The Amityville Horror Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.0

The Amityville Horror Blu-ray Movie Review

Heeeere's Georgie!

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 27, 2013

Note: This film is currently available only in this box set: The Amityville Horror Trilogy.

Does it ultimately even matter if 112 Ocean Avenue in the town of Amityville on Long Island was really haunted, as its residents, the Lutz Family, insisted? After all, doesn’t that oft-quoted adage go something like “perception is reality”? And for millions of readers who made The Amityville Horror a top bestseller in 1977 (and for decades afterward), while the book’s imprimatur that it was a “true story” may have helped to spark interest, it actually perhaps has less to do with the franchise’s success than might be initially assumed. In fact, one of the fascinating things that has sprung up in the wake of the book and the many films which followed (the first three of which are presented in this new box set from Shout! Factory’s Scream Factory imprint) is that once accusations of fraud and chicanery started arising, the whole Amityville phenomenon only seemed to gain momentum. The seventies were for whatever reason a heyday for books and movies about demonic possession, from the iconic heights of The Exorcist to still scary but perhaps somewhat lesser fare like The Omen and the vastly underrated The Possession of Joel Delaney, but there’s little doubt that these films are near the bottom rung (or perhaps even below the bottom rung) of this decade’s genre offerings. That doesn’t mean there aren’t scares here, for there certainly are, at least in fits and starts scattered throughout the three films, but cynics may have a hard time maintaining a straight face through some of the patently ridiculous plot machinations, poor writing and less than Oscar worthy performances this trio of would-be spook-taculars (sorry) have on tap.

On the long and winding road that ultimately became the Amityville multimedia franchise, there are only a few undisputed facts. The first of these is that a horrific killing spree did in fact occur in the house, though exactly how those murders took place is (as with so much else in this story) the subject of various interpretations. The “official” version is that one Ronald Joseph DeFeo, Jr. shot and killed his parents and all of his siblings in the middle of a cold November 1974 night. DeFeo has since given several alternate tales of how the murders took place, and some proponents of the “haunted house” theory have claimed that DeFeo simply couldn’t have killed that many people (six in total) with a noisy shotgun in the middle of the night without any of the victims waking or neighbors hearing any gunfire. Be that as it may, the second undisputed fact is that a couple named George and Kathy Lutz bought the so-called “murder house” in December 1975 for a bargain price, due of course to its notoriety. The Lutzes were in fact aware of the house’s history, but felt there was nothing to worry about, a sanguine attitude helped along no doubt by the deal they were being offered.

What happened next has been the subject of much controversy over the years, but according to the bestselling book by Jay Anson and this film which was culled from it, the Lutzes (played by James Brolin and Margot Kidder) started experiencing all sorts of weird phenomena, including a lot of what might be called poltergeist activity, with inanimate objects suddenly springing to life and spooky unexplained sounds confronting the Lutz family at every turn. George has no particular religious leanings, but Kathy is a lapsed Catholic, and they decide to have the house blessed by Father Delaney (Rod Steiger, hopefully picking up a very sizable paycheck for what is inarguably one of the low points of his legendary career), who arrives at the house when there (conveniently) are no witnesses around and who is beset upon by demonic activity at least partially in the form of pesky houseflies.

Whatever evil inhabits the Lutz’s home evidently gets around, for Father Delaney soon finds himself on the receiving end of all sorts of malevolent activity. The good Father’s attempts to warn Kathy Lutz are repeatedly hampered by bad phone connections (bringing to mind the “Can you hear me now?” Verizon ad campaign), which kind of begs the question as to why he wouldn’t just go out to visit the Lutzes again (though that irksome demon has also been messing with the priest’s car). Meanwhile, George starts marauding around the property like a low rent version of Jack Torrance in The Shining, replete with an axe and a “special connection” to the spectral entities lurking in the home.

The interesting thing about the whole Amityville story is that, in hindsight at least, what might have saved this effort from being the obviously bargain basement entry in horror that it is, would have been the very ambiguity and/or questioning spirit that accompanied this supposedly “true story” in the years after it first appeared. It probably never occurred to the filmmakers at the time, since the initial allure of the tale was that it “really happened”, but how much more invigorating would The Amityville Horror have been if the audience had never been quite sure if the Lutzes were merely imagining things or if there indeed were some kind of demonic presence alive in the house?

Instead, we’re offered a “no doubt whatsoever” depiction of some sort of incipient evil, except that things are ironically never that frightening. Kids get spooked (and incur minor injuries), George goes slightly (or maybe more than slightly) off his rocker, hangers-on decry the place’s “bad vibes”, but nothing really cataclysmic happens (unless you count a glowing pig in a window or gooey red slime making the stairs really slippery). It’s almost as if the Devil himself looks at the whole situation and utters a tired and laconic, “Meh”.

The Amityville Horror Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Amityville Horror is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory (an imprint of Shout! Factory) with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. I haven't heard back from Shout! as to whether this is a different transfer from the old MGM version which my colleague Michael Reuben reviewed, but if it is, it hasn't materially affected the image quality in any major way. The elements here have a fairly consistent amount of minor age related wear and tear in evidence throughout the running time, with quite a few specks and flecks showing up with fair regularity. That said, the image here is an excellent representation of a late seventies low budget film. While it's not razor sharp, colors are decently saturated and accurate looking, and the image is very stable and reasonably precise looking. Fine detail is quite good, especially in close-ups (check out that fly encrusted Rod Steiger in the third screenshot accompanying this review for a good example).

The Amityville Horror Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

All three films in this new box set feature lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 mixes, and in the case of The Amityville Horror, the 5.1 mix is really quite engaging and well done. Some of the surround effects are fairly subtle— listen when George opens the doors to the boathouse early in the film, and you'll clearly hear the left door in the left channel and the right door in the right—but other effects are much more directional and quite immersive (George's incessant wood chopping is one great example). Both dialogue and Lalo Schifrin's Oscar nominated score sound great and the entire track boasts nice fidelity and wide dynamic range.

The Amityville Horror Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• "For God's Sake, Get Out!": A Look at The Amityville Horror with James Brolin and Margot Kidder (1080i; 21:34) is a fun retrospective featuring nice interviews with Brolin and Kidder, neither of whom seem to have any illusions about having created "Art" with this film.


• Haunted Melodies with Lalo Schifrin: A Journey Inside the Music That Makes Horror Come Alive (1080p; 9:56) is a great piece for those who, like I do, love film scores. Schifrin details some of his background and also talks about how he approached scoring the film. He received the film's sole Academy Award Nomination for his work.


• Original Theatrical Trailer and TV Spot (1080p; 3:29)


• Original Amityville Horror Radio Spots (3:39)


• Still Gallery (1080p; 8:22)


• Audio Commentary by Dr. Hans Holzer, Ph.D. in Parapsychology. It might be tempting to assume one is being "punked" by this ultra serious commentary, but evidently not. Dr. Holzer, who wrote Murder in Amityville (the source for the second film in the series) actually is quite an interesting listen, though he sticks to his "talking points" and repeats a number of things which have at least been questioned, if not outright debunked (such as the "ancient Indian burial ground" angle).

The Amityville Horror Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Amityville Horror scared the pants off of a lot of people back in the seventies, but it's hard to take it very seriously through jaded, more cynical, modern eyes. In fact quite a bit of the film may provoke unintended laughter in more world weary types, but to be fair, things get decidedly creepy once George "falls apart". This Blu-ray offers nice looking video and great sounding audio and comes with some nice supplementary material. Fans of the film will probably want this version more than the older MGM release simply due to the supplements if for no other reason.