The Amityville Horror (1979)

A decent, underrated ghost story

By warholhorror  Oct 11, 2001

THE AMITYVILLE HORROR is by no means a great movie. It's not even a very good movie, really. It's uneven, the performances are patchy and the script is very one-dimensional. But when this movie works (which is only about half the time), it's one o...f the screen's better attempts at a serious ghost story. What this movie accomplishes that most other haunted house movies do not is a genuine sense of unease and creepiness without the aid of any special effects. Through nothing more than creative and effective editing, photography and direction, the filmmakers give us an eerie feeling of something not right, something just slightly askew that the characters in the movie can't put their finger on. To me, this is scarier than monsters jumping out of closets or apparitions appearing or furniture flying around. There's nothing more terrifying than what you can conjure up in your own mind, and the makers of AMITYVILLE HORROR know what buttons to push to make us do just that. While not a particularly good movie overall, there are moments in THE AMITYVILLE HORROR that are among the creepiest in horror cinema, including the movie's final twenty minutes, which is a flawlessly structured sequence of nightmarish suspense. It's a shame the rest of the movie isn't as good, but it's still worth a look for fans of a good ghost story. Read more Less