AMITYVILLE HORROR 1979 in '70s Horror and Sci-Fi Forum

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AMITYVILLE HORROR 1979

Author	Comment
Koukol 5	AMITYVILLE HORROR 1979	Lead	[-]
Sep 13 08 7:43 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'm surprised that there's no folder for the 1979 (original) version. I just bought the DVD used for $3.00 and watched it last night and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I must have seen it in the theatre a few times because as the film unfolded I new what was coming.(my memory usually isn't that great) First off... I love that the story takes place in the fall with all the wonderful colours. The acting was good, if not great, with the great looking house taking centre roll~the widow/eyes is very freaky. When I was young the most effective scene was the red room...it still is. Something told me that I'll bet David Lynch probably liked that idea of a hidden room. One thing I didn't like was the music~the children singsong didn't make any sense. I'm sure there are others here at CHFB that enjoy this film too.
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Jeffrey Allen Rydell		#1	[-]
Sep 13 08 8:17 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Koukol 5 wrote: One thing I didn't like was the music~the children singsong didn't make any sense. You shot the Schifrin (but did not shoot the Debussy)! - Jeff
Great Ape		#2	[-]
Sep 13 08 9:50 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I loved the book and thought the film was pretty darn good. Very realistic and creepy. My favorite scene in both the book and the film are the eyes of Jodie peering out the window of the little girls room seen by the dad in the backyard. Spoooooky!
Dr Borgo		#3	[-]
Sep 13 08 9:51 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	One thing I didn't like was the music~the children singsong didn't make any sense Oh man. I got to disagree with you on that one. I think that is one of the creepiest scores ever. The movie scared the crap out of me as a kid. I may have to get the DVD out and watch it tonight.
Spoiler II		#4	[-]
Sep 13 08 10:05 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	My unnecessary two cents haha. The score was indeed the creepiest part of the film to me as a kid in the late 70s and as an adult,it remains the one thing in the film that can get a reaction. I liked the story in the Exorcist documentary about it being that films original score and when Friedkin heard it,he took it and threw it across the street into an abandoned lot. The slowly opening door followed by the whispered "get out.." and the following bellow is a great scene. Rod Steiger emotes like a man possessed (maybe he should have been in the sleazier sequel!!). Any real pumpkin shaped house can always get a guaranteed response of "The Amityville Horror house!" when seen in public. The red room in the basement is indeed a great vague idea that really gets you wondering its purpose. Jodie the pigs red eyes scared the hell out of me as a kid..now it comes across as cheap cheap cheap! In the late 70s,the original novel with those 3D flies on the cover looked like the most malevolent book in the world. The IN SEARCH OF episode is actually much creepier than the AIP film is,particularly the glowing eyed doll scenes. In the early 80s,you couldn't escape this damn story..a search of youtube reveals a score of TV magazine shows about it that i remembered being spellbound by as a kid ( GOOD MORNING AMERICA, MERV GRIFFIN, THATS INCREDIBLE etc) One of the most disturbing AMITYVILLE things i always think of when the film is brought up is the MAD magazine spoof that had a typically great Mort Drucker splash page showcasing all the characters and behind them is a tree with an ax in it and the tree is wimpering "it hurts". As a kid,that was really frightening haha
AlfredLynch		#5	[-]
Sep 14 08 8:58 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I agree that it is a good movie. It gets pretty bad reviews but it was a rainy day weekend classic growing up in the early 80s. The moive is filled with creepy atmosphere and the perfect dark to light ratio. The shadows are real shadows and the dark scenes are real dark scene. the house looks amazing and the fall setting is perfect. James Brolin was perect for the burly role.
Uncle Bingo		#6	[-]
May 15 12 10:20 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Wow. Not much here on the Amityville Horror? Surprising since it has been turned into such a franchise. I wonder whatever happened to the original Lutz kids. Kathy and George Lutz maintained their story to their graves. But I wonder what the kids' memories are? I actually wanted to buy the house when it went up for sale recently and turn it into a museum like the "Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast" we have here in Fall River, MA. The price tag was way too high for the estate and I couldn't find any investors. I tried though. :/
msotis		#7	[-]
May 15 12 10:55 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Kathy and George Lutz maintained their story to their graves. My father told me the same thing. He was an Architect whose practice was in Farmingdale - a town adjacent to Amityville. As a young artist, i asked my father to bring home the calenders he got from his clients for painting subject matter. A few of them were from George Lutz Contractors. The name didn't mean a thing to me until a few years later when i see my dad reading a new book (at the time) called 'Amityville Horror'. He explains to me it is the very same client and he swears it's true. To this day i say "Uh huh. Yeah. Right.".
chrismartin4u		#8	[-]
May 17 12 6:02 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Recently I watched the amityville(2005) but it was not so good. There was nothing to be scared in the movie.
