Editorials
“Get Out!”: Classic Haunted House Film ‘The Amityville Horror’ Turns 40
Of all the haunted houses in the world of horror, few are as iconic or its story as well known as The Amityville Horror. Based on a bestselling novel of the same name by Jay Anson, the film tells the story of newlywed couple George and Kathy Lutz, and Kathy’s kids from a previous marriage, as they embark on a new life together with the purchase of a lakeside property at a bargain price. The American dream. Except, there’s something seriously wrong with the house, and it threatens to tear this family apart permanently. Thanks to the popularity of the novel and of the lead actors, The Amityville Horror became a massive success at the box office upon release on July 27, 1979, marking the birth of a long-running franchise and an enduring legacy.
Anson’s novel claims to be based on a factual account of the Lutz’s experiences with 112 Ocean Avenue, a home in the Amityville neighborhood of Long Island, New York. They moved into the home one year after Ronald DeFeo Jr. shot and killed six of his family members at the house. The Lutz family only lasted 28 days in the house before fleeing. As for DeFeo Jr., he’s currently serving six life sentences. The city denied the production the ability to film at the actual house, wanting distance from any possible negative press, so exterior shots were filmed at a private residence in New Jersey that was converted to resemble the iconic house.
James Brolin was a regular leading man when he was offered the role of George Lutz. He was hesitant to accept, partly because there was no finished script to read and also because he worried that the haunted house movie would be too hokey. So, he was urged to read the novel. Brolin became so engrossed when he started the book that he continued reading well into the late hours of the night, punctuated by a pair of his hung pants falling abruptly during a particularly scary moment in the book. He took that as a sign to accept the part. He proved too effective as the possessed George, though, that he struggled to find roles for a period after the film’s release.
As for Margot Kidder, who played Kathy Lutz, she’d already proven her horror mettle in Black Christmas and Brian De Palma’s Sisters. But she was fresh off her breakthrough turn as plucky reporter Lois Lane in Superman when this role came her way. In other words, both Brolin and Kidder were box office draws at the time.
Directed by Stuart Rosenberg (Cool Hand Luke, Voyage of the Damned), and penned by Sandor Stern (Pin), The Amityville Horror contained a wealth of memorable moments beyond the iconic “evil eyes” of the house’s exterior. The flies, the menacing voice booming “GET OUT!” at Father Delaney (Rod Steiger) when he comes to bless the home, the glowing red eyes of Jody the pig, the nightmares at 3:15am, the poor babysitter’s trauma, and that walled-up room in the basement that hid the passage to hell all made for an unforgettable entry in haunted house terror.
But it was the relatability of the Lutz’s financial situation that resonated the most. They put everything they had into this house. When George and Kathy discuss whether they can afford the home, no matter its cheap price tag, it’s easy to put ourselves in their shoes. When Kathy’s brother can’t find the money he stashed away for the caterer on the night of his engagement party, George offers to write a check until the cash turns up. It’s a gesture that elicits serious dread because we know George can’t afford it; and the money never does resurface. It’s not just the evils of the house getting to him, but the financial pressures of keeping the family afloat.
Finally, you can’t talk about The Amityville Horror without mentioning the Academy Award nominated score by Lalo Schifrin. The eerie choir vocals, the shrieking strings and the frenzied notes all orchestrate a chilling score that perfectly captures a haunting presence. Or a house of pure evil. It was a sort of redemption for Schifrin, whose previous score for The Exorcist had been thrown out by William Friedkin.
With a larger than life backstory, a popular novel, two compelling lead actors, a goosebump-inducing score, and no shortage of memorable movie moments set in an iconic haunted house, it’s easy to see why The Amityville Horror became the second highest grossing movie of 1979. Or why 22 additional Amityville films have been made since, including the 2005 remake. Early in the film, Kathy asks George if it bothered him to know that a family died in that house. He responded, “Well, sure, but houses don’t have memories.”
He didn’t know at the time that this one does. Forty years’ worth.
Due to a complex series of anthropological mishaps, the Wayans Brothers are a huge deal in Brazil. Around these parts, White Chicks is considered a national treasure by a lot of people, so it stands to reason that Brazilian audiences would continue to accompany the Wayans’ comedic output long after North America had stopped taking them seriously as comedic titans.
