Taglines: Houses don’t have memories.
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 newlyweds George and Kathy Lutz and their three children move into the house that they hope will be their dream house which ends up in terror.
Despite full disclosure by the real estate agent of the house’s history, George and Kathy buy the house. George says, “Houses don’t have memories,” but they turn to their family priest Father Delaney who believes the house is haunted and performs an exorcism on the house. But satanic forces in the house causes him to become blind and makes him very sick. With the help of another priest Father Bolen and a police detective, George and Kathy face the fears of the house, but not knowing the forces are planning to possess George and then the children.
The Amityville Horror is a 1979 American supernatural horror film directed by Stuart Rosenberg and starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder as a young couple who purchase a home haunted by combative supernatural forces. The film is based on Jay Anson’s 1977 book of the same name. The story is based on the alleged experiences of the Lutz family who bought a new home in Amityville, New York, where a mass murder had been committed the year before. It is the first film based on the Amityville horror.
Upon its release in the summer of 1979, The Amityville Horror was a major commercial success for American International Pictures, grossing over $80 million in the United States and going on to become one of the highest-grossing independent films of all time. It received mostly negative reviews from critics, though the film has been contemporarily noted by some film scholars as a classic of the horror genre.
The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score by composer Lalo Schifrin and Kidder also earned a Saturn Award nomination for Best Actress. A remake was produced in 2005.
The on-location scenes of The Amityville Horror were filmed at a private residence in Toms River, New Jersey, which had been converted to look like the 112 Ocean Avenue home after authorities in Amityville denied permission for filming on the actual location. Exterior scenes were also filmed in Toms River and Point Pleasant Beach. Local police and ambulance workers would play extras in the film, while the Toms River Volunteer Fire Company was used to provide the rain during several scenes. Indoor shots were filmed at the MGM studio lot in Los Angeles, California.[8][9]
The film shoot was widely publicized in national media when the studio attempted to concoct stories of “unusual” occurrences on the set (not dissimilar from what was claimed to have occurred during the filming of The Exorcist). According to Brolin, he and Kidder were both asked by the studio and the press, “‘Is there weird stuff going on?’… and we were looking for stuff now. We’d have liked to tell them, ‘Oh yeah, you wouldn’t believe the stuff that happened yesterday—my lunch fell off the table in my lap.'”
Lalo Schifrin’s score for The Amityville Horror was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score, but lost out to the score for A Little Romance by Georges Delerue. It is sometimes claimed that this score was the one rejected in 1973 for The Exorcist, but Schifrin has denied this in interviews.
The Amityville Horror (1979)
Directed by: Stuart Rosenberg
Starring: James Brolin, Margot Kidder, Rod Steiger, Natasha Ryan, Murray Hamilton, John Larch, Michael Sacks, Helen Shaver, Amy Wright, Val Avery, Irene Dailey, Marc Vahanian
Screenplay by: Sandor Stern
Production Design by: Salvatore Billitteri
Cinematography by: Fred J. Koenekamp
Film Editing by: Robert Brown
Set Decoration by: Robert R. Benton
Art Direction by: Kim Swados
Makeup Department: Stephen Abrums, Christine Lee
Music by: Lalo Schifrin
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: American International Pictures
Release Date: July 27, 1979
Visits: 539