(July 1979, U.S.)
My post for this film is interestly timed because the actual, infamous house located at 108 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, Long Island was recently put on the real estate market for a mere $1.15 million dollars (anyone interested?).
Keeping in mind that the purpose of this blog is movie memories and not necessarily house memories, I can still claim that the original 1979 version of THE AMITYVILLE HORROR is an entertaining haunted house horror film that manages to effectively use the ideas of suggestion and psychological human breakdown to deliver creepiness and fear without an excessive use of violence or blood. Because it’s a horror film, one must be willing to accept a certain degree of performance that may fall below the par of the full potential one might expect from talented people like James Brolin and Margot Kidder. Their performances are as solid as you can expect for actors who must play the role of a husband and wife living in fear and whose marriage is deteriorating in the face of a supernatural phenomenon. It’s veteran actor Rod Steiger as Father Delaney who honestly carries the performance level of the film, despite a role that is not too large, as a man of religious faith struggling with the reality (the film’s reality, anyway) of what evil truly is and what it can do to good people. It is, however, a film of fiction and nothing more. And even in fiction, there's nothing wrong with entertaining yourself by getting a glimpse of Margot Kidder's tits and ass! Sure puts a new spin on previously seeing her play Lois Lane...
Despite whatever childlike and adolescent curiousities I previously had toward the infamous house in Amityville, Long Island in the past, it’s more than clear as a thinking and logical adult today that the only true event that ever took place at the house on Ocean Avenue was the inexplicable slaughter of a family by a son who was clearly insane. Whatever controversies exist about that house exist only because of the crime that took place on November 13, 1974. But even those controversies and what eventually led up to The Amityville Horror hoax (yes, I said hoax!) are fascinating and intriguing, nonetheless, if you have a taste (even a mild one) for tales of true crime. In 2002, I read a book written by Ric Osuna called THE NIGHT THE DeFEOS DIED: REINVESTIGATING THE AMITYVILLE MURDERS, which documented not only the murders themselves, but the DeFeo family and all of their disfunctions, as well. Without going into too much detail about the book, it basically details how DeFeo killed his family with the help of his sister Dawn and two of his friends. It’s a well-written account of a true-life crime and what may or may not had lead up to it. But even a seriously written account such as this is open to controversy and discrepancy because apparently Ronald DeFeo has changed his story of what happened so many times over the years, it’s become virtually impossible to determine what’s accurate and what’s not. One issue the book does explain is how the 1974 murders were the origin of what lead to George and Kathleen Lutz allegedly purchasing the house with the deliberate intent of not only creating fictional accounts of their experience there, but also deliberately fleeing the house twenty-eight days later in order to create the illusion of what they would try to sell to the public as the truth, when in fact, it was nothing more than a well-crafted and very detailed hoax (there’s that word again!) that the American people, if not the world, was stupid enough to entertain as possible truth (as a kid, I was practically guilty of that myelf). Honestly, however the Lutz’ might have ended up (George and Kathleen are today deceased), I have to give them their due credit for selling a prize fable and managing to reap the endless rewards that came with it. More power to them!
By the way, I've never driven by the actual house. I'd like to. I suppose after all of it's history, it would be like wanting to actually cross the street at London's Abbey Road. Here's what it looks like today...
Favorite line or dialogue:
Kathy Lutz: "I just wish that...all those people hadn't died here. I mean...ugh...a guy kills his whole family. Doesn't that bother you?"
George Lutz: "Well, sure, but...houses don't have memories."
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