The Amityville Horror (1979)

Father Delaney (Rod Steiger)

    Viewed today, The Amityville Horror reads as a pastiche of thematic and narrative material culled from those genre staples which preceded and immediately followed its release, namely The Exorcist, Poltergeist, and The Shining. The influence exerted over this second film is too evident to demand elaboration, while the heritage it shares with The Shining (beyond the horror of the abusive father and the peculiar imagery which both films evoke) might be that both films are based in this idea of a terrible recurrence. 

    These are narratives wherein a pattern of paternal violence is weaving itself into the familial fabric from outside of time. They depend for their drama upon an awareness that historical events are seeking to reinstate themselves, not through a willful evocation of the sacred by ritual reenactment, but as a violent divestment of autonomy (the constantly recurring theme of so much classical horror). History does not persist in memory alone, it is implicit within our environment, in objects and paraphernalia, as an energy capable of influencing the motions of our ordinary lives even as we consider them distant from the rhythms of the past. 

    Moreover, I would suggest that Amityville is more cynical in its attitude toward the efficacy of the church than even The Exoricst. It belongs strictly to that species of film which affirms the existence and potency of the occult, while rejecting the capacity of organized religion in confronting its more sinister manifestations. There is at least one scene in which a crucifix is brandished to little effect, or a dutifully memorized prayer is uttered, released into the air, dissolves into nothing etc. These are the usual hallmarks of the genre, evoked in the mood of an archetypal repetition. 

    The representation of the priestly caste, at least, is exceptional. Father Delaney (Rod Steiger! holy shit) is extraordinary in his inefficacy- his narrative refuses to interact with that of the Lutz family despite enormous effort exerted. He moves through their periphery like a ghost, stumbling in and out of the home unseen, his voice failing over the phone, his supplications at the altar answered only with disaster. The last we see of him is an image of hooded death staring into the middle distance with unseeing eyes. Whereas Father Karras redeems through a desperate act of self-obliteration, here we are left only to consider the ultimate failure of traditional religion in meeting the spiritual needs of a community.

Beelzebub by way of Louis Le Breton

    As a coda, let's examine some of the occult imagery on display here! Lutz's visit to the bookstore opens on a lovely, framed print of Le Breton's Beelzebub as illustrated in the Dictionnaire Infernal. This is a colored variation of the original print, predating the color prints published in The Dictionary of Demons by nearly a decade, suggesting that the set designers produced their own interpretation for the project. The spirit's principal embodiment for much of the film is a plague-like swarm of flies, so we might also take this to suggest that the Lutz family is haunted by the Lord of the Flies himself- an incredible run of poor luck. Ukobach is situated just above, and three barely legible frames containing Baphomet, Astaroth, and a portrait of the Incubus courtesty of The Magus (1801), can be spotted in the distance. I always love when prop departments incorporate these codified depictions (invariably selected from either the Dictionnaire or the works of Eliphas Levi), a technique that crops up in fare as light as Elvira: Mistress of the Dark. 

(Special thanks to Eirikr for identifying the Incubus portrait in that last frame!)