Dr Acula		#9	[-]
May 17 12 8:37 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The best website on the Amityville Horror is this one, which is neither fluffy believer or hard core skeptic, but more of an attempt to look at the whole phenomenon and allow readers to make their own conclusion: http://www.amityvillefaq.com/ One of the Lutz children posts to the forum (Christopher, I believe)... from the sense of the posts that I've read of his, he thinks that something happened, but most of what is in the book is fiction... that the stuff that di happen was weird enough. I think some of the kids have talked about the events from time to time, but the youngest daughter hasn't really made a statement. Amityville is a scary film, particularly Jody the Pig Angel starring through the window of the house... But the In Search Of episode may be scarier. As a kid, I think the two merged in my mind! Also, I want to quote from myself from the Amityville forum on that site, because I discovered an interesting connection: I've been watching the first season box set of the classic series Mission: Impossible when I got to the episode Zubrovnik's Ghost. The shocker: a number of scenes from The Amityville Haunting seem to have been taken from this episode, and I can't help but wonder if it influenced Jay Anson when writing the novel (the believer's position) or the Lutz family when they made it all up (the skeptic's position). Specific scenes in Mission that were replayed in Amityville: 1) Bees. Specifically, bees congregating on window paines while there is a heightened HUMMM on the soundtrack. The shots are quite similar to AH, and even though AH used flies, the method they used to get them to slowly build in number around the glass is the same (the more bees on the window, the more deadly the encounter). More interesting still is that the sound effect is (I think) the exact same one used in the film. 2) The bees eventually break in and cause one fellow to fall to his death, and another is stung to death. In AH, the flies congregate and frighten the priest and the family. 3) A large menacing dog moves in and out of the story, similar to the prominent role the dog played in AH (both indicate detection of supernatural presences, both with times where they are angered at the presence and others where they are calm and helping the family). 4) The basement factors in briefly in the MI episode, and in particular the dog goes under a little room under the stairs when the MI psychic deduces a character is dead. Visually similar to the "red room" under the stairs in AH. The bees are the big connection here. Were loudly buzzing bees &/or flies ever used in another film or fiction to indicate a haunting presence before MI?
Hamicus Helen		#10	[-]
May 17 12 10:45 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	This film still creeps me out to this day and the song is my ringtone "You think that when you die you go to heaven. You come to us!"
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Uncle Bingo		#11	[-]
May 17 12 5:39 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Billy Friedkin does NOT have that ringtone!!!
amarok		#12	[-]
May 17 12 10:53 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Back in '79, I saw AMITYVILLE twice at the theater because . . . there wasn't much else to do in Stillwater, Oklahoma, when I was at OSU. A good enough way to spend a couple hours. I think I would have hated Rod Steiger's scenery-chewing performance as the priest in another film, but it seemed appropriate here. And I loved the children's voices/music! Like a hop-scotch song by the Midwich Cuckoos. The father looking up and seeing "Jodi" leering down from the window was quite a jolt in '79 -- I hate to say it, but it has less impact now. And the mother looking down to see the George Lutz character running back to the house with an ax a few seconds later was a nice follow-up. Has anyone ever noticed the resemblance of AMITYVILLE's plot to THE SHINING (the Kubrik movie; haven't read the novel)? A house/hotel with grisly murders in its past; a family moves in, and the father slowly descends toward psychosis; he seems intent on giving his family the ax; an old photo/news clipping shows that the father character looks exactly like the previous nutjob who lived there; a psychic (sister of the wife in AH, I think, and Scatman Crothers in SHINING) senses someting wrong. And the family flees into the night with the house falling apart behind them. (Oops! That's POLTERGEIST!) I've heard people say that the book Amityville Horror is one of the scariest volumes they've ever read, hoax or not. Guess I'll have to pick up a copy. Between the believers and the skeptics there have been semi-believers who suggest that the Amityville house hosted a more "ordinary" haunting (!) -- that is, the priest felt as if a presence were telling him to get out, rather than hearing a literal voice, etc. Finally -- there was a black stand-up comedian who used AMITYVILLE in his act. He says something like, "This would have been a much shorter movie if black folks starred in it. First time the house say, 'GET OOOUUT!' -- I'm gone!" Anyone recall who that was?
flashback		#13	[-]
May 17 12 11:58 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	eddie murphy was the comic.
Spoiler II		#14	[-]
May 18 12 10:23 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	flashback wrote: eddie murphy was the comic. And that was a take off of Richard Pryor's bit on THE EXORCIST,a much funnier one where Pryor does the possessed voice "Helloooo" and follows it with "Goodbyyeee".
