The Amityville Horror (1979 Film Review)

1979 American International Pictures
Directed by: Stuart Rosenberg; Written by: Sandor Stern
Starring: James Brolin, Margot Kidder, and Rod Steiger
MPAA Rating: R; Running Time: 118 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 2/10

The Lutz family have found their new home. Newlyweds, George and Kathy, along with Kathy's children from a previous relationship, are moving to Amityville. George tries his best to love the children, but since they've moved in, he hasn't been sleeping well, he looks like he hell, and his temper is flaring. Meanwhile, Kathy can't get in touch with the local priest, she's hearing children's voices in empty rooms, there're flies everywhere, their son's hand gets smashed in a window that closes all by itself, and their daughter has an imaginary friend who seems all to real. Maybe the Lutz family shouldn't have bought a house where the previous family were all murdered in their beds.
1979's The Amityville Horror was a box office sensation in its time, and even received seven sequels, along with a 2005 remake, despite being critically savaged at the time of its release. In the years since, the film has received some prominent defenders, including Stephen King, and it is generally regard as a classic of the haunted house genre. However, I firmly agree with the critics of yesteryear in this case: The Amityville Horror is an overly long, badly paced, badly edited, boring piece of steaming ghost shit. Cataloguing every single one of Amityville's missteps would become redundant, but here is its framework of failure.
Without any matter of subtlety or atmosphere, the film begins by showing the previous family get gunned down. Cut immediately to Kathy and George touring the house with a realtor, where director, Stuart Rosenberg, decides to intercut footage of the family getting killed again as Kathy and George enter each room, even though WE LITERALLY JUST SAW IT HAPPEN. Then we get into the family's domestic life, where Rosenberg and screenwriter, Sandor Stern, see little reason to introduce the children, or give any distinguishing characteristics to set them apart from one another. Rosenberg shoots these domestic scenes as if he's making a languid period piece, as scenes seem to trudge on for no reason. As this is happening, Rosenberg somehow sees no reason to build any sort of atmosphere whatsoever, even though this is supposed to be a haunted house movie.
When Rosenberg does see fit to present a supernatural moment, like when a priest who visits the house while the family is away gets attacked by flies, the film suddenly shifts into bad B-movie mode, where the priest is filmed from a low angle, and it takes an hour for him to raise his hand up to his face as the flies slowly peck at it. When the film does somehow accidentally become interesting for a moment or two, Rosenberg is suddenly in a rush to cut away to a moment that isn't interesting at all, generally acting as if the previous scene didn't even happen. At a certain point 3/4 of the way through the film, it seems like momentum, which this film sorely lacks, is finally going to pick up, but nope, Rosenberg again cuts to the cinematic equivalent of grass growing or paint drying, just like he's done throughout the entire film.
A slow burn is one thing--cultivating atmosphere can pay off dividends in a great horror film--yet despite The Amityville Horror's autumnal setting, I'm pretty sure there are episodes of The Rockford Files released in 1979 that contain a thicker atmosphere than this film. Thus, the film lazily yawns on for two hours, when it could have at least been economically edited down to 80 minutes without losing anything and at least gaining a little urgency in the process. The biggest shame here is the waste of a solid performance by Margot Kidder, an actress I've been fond of since she wowed me as Lois Lane when I was a child. Kidder emotes well to no effect in this lousy film, against a bearded and shaggy-haired James Brolin, who unfortunately comes across as a poor man's Kris Kristofferson. I hate this movie.