a couple named George and Kathy Lutz, whose experiences inspired a bestselling book named, of course, "The Amityville Horror," and who moved out of their house and left their furniture behind and moved to San Diego, fulfilling all of our dreams.

IS THE STORY based on fact? I have no way of knowing. I've met George Lutz; I had a couple of beers with him in the Los Angeles Airport, and he seemed to be a likable and a totally believable person. He told me, soberly and earnestly, of the terrible things that happened to him and his family in that haunted house on Ocean Boulevard on Long Island, out there where people move in every expectation of learning Craig Claiborne's "New York Times Cook Book" by heart.

Was he telling the truth? Did green slime really squirt from the keyholes? Did a a redeyed pig really glare through the windows? Did a ghostly marching band really parade through the living room? Maybe so; we've all made bad real estate investments. But the question isn't so much whether those terrible things really happened as whether (please forgive me for my lack of reverence) they've been made into an entertaining movie.

They have not. They've been made into a dreary and terminally depressing series of glum things that happen to the residents of the Ocean Boulevard house. Nobody who has had to live under a roof and amidst four walls and pay the rent could possibly find such things amusing.

THE STAIRS collapse? There are thousands of flies in the sewing room? There's a pig with glowing red eyes staring in through the windows? The problem with these folks is that they've moved to Long Island. There are lots of neighborhoods in Chicago in which they woulda made a good investment.

But am I growing facetious? Not really. In order to be a horror movie, a horror movie needs a real Horror. The creature in "Alien" was truly gruesome. The case of possession in "The Exorcist " was profoundly frightening.

The problem with "The Amityville Horror" is that, in a very real sense, there's nothing there. We watch two hours of people being frightened and dismayed, and we ask ourselves . ., what for? If it's real, let it have happened to them. Too bad, Lutzes! If it's made up, make it more entertaining. If they can't make up their minds. . . why should we?

Plot Summary

• Tagline: "For God's Sake, Get Out!"
• Plot Outline: Newlyweds move into a house where a murder was committed, and experience strange manifestations which drive them away.
• Plot Synopsis: Based on a true story that was claimed by writer Jay Anson, The Amityville Horror is about a large house on the coast of Long Island where newly weds George and Kathy Lutz and their three children move into the house that they hope will be their dream house but it ends up in terror. Not aware that a murder took place in the house several years back, George and Kathy turn to their family priest Father Delaney who believes the house is haunted and performs an exorcism on the house. But the evil spirit in the house causes him to become blind and makes him very ill. George and Kathy with the help of another priest Father Bolen and a police detective they face the fears of the house, but not knowing the spirit is planning to possess George and then the children...

Product Details

• Actors: James Brolin, Margot Kidder, Rod Steiger, Don Stroud, Murray Hamilton
• Directors: Stuart Rosenberg
• Format: Closed-Captioned, Color, Dubbed, Full Screen, Letterboxed, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Disc Origin: Region 1 (USA) Original
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (Letterboxed), 1.33:1 (Full Screen)
• Number of discs: 2 (2 x DVD5)
• Rating: R
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• DVD Release Date: September 5, 2000
• Run Time: 119 minutes