Rakshasa		#15	[-]
May 20 12 7:53 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	amarok wrote: I've heard people say that the book Amityville Horror is one of the scariest volumes they've ever read, hoax or not. Guess I'll have to pick up a copy. I read the novel when I was in the 6th grade and it was the first time I ever realized that a book could be that terrifying. I distinctly remember reading it in bed at night and getting so spooked that I was afraid to turn the light out. I saw the film in the theater with my older sister the summer it came out. I remember singing the creepy "children choir" theme from the movie to her on the drive home and her yelling at me to "Stop it!!!". She was scared. Links To All The Classic Monster Stills I've Posted: http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/topic/30758
Red Gargon		#16	[-]
May 21 12 8:59 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	amarok wrote: Has anyone ever noticed the resemblance of AMITYVILLE's plot to THE SHINING (the Kubrik movie; haven't read the novel)? A house/hotel with grisly murders in its past; a family moves in, and the father slowly descends toward psychosis; he seems intent on giving his family the ax; an old photo/news clipping shows that the father character looks exactly like the previous nutjob who lived there; a psychic (sister of the wife in AH, I think, and Scatman Crothers in SHINING) senses someting wrong. And the family flees into the night with the house falling apart behind them. (Oops! That's POLTERGEIST!) James Brolin - who I think is really good and convincing in AMITYVILLE - gives the performance Jack Nicholson should have in THE SHINING. Despite some AIP-cheapo factor, and the wacky antics of Rod Steiger, I think AMITYVILLE HORROR is pretty good if not as slick as its OMEN and EXORCIST brethren. Stephen King nailed it when he said (in DANSE MACABRE, I think) that what was good about the film was how it, really for the first time in movies, effectively juxtaposed real-life nightmares most everyone can relate to (financial woes, failing as a parent, domestic strife and violence) with the supernatural horrors. Obviously something King trades on all the time as part of his stock bag of tricks.
Koukol 5		#17	[-]
May 21 12 9:19 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Nicholson's perfect in THE SHINING. One of the reasons it makes most critics top ten lists.
Rick		#18	[-]
May 21 12 9:29 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Boy, I'm gonna disagree with everybody about something. I hated AMITYVILLE HORROR. Thought it was a huge missed opportunity. Best selling book, supposedly "true" -- and at least there were real, actual murders in the house's history -- a decent cast. If it had traded on that "this really happened" thing it could have been incredibly scary. Maybe not a great movie, but one possessed of some really visceral scares provided by that thought that maybe this wasn't just a movie story, maybe this is something that could happen in anyone's spooky house. But they missed the boat altogether. Just schlock. In Danse Macabre, King invited readers to send him corrections. So I sent him a 17 page letter. 12 pages were corrections, the other 5 were just me complaining about his support of AMITYVILLE HORROR and PROPHECY, two major horror films and two lousy ones. As for Nicholson in THE SHINING. Nope, he's the worst thing about the movie.
flashback		#19	[-]
May 21 12 9:30 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	nickelson is good .however when he does a good peformance outside of his "nickelson" personna for a whole film he will really impress me. i am talking about the way peter fonda played a non-cool, non action charactor in ulies gold from beginning to end.
Red Gargon		#20	[-]
May 21 12 10:24 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Rick wrote: Boy, I'm gonna disagree with everybody about something. I hated AMITYVILLE HORROR. Thought it was a huge missed opportunity. Best selling book, supposedly "true" -- and at least there were real, actual murders in the house's history -- a decent cast. If it had traded on that "this really happened" thing it could have been incredibly scary. Maybe not a great movie, but one possessed of some really visceral scares provided by that thought that maybe this wasn't just a movie story, maybe this is something that could happen in anyone's spooky house. But they missed the boat altogether. Just schlock. In Danse Macabre, King invited readers to send him corrections. So I sent him a 17 page letter. 12 pages were corrections, the other 5 were just me complaining about his support of AMITYVILLE HORROR and PROPHECY, two major horror films and two lousy ones. As for Nicholson in THE SHINING. Nope, he's the worst thing about the movie. If you thought the '79 AMITYVILLE HORROR was a stinker for those reasons you ought to give the 2005 version a whirl - takes it even further from a "this could happen" place. It's been awhile since I've read DANSE MACABRE but thought King was kind of lukewarm on AMITYVILLE with the exception of its real-life domestic strife angle, I remember he called out the scene where Brolin has to pay the caterer and the money's just gone missing. I like THE SHINING too but I was also under the impression that the critics who like it kinda like it despite Nicholson's from-frame-one Commander Cuckoobananas performance rather than because of it.
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