This is the only reason why I originally watched Michael Tiddes and Marlon Wayans’ 2013 horror spoof A Haunted House – appropriately known as “Paranormal Inactivity” in South America – despite having abandoned this kind of movie shortly after the excellent Scary Movie 3. However, to my complete and utter amazement, I found myself mostly enjoying this unhinged parody of Found Footage films almost as much as the iconic spoofs that spear-headed the genre during the 2000s. And with Paramount having recently announced a reboot of the Scary Movie franchise, I think this is the perfect time to revisit the divisive humor of A Haunted House and maybe figure out why this kind of film hasn’t been popular in a long time.
Before we had memes and internet personalities to make fun of movie tropes for free on the internet, parody movies had been entertaining audiences with meta-humor since the very dawn of cinema. And since the genre attracted large audiences without the need for a serious budget, it made sense for studios to encourage parodies of their own productions – which is precisely what happened with Miramax when they commissioned a parody of the Scream franchise, the original Scary Movie.
The unprecedented success of the spoof (especially overseas) led to a series of sequels, spin-offs and rip-offs that came along throughout the 2000s. While some of these were still quite funny (I have a soft spot for 2008’s Superhero Movie), they ended up flooding the market much like the Guitar Hero games that plagued video game stores during that same timeframe.
You could really confuse someone by editing this scene into Paranormal Activity.
Of course, that didn’t stop Tiddes and Marlon Wayans from wanting to make another spoof meant to lampoon a sub-genre that had been mostly overlooked by the Scary Movie series – namely the second wave of Found Footage films inspired by Paranormal Activity. Wayans actually had an easier time than usual funding the picture due to the project’s Found Footage presentation, with the format allowing for a lower budget without compromising box office appeal.
In the finished film, we’re presented with supposedly real footage recovered from the home of Malcom Johnson (Wayans). The recordings themselves depict a series of unexplainable events that begin to plague his home when Kisha Davis (Essence Atkins) decides to move in, with the couple slowly realizing that the difficulties of a shared life are no match for demonic shenanigans.
In practice, this means that viewers are subjected to a series of familiar scares subverted by wacky hijinks, with the flick featuring everything from a humorous recreation of the iconic fan-camera from Paranormal Activity 3 to bizarre dance numbers replacing Katy’s late-night trances from Oren Peli’s original movie.
Your enjoyment of these antics will obviously depend on how accepting you are of Wayans’ patented brand of crass comedy. From advanced potty humor to some exaggerated racial commentary – including a clever moment where Malcom actually attempts to move out of the titular haunted house because he’s not white enough to deal with the haunting – it’s not all that surprising that the flick wound up with a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes despite making a killing at the box office.
However, while this isn’t my preferred kind of humor, I think the inherent limitations of Found Footage ended up curtailing the usual excesses present in this kind of parody, with the filmmakers being forced to focus on character-based comedy and a smaller scale story. This is why I mostly appreciate the love-hate rapport between Kisha and Malcom even if it wouldn’t translate to a healthy relationship in real life.
Of course, the jokes themselves can also be pretty entertaining on their own, with cartoony gags like the ghost getting high with the protagonists (complete with smoke-filled invisible lungs) and a series of silly The Exorcist homages towards the end of the movie. The major issue here is that these legitimately funny and genre-specific jokes are often accompanied by repetitive attempts at low-brow humor that you could find in any other cheap comedy.
Not a good idea.
Not only are some of these painfully drawn out “jokes” incredibly unfunny, but they can also be remarkably offensive in some cases. There are some pretty insensitive allusions to sexual assault here, as well as a collection of secondary characters defined by negative racial stereotypes (even though I chuckled heartily when the Latina maid was revealed to have been faking her poor English the entire time).
Cinephiles often claim that increasingly sloppy writing led to audiences giving up on spoof movies, but the fact is that many of the more beloved examples of the genre contain some of the same issues as later films like A Haunted House – it’s just that we as an audience have (mostly) grown up and are now demanding more from our comedy. However, this isn’t the case everywhere, as – much like the Elves from Lord of the Rings – spoof movies never really died, they simply diminished.
A Haunted House made so much money that they immediately started working on a second one that released the following year (to even worse reviews), and the same team would later collaborate once again on yet another spoof, 50 Shades of Black. This kind of film clearly still exists and still makes a lot of money (especially here in Brazil), they just don’t have the same cultural impact that they used to in a pre-social-media-humor world.
At the end of the day, A Haunted House is no comedic masterpiece, failing to live up to the laugh-out-loud thrills of films like Scary Movie 3, but it’s also not the trainwreck that most critics made it out to be back in 2013. Comedy is extremely subjective, and while the raunchy humor behind this flick definitely isn’t for everyone, I still think that this satirical romp is mostly harmless fun that might entertain Found Footage fans that don’t take themselves too seriously.
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