The Amityville Horror (1979) on Netflix
A year after Ronald DeFeo Jr. killed his family in an Amityville house, George and Kathy Lutz move in with Kathy's children. Kathy asks a priest to bless the home.
- Netflix2.3/5
- IMDb6.2/1049,579 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes30%
Trailer
Plot summary
George and Kathy Lutz are newlyweds who buy a large house in Amityville, New York, and move in with Kathy's three children from an earlier marriage, Greg, Matt, and Amy. A year before, Ronald DeFeo Jr. had murdered his family in the same house. Kathy is a nominal Roman Catholic and her husband is not religious; she asks Father Frank Delaney, a Jesuit priest, to bless the home. He arrives while the family is out boating; inside, flies swarm him on the upper floor and a hostile voice orders him out.
Cast
Show all 15 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Amityville Horror (1979)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- James Brolin was hesitant about playing the lead in The Amityville Horror, so he read Jay Anson's novel until two in the morning; when a pair of his own pants fell to the floor during a tense passage, he jumped from his chair in fright and agreed to star.
- For the scene in which Father Delaney is swarmed by flies, actor Rod Steiger was doused in sugar water and beer so the insects would swarm him, part of the film's largely practical effects.
- Margot Kidder said the producers told the cast to claim that terrible things happened on the set of The Amityville Horror; she called it all "bullshit," saying nothing happened but that it was funny.
- After attorney William Weber claimed he had helped George and Kathy Lutz fabricate their haunting and sell their story to Jay Anson, the Lutzes sued him; in that lawsuit George Lutz admitted netting $100,000 from the film's release.
- Rod Steiger took the role of Father Francis Delaney while in a career slump after open-heart surgery, which left him depressed and made studios wary of his insurance costs; he called it "my last maneuver in letting Hollywood know that I'm in good shape physically."
- After local authorities refused permission to film at the real Amityville residence on Long Island, New York, the producers ran notices in Toms River, New Jersey, newspapers in August 1978 asking homeowners to lease their houses.
- Composer Lalo Schifrin said he wrote a "haunting and distorted lullaby for three children's voices" for the film, getting the idea because a family with three kids was about to move into the mansion, ignoring its past.
- Because the story elements of the novel and 1979 film were never subject to copyright, other companies had made 35 unrelated films with "Amityville" in their titles as of 2025, with widely varying connections to the original.
