Day Seven: Amityville Horror (1979)

So cruising along through day seven of the ten and I am starting to get comfortable again. I think that I am starting to realize that older horror movies do not age well. Maybe it is something about the music, the effects, the 70s style porn hair and clothing, but for some reason to me these older movies just do not age well when it comes to the fright factor. I think there is an exception to this from time to time, in the cases of movies like The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, Psycho, and Suspiria, to name a few.

I decided to watch Amityville Horror to see if this could also be an exception to the rule when it comes to older movies. Now I have not seen the newer version with Ryan Reynolds, so I do not know how well the material and story has done over the years, but the 1979 James Brolin/Margot Kidder version does not hold up well in my opinion. Again, this is my opinion, but I honestly had a hard time not laughing at points in this movie.

Normally, the scariest movies in my opinion are the ones that deal with religion and/or emotional issues. I am not usually frightened by the "chasing you through the woods" or slasher style movies. If there is paranormal involved, and things outside the realm of the normal, that usually has the best chance of getting to me. That being said, this movie does play heavily in the religious/demon realm and yet it did nothing to disturb me in the least. Granted if these types of things were happening to me in real life I would probably need to strap on some Depends.

My problem is not in the fact that these types of things just simply do not happen in real life, because that is part of the attraction in my opinion, but my problem is when the human responses do not seem to be very realistic or authentic based on the events happening. I just don't see some of the reactions occurring the way they do in this movie. I know that I would react completely different than any of the characters in the movie, so if I cannot connect with the characters or the events taking place in the movie, then you can usually count me out.

I am really interested in the newer version of the movie, because I think that the material translates well to being scary in any age, but this version failed to connect with me, and that will make me not recommend this movie to any friends. People I don't like.... maybe.

Click here to read reviews of the original Amityville Horror