Yes, we saw your ad for helpless victims, and we think we fit the bill.
I’ve always heard that The Amityville Horror (1979) was a classic of the genre, but really not much else, so going into this television cut of the movie, we were really free from preconception, excepting that it was going to be good.
And I suppose I must say, not being the superstitious sort, I found the elements of horror in this movie, as they were supernatural and religiously based, rather unimpressive on a personal level. I can see how someone with a religious frame of mind might be horrified at the thought of a house in which demons from Hell have some influence, but for my Arts Editor and I, we were unaffected.
Not that I’m immune to horror movies. Both Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986) kept me on the edge of my seat, and I suppose another reviewer would scoff at the science-fiction substrate on which these films are based. But I think there’s a difference, in that for all the improbability of the aliens in those two movies of existing, the premise which they exemplify is not impossible. Yes, there could be aliens hungry for human flesh out there, just waiting for us to stumble on them.
In The Amityville Horror, we’re confronted with mere hints of creatures from myth, with all apologies to readers with religious convictions. Worse yet, the victims do not aggressively defend themselves – they are persistent in their residence, perhaps, but they are not clever enough to strike a blow in their defense. The idea of their existence is absurd.
And, yet, I can be intrigued by other movies with absurd elements, such as Greek gods. In those cases, the genre is not generally horror, but some other general thematic category in which the absurd elements play a metaphorical or allegorical role. Their is no profession of their existence; they are used to tell a story and give a lesson.
With this horror movie, though, the fright-inducing elements are used literally, and are purposed to raise the hackles on the back of your neck, to inflict the fight or flight reflex and drag you into fright. And there’s nothing implicitly wrong with that – unless these literal elements are absolutely rejected by the audience. And that’s what we did.
Add in plot holes, such as what happened to Father Delaney, perhaps introduced by the television cuts, and the movie becomes an also-ran, a disappointing heart to the mythic classic.
