by Daniel Stephens

Created on: January 29, 2009

The Amityville Horror was a film born out of public fascination. That fascination was fuelled by post-Exorcist hysteria, that demanded haunted house flicks anchored by American history and the collapse of the American dream, with all the trappings of religious folklore and the dark side of the Catholic church. No longer would garlic and silver bullets keep the demons away. Now the evil was one's home itself, and audience's were loving it.

Studio's were being quite savvy with their promotion of such films, basing mishaps and accidents, on curses plaguing the respective film sets. William Friedkin asked the Catholic church to exorcise the Exorcist set, and strange occurrences led to a total of nine deaths during the production of the film. Three deaths, including that of its young star Heather O'Rourke, also shrouded The Poltergeist trilogy in dark, real-life mystery.

The Amityville Horror had no such strange phenomena according to stars Margot Kidder and James Brolin, but the film is based on the supposedly true story of the Lutz family who moved into the Amityville house and were apparently driven out less than a month later by a supernatural evil. It would seem that such a film's ability to frighten its audience came about not by explicitly showing death and carnage taking place (ie. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Last House On The Left, Friday The 13th, A Nightmare On Elm Street) but, underpinned by the Catholic faith, implicitly implying the reasons why such things occur.

George (James Brolin) and Kathy Lutz (Margot Kidder) move their family into a 'beautiful' new home, in the quiet, white-picket fence community of Amityville. Knowing what occurred in the house a few months before they moved - that of a twenty year old son killing his entire family while they slept in their beds - doesn't seem to deter them, and everything seems fine at first. When Father Delaney (Rod Steiger), a friend of Kathy's, comes to bless the house he seems to be attacked by flies in one of the bedroom's and he hears a voice that tells him to 'get out'. Fleeing before having a chance to tell the Lutz's, Father Delaney attempts to phone them and explain the strange occurrence but the phone lines seem not to be working. Even when Kathy tries to phone him, the line is full of static. When Father Delaney tries to get the church involved, they shun his beliefs that the house is full of evil and decide not to help him.

Meanwhile, George Lutz is becoming increasingly distant - he's obsessed with

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