Too many fans seem to be blown away

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

This movie shaped the horror genre in ways words can't explain. With this film in particular you are gifted with some excellent acting and a terrific storyline. THE AMITYVILLE HORROR went on to create a franchise for itself with several renditions of the gruesome houses plagued horror. Most films under this genre highlight a masterful balance of paranoia with good acting. Like with most haunted house films the build up of tension to the climax is a short journey that normally takes place at the last 15-20 minutes of the film. However, during this time you get a scare of a lifetime and creeps that you've never felt before.www.chorror.com

Saw this on a VHS in the mid 80s. Revisited it recently on a DVD. To be honest, i found the movie to be tedious n tame then. Now i jus forwarded some boring scenes. The film opens on a dark and stormy night as we hear gunshots and see flashes of light through the home's famous eye-like upstairs windows as an entire family is killed. A new family moves in after a year n unsettling things begin to occur. Ther are scenes where the walls drip blood. Was it blood or tar i don't know. Whose blood it was or where it came from was never explained. There's a hidden room in the house the dog always barks at. In one scene James Brolin climbs the stairs above that room, only to fall through them and into a pit of the same blood/tar. Was that suppose to be comedic? Also the scene involving Rod Steiger with the flies wasn't scary at all. The movie was boring considering the length n nothing happens. Somewhere around 01.16, Josh Brolin breaks open a wall n his facial expressions n eyes r epic scene man. What he sees that makes him so startled, we never come to know n we don't get to see also. The film is helped by an extremely creepy score composed by Lalo Schifrin n Brolin delivered a good performance. Margot Kidder did a decent job.

James Brolin, Margot Kidder and Rod Steiger star in this 1979 horror film based on the book. This begins on a rainy night with a family being murdered. One year later, we meet George (Brolin) and Kathy Lutz (Kidder) who move into the same house with their 3 young children where the terrible incident took place. Soon, strange things occur and George starts behaving differently. George and Kathy discover that their house is haunted by an evil spirit of one of the deceased family members trying to possess them. The late, Steiger (End of Days) plays Priest, Father Delaney. This is a good horror flick with a decent cast and creepy effects. I recommend this for horror fans.

Amityville Horror gets off to a rather clichéd start where our fairly average suburban family move into their new home (James Brolin and Margot Kidder complete with 2.4 children). However, soon after they move into the house strange things begin to happen which not only affect many of those within the immediate family, but also to several other people who visit the house.I'll be honest here and say that I'm probably over-selling this when I say that anything happens 'soon' in this film, because let's face it it doesn't. The biggest problem with this film is that the narrative for the most part is tedious and repetitive. Our family move into the house and we're treated to many minor creepy/shock moments which is all well and good, but these moments seem to do very little to advance the story and there are many occasions when the film seems like it's stuck in some kind of loop. Even though the narrative is the weakest part of the film, the writers do enough to keep you involved in the proceedings by at least making many of the characters interesting and for the most part more than one dimensional. Amityville Horror has many moments where it is very creepy and I'll admit that this film passed my own Horror film test (that feeling where you get that shudder down your spine). I think the main reason this film worked for me is that it used the characters and their experiences to create the scares rather than just using cheap tricks such as slamming a door or having an evil being appear out of nowhere (this is something that seems to plague many recent horror films and I'm glad that the writers didn't go down that road).The biggest selling point with this film lies with the acting; firstly, I thought Brolin was fantastic; whether he was playing the every day family man, or the psychotic man possessed by the demons he was simply terrific - he had a crazy convincing look in his eye that few actors seem to be able to pull off. Margot Kidder was also great and very convincing in her respective role.Going back to problems and one must ask themselves if this film really needed to be nearly 2 hours; I honestly feel that films of this nature should run somewhere between 80 and 100 minutes and the elongated running time of this film isn't helped by what appears on screen; Day 1... Day 5.... Day 8... Day 12.... Yawn!! Face Palm. Give me a break. This demon wants them out of the house, but it takes nearly 3 weeks for the family to finally up and leave. Really?Even though I've panned this a lot I have to admit that there is an awful lot to enjoy; the characters are interesting, the film is very creepy for the most part, there's never a dull moment and the performances from all that are involved are excellent. I'll be honest and admit that I even found the house to be creepy (although it was probably a selected filming location for that very reason).Yes, this is a flawed film, but when it's good it's very good and the good far outweighs the bad. It's not perfect, but it's far better than lot of the rubbish that we see nowadays.