First published in Rue Morgue #44, April 2005
No matter how hardened you get, how jaded and cynical, you always have memory to fall back on. There’s always that movie that perfectly ruined you, probably when you were quite young, because it seems that adults don’t scare as easily as kids, or for so long. Being a horror movie junkie from early on, I have more of those kinds of moments than the average guy, and I count the first time I ever saw The Amityville Horror as one of them.
I was nine years old at the time, a tender age by which to fall under the spell of that spooky old house on 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, with its seemingly sentient, eye-like windows. The Amityville Horror was not a restricted movie, and so my brother and a friend found ourselves wandering into the theatre one Saturday afternoon, and I honestly can’t remember any other time I wanted so bad to leave, despite having pined so long to get inside.
The Amityville Horror horrified North America back in ‘79, but it’s one of those movies – like The Exorcist before it and The Sixth Sense after it – that was more than just a horror film. It’s a horror film that crosses over into the mainstream to become some sort of popular cultural experience, which is to say that my mom and dad and their friends went to see it (and if they didn’t, they sure as hell heard about it from their friends who did).
Which begs the question: what is the difference between a crossover horror film and the other kind, those hard horror flicks that no one outside of a steady genre diet will ever consume, you know, like Fulci’s The Beyond or Romero’s Day of the Dead?
I think the answer has something to do with the concept; it’s no surprise that crossover horror films seem to touch on topics of wider cultural relevance, like threats of nature (Jaws), a widespread belief in ghosts (Stir of Echoes), religion (The Omen), the supernatural (The Blair Witch Project), and that old favourite, murder. The Amityville Horror combined three of those elements into a powerhouse experience that – though not untarnished by the passage of time – nevertheless successfully scared enough people to sustain seven sequels over 17 years. Upon reflection, I think the backstory to The Amityville Horror – the DeFeo murders which were the subject of the grievously overlooked Amityville II: The Possession – was responsible for keeping audiences coming back, especially after the highly publicized reports of a hoax began haunting the Amityville franchise.
Murder is the concept through which horror crosses into the mainstream the most. For whatever reason, the idea of a person or persons doing physical violence to others is something that never ceases to fascinate people, whoever they are and whatever their tastes may be. That is why true crime television has blossomed on prime time television, in the form of shows like City Confidential, Cold Case Files, American Justice and their imitators. Closer to home, Toronto columnist Max Haines has turned the most abhorrent, cold-blooded acts from the police files into lightweight subway reading in the dailies. And his stories are internationally syndicated.
No question, despite the social graces, postured ideologies and mannered tastes of the squarest factions of society, blood drips from our collective fingers and stains the tape of moral bureaucracy bright red. Conservatives who frown upon the horror genre for its “unhealthy” preoccupation with violence will readily indulge their morbid curiosities through the official, academically upright figure of Bill Curtis, who weekly serves up a bloody cake sweetened with the spices of journalistic integrity and social concern.
In a way, a movie like The Amityville Horror is not far from the Curtis model of entertainment. By marketing itself as a “true story”, it practically guarantees interest from all sectors, because everyone wants to know the truth, right?
But because they know precious little about the horror genre, that crossover audience will never get wise to the tricks of the trade, and how easily they can be manipulated and genuinely disturbed by what, in effect, is just another scary movie. Let that be our little secret.