It is one of horror’s most classic premises: “George and Kathy Lutz moved into 112 Ocean Avenue on December 18. Twenty-eight days later, they fled in terror.” We speak, of course, of Jay Anson’s THE AMITYVILLE HORROR. If there’s one good thing about the recent, wretched film remake, it’s that its release finally put Anson’s 1977 novel (?) back into print.
My first exposure to the book was shortly after its release, when the young woman babysitting me and my brothers for the night brought it with her to read. I was creeped out by the illustration of the houseflies that occasionally dotted its pages (sadly missing from this new Pocket Star edition). I read it a few years later, before I saw the 1979 movie, and – what with all the unexplained voices, toilet goo, evil faces, telephone interference, loud noises, dead Indians, levitation and flaming red pig eyes – it scared the bejeezus out of me.
Revisiting it today, I’m not sure why. Anson’s documentary style approach really prevents it from approaching real terror. There’s simply no tension. Anson will be describing some utterly mundane activity for several paragraphs and then throw in an exclamation like “Father Mancuso returned to his apartment to find a stupefying odor of human excrement pervading his room!” It’s not shocking because it comes from nowhere, but every time you spot an exclamation point, know that Anson wants goosebumps to follow.
Even though Anson’s you-are-there prose isn’t exactly lively, the story remains compelling after all these years. Even people who’ve neither read the book nor seen the movies can relay freely at least some details surrounding the Amityville legend. But even the initiated probably don’t recall how clunky the book actually is, like this doozy of a sentence, which would be laugh-out-loudable in any book: “Regardless of the weakness he still felt in his loins from the diarrhea, George wanted to make love to Kathy.”
And that mental image, my friends, is far scarier than any poltergeist or possession. –Rod Lott
Buy it at Amazon.
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It’s too bad those flies aren’t in it. I never read the book, but I remember thumbing through my cousin’s copy of the book and being freaked out by the flies and my cousin’s explanation for them. Beyond that, I haven’t much interest in the book and your review cements that.
I still had a fun time revisiting the book. It’s just not that *good.*
I get what you’re saying, but I’ve got too many good books on my plate already to waste time on something I probably won’t like.
I remember my parents reading it at the beach on our summer vacation. I read it when they weren’t looking and it scared me silly (I was about 11 years old).