Plot

Physicist Lionel Barrett is enlisted by an eccentric millionaire, Mr Deutsch, to make an investigation into “survival after death” in “the one place where it has yet to be refuted”. This is the Belasco House: the “Mount Everest of haunted houses,” originally owned by the notorious “Roaring Giant” Emeric Belasco, a six-foot-five perverted millionaire and supposed murderer, who disappeared following a massacre at his home. The house is believed to be haunted by numerous spirits; the victims of Belasco’s twisted desires.

Accompanying Barrett are his wife, Ann, as well as two mediums: a mental medium and Spiritualist minister, Florence Tanner, and a physical medium, Ben Fischer, who is also the sole survivor of an earlier investigation. The rationalist Barrett is rudely skeptical of Tanner’s Christian faith and spiritual beliefs, asserting that there is nothing but unfocused electromagnetic energy in the house. Barrett brings a machine he has developed, which he believes will rid the house of any paranormal presence or force.

Though not a physical medium, Tanner begins to manifest physical phenomena inside the house. When, after a quarrel with Tanner, Barrett is attacked by an invisible force, he suspects that Tanner may be harnessing the house’s energy against him. Meanwhile Fischer remains aloof, with his mind closed to the house’s influence, and is only there to collect the generous pay offered him to return.

Ann Barrett is subjected to erotic visions late at night, which seem linked to her lackluster sex life. She goes downstairs and, in a seeming trance, disrobes and demands sex from Fischer. He instead strikes her, snapping her out of the trance, and she returns to herself, horrified and ashamed. Her husband arrives a moment later, and is bitterly resentful.

Tanner, convinced that one of the “surviving personalities” is Belasco’s tormented son Daniel, finds a human skeleton, chained up behind a wall. Believing it to be Daniel’s, Tanner and Fischer bury the bones outside the house, and Tanner conducts a funeral. Despite this, Daniel’s personality continues to haunt Tanner; she is violently scratched by a possessed cat and Barrett, seeing the scratches, suspects that Tanner may be mutilating herself. In an attempt to put the supposed Daniel to rest, Tanner gives herself to the entity sexually, and later appears to be possessed herself, temporarily.

Barrett’s machine is assembled. Tanner attempts to destroy it, thinking that it will harm the spirits in the house, but is prevented. She enters the chapel, the unholy heart of the house, in an attempt to warn the spirits, and is crushed by a falling crucifix. (In her dying moments, she leaves a clue written in her own blood, to the true source of the haunting, which she now knows.) Barrett meanwhile activates his machine, which seems to be effective. Finally opening up his psychic abilities as he wanders the house, Fischer declares the place “completely clear!” in astonishment. However, soon afterwards, violent psychic activity resumes and Barrett is killed.

Fischer decides to finally confront the house, with Ann accompanying him despite her misgivings. In the chapel, a confrontation ensues: Fischer deduces that Belasco is the sole entity haunting the house, masquerading as many. He taunts Belasco, declaring him a “son of a whore”, and that he was no “roaring giant”, but likely a “funny little dried-up bastard” who fooled everyone about his alleged height. Even as objects begin to hurl themselves at Fischer, he continues to stand up to the entity, until all becomes still, and a portion of the chapel wall shatters, revealing a hidden door.

Going inside, Fischer and Ann discover a lead-lined room, containing Belasco’s preserved body seated in a chair. Pulling out a pocketknife, Fischer rips open Belasco’s trouser leg, discovering his final secret: a pair of prosthetic legs. Fischer and Ann realize Belasco had had his own stunted legs amputated, and used the prosthetics in a grotesque attempt to appear imposing. Belasco had built the room specially, in the event of his death, to preserve his spirit, afraid of what may happen otherwise.

With the room now open, Fischer activates Barrett’s machine a second time, and he and Ann leave the house, expressing hopes that Barrett and Tanner will guide Belasco to the afterlife without fear.

