Perhaps those who died in that house are communicating from beyond the grave, hmm? It wouldn't anything particularly new, would it?Įverything is in place.

I only mention the co-worker because his wife, a woman with a peculiar interest in the paranormal, agrees to come to the Lutz residence to do some paranormal investigating after George expresses concern. He also stops attending work and instead spends hours on end splitting logs outside in the yard something that a co-worker takes notice of. His mental state starts to collapse very slowly and he comes down with a cold. The one most affected by the haunting aesthetic of the house is George.

The house is quite large and creepy and you know something's really up when the daughter has a new imaginary friend and the local priest comes to bless the house and hears a loud, booming voice that tells him not-so-kindly to 'Get out!' The couple is unaware of these things and until further notices settles down quite nicely with their three children (two boys, one little girl they also have a much older son who is to be wed soon). The film starts off by showing us horrible things that happened in that house just months earlier namely a homicide case involving a father killing his entire family in the middle of the night at random with a shotgun. George (James Brolin) and Cathy Lutz (Margot Kidder) are a young couple who have just purchased a new home that rests by a lake of sorts. Regardless of what you believe and how honest the story being told may actually be, Anson had conjured up an accumulated sense of dread that this 1979 adaptation helmed by Stuart Rosenberg never quite captures. I haven't read it in full but I have read excerpts from the book before, and I can already tell you that it's a more terrifying supposed 'real-life' story than this poor, messy film adaptation makes it out to be. At the time of its release and afterwards, it was subject to speculation whilst Anson faced various lawsuits. Jay Anson's 'The Amityville Horror' is considered to be one of the most important, controversial, and polarizing pieces of horror literature ever committed to a few hundred pages.

The amityville horror by jay anson