The Amityville Horror (1979 film)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Amityville Horror is a 1979 American supernatural horror film based on Jay Anson's book of the same name (1977). Directed by Stuart Rosenberg, it features James Brolin and Margot Kidder as a young couple who purchase a home haunted by combative supernatural forces. The story is based on the alleged experiences of the Lutz family who bought a new home in Amityville, New York where a mass murder had been committed the year before. It is the first film based on the Amityville horror.
Upon its release in the summer of 1979, The Amityville Horror was a major commercial success for American International Pictures, grossing over USD $80 million in the United States and going on to become one of the highest-grossing independent films of all time. It received mostly negative reviews from critics, though the film has been contemporarily noted by film scholars as a classic of the horror genre.{{efn|In Now a Terrifying Motion Picture!: Twenty-Five Classic Works of Horror Adapted from Book to Film (2012), film scholar James F. Broderick notes that the film continues to make critics' lists of the best horror films of all time.
The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score by composer Lalo Schifrin and Kidder also earned a Saturn Award nomination for Best Actress. A remake was produced in 2005.