The film is allegedly based on the life of the real Carlotta Moran, who claims to continue to be assaulted by an invisible being, though with lesser frequency and intensity (more recently it is claimed she no longer suffers from physical attacks, but still experiences the phenomena).

A remake of the movie is being planned by Japanese director Hideo Nakata.

There is also a novel of the same name written by Frank DeFelitta (first published in 1978), which provides a more detailed account of Carla (or Carlotta) Moran’s, other possible name Doris Bither or Byther supposed experiences. The supposed haunting took place in Culver City, California, USA.

Plot

In the film, Carla lives with her children in a home in Los Angeles. One evening, she is violently raped by an unseen being, and she assumes that it was just a nightmare, so her son says. But after her room goes crazy, she seeks refuge at a friends house. Returning home, she is raped in the bathroom by the invisible being, with the help of two little ones. She goes to a psychiatrist (played by Ron Silver) because she suspects she is suffering from some sort of mental illness. He concurs, suggesting that she is manifesting hallucinated experiences based on a fear of sex, possibly instilled in Carla by her upbringing. However, her car gets controlled, and her friend becomes a witness.

Finally assured of the legitimacy of her experiences, Carla seeks help from a paranormal research team. They accompany Carla to her home to try and help, and it seems that they succeed after all the ghost can do is cause a circuit. Unfortunately, when a lover comes to stay the night, he leaves the room briefly only to return and find Carla nude and pinned to the bed by an unseen force. Her breasts are pulsating rhythmically, as if being massaged by unseen hands, while she begs him for help. Although Carla’s lover tries to help by hitting the entity with a chair, he ends up hitting Carla in the head, and Carla’s son rushes to attack Carla’s lover, assuming he was trying to kill Carla.

Eventually the team of parapsychologists come up with a plan. They set up a home-like location with guns prepared to spray everything with liquid helium. They presume that since the being can manipulate physical things, it must have physical mass, and therefore can be frozen. The team shows Carla around her house, showing there’s no ceiling and lots of surveillance cameras, but the bathroom has a ceiling and no surveillance. There’s no plumbing as the team supplies the water for Carla. Carla’s psychiatrist tries to get her out, still thinking she’s mentally ill, but he decides to watch the whole incident. Later, the being strikes and is so powerful that it takes control of the spray nozzles and attempts to kill Carla with the helium. Ultimately she faces off with it, (though she can’t see it) stating that it can kill her, torture her and rape her whenever it wants, but will never touch the core of who she is. In an act of fury, the being bursts the liquid helium tanks and freezes itself, revealing that it is absolutely gigantic in size. All this is witnessed by Carla’s psychiatrist, who up until now did not believe she was telling the truth. Carla disappears and the government disbelieves the incident despite him seeing it.

Ultimately, Carla decides to move out of the house with her family and drives away. The movie ends stating that the attacks, though decreased in frequency and intensity, continue.

The on-location scenes of The Amityville Horror were filmed at a house in Toms River, New Jersey, which had been converted to look like the 112 Ocean Avenue home after the authorities in Amityville denied permission for filming on the actual location. Exterior scenes were also filmed in Toms River and Point Pleasant Beach. Local police and ambulance workers would play extras in the film, while the Toms River Volunteer Fire Company was used to provide the rain during several scenes. Jay Anson’s screenplay, based upon his bestselling novel, was rejected by the producers who opted for a version written by Sandor Stern.

James Brolin was hesitant when first offered the role of George Lutz. Told that there was no script, he obtained a copy of Anson’s novel to read. Brolin started the book and read until two o’clock in the morning. He had hung up a pair of his pants in the room earlier and during an especially tense passage of the book, the pants fell to the floor. Brolin jumped from his chair in fright. It was then that Brolin decided to do the movie. Brolin became friendly with George Lutz and his family, though he was highly doubtful of their story. Brolin later said he couldn’t get a job for two years because of his performance in this film. Nevertheless, this depends on what one defines as a ‘job’, since he starred in Night of the Juggler (1980) as Sean Boyd, and in High Risk (1981) as Stone (1980).