George Lutz, his wife Kathy, and their three children have just moved into a beautiful, and improbably cheap, Dutch colonial mansion nestled in the sleepy coastal town of Amityville, Long Island. However, their dream home is concealing a horrific past and soon each member of the Lutz family is plagued with increasingly strange and violent visions and impulses.
The problem with The Amityville Horror is that, in a very real sense, there's nothing there.
– Roger Ebert,
Chicago Sun-Times,
30 Sep 2005
rotten:
A few lines get laughs, but the horror is standard fare, without a shred of innovation.
– Rex Reed,
New York Observer,
21 Apr 2005
rotten:
Never buy a house with a basement, and while you're at it, avoid old Dutch Colonials in which the previous occupants were murdered by an eldest son possessed by demons.
– Chuck Wilson,
L.A. Weekly,
21 Apr 2005
rotten:
Nothing gets in the way of the rote staging, the ham-handed predictability, the feeling that you've been to this house, and yawned at these ghosts, once too often.
– Owen Gleiberman,
Entertainment Weekly,
20 Apr 2005
rotten:
The Amityville Horror is a Xerox so tattered and faded that it's impossible to determine who's to blame for the overproduced mediocrity before our eyes.