Film

The Amityville Horror

Name: The Amityville Horror
Genre: Horror
Released: 1979
Cast: James Brolin, Margot Kidder, Rod Steiger, Don Stroud, Murray Hamilton

The film that turned a real Long Island murder house into a horror franchise, based on the bestselling 'true story' book. It's slow-burn dread more than jump scares—flies, ooze, red eyes, and James Brolin's slow unraveling from mild dad to axe-wielding menace. Rod Steiger chews the scenery as a priest who really should not have gone in that basement. Cheesy, dated, and still weirdly effective at 2am.

TMDb rating

6.3

If you liked this

The Conjuring2013

James Wan's take on the Warrens hits the same 'true story' haunted house nerve as Amityville, but with sharper craft, a tighter camera, and scares that actually land instead of just atmosphere and flies.

But It's slicker and more calculated—less rough-edged 70s weirdness, more polished jump-scare machine.

Poltergeist1982

Spielberg-produced suburban horror where the haunted house preys on an ordinary family, mixing genuine dread with theme-park showmanship and a clown doll that ruined childhoods.

But The PG rating means it pulls punches Amityville doesn't; less menace, more spectacle.

The Exorcist1973

The film Amityville was chasing—still the gold standard for slow-building religious horror, with a sense of real dread that outlasts every jump scare trend since.

But It's grim, exhausting, and utterly humourless; not a casual watch.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

My Amityville Horror2013no page yet

It's the true story behind the 'true story'—the actual family the movie claims to represent, and whether any of it happened at all.

The real Danny Lutz, decades later, furious and defensive, confronting the story that made his stepfather's book a bestseller and his childhood a punchline. Stranger and sadder than any dramatization.

But No scares, no effects—just an uncomfortable, unresolved family wound aired on camera.

Rosemary's Baby1968

Swap the haunted house for a haunted apartment and the priest for nosy neighbours—same slow paranoia about a family unraveling under invisible pressure.

But Glacially paced by modern standards, and the horror is all implication, no gore.

The Haunting1963

Proof that you don't need effects to terrify—doors breathe, walls throb, and nothing is ever really shown. A masterclass in restraint Amityville never quite manages.

But Black and white, stagey, and slow; some will find it more eerie-quaint than scary.

The Shining1980

Another dad slowly poisoned by a house that hates his family, but Kubrick turns dread into pure, cold, symmetrical menace instead of B-movie shocks.

But Cerebral and ambiguous where Amityville is blunt; some find it more chilly than scary.

Hereditary2018

A modern haunted-family film that swaps priests for grief therapy, building the same slow domestic dread into something far bleaker and stranger.

But It earns every bit of its miserable reputation—unrelenting and genuinely traumatic, not a fun watch.

Insidious2011

A family menaced in their own home, a father who starts acting strange, and a priest-adjacent psychic instead of a priest—familiar bones, sillier fun.

But Leans hard into jump scares and demon-face gimmicks; less atmosphere, more theme park.

The Changeling1980no page yet

George C. Scott grieving in a mansion with a terrible secret—slow, sad, genuinely unsettling, and criminally underseen next to its noisier haunted-house cousins.

But Very slow burn with almost no gore; patience required, payoff is mood not shocks.

The Uninvited1944

Same engine—outsiders buy a beautiful house with a terrible secret—done with nothing but atmosphere, proving the formula worked long before special effects did the heavy lifting.

A gorgeous old dark house, a family that shouldn't have moved in, and dread built entirely from sound and shadow decades before Amityville had flies and ooze to work with.

But Very much of its era—no violence, no gore, and a pace built for patience, not adrenaline.