The Amityville Horror(1979)
1979 · Stuart Rosenberg · 118 min
George Lutz, his wife Kathy, and their three children have just moved into a beautiful, and improbably cheap, Victorian 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.
Horror
6.31.1k votes
TMDB score
3/5
Intensity
1/5
Gore
3/5
Stays with you
How The Amityville Horror scares
The Amityville Horror builds its fear slowly, through a house that feels wrong and a family slowly falling apart rather than through constant jolts. Most of the dread comes from mood: strange cold spots, bad feelings, a father slipping into anger he can't explain. There are a few startling moments, but the movie leans more on unease and a sense that something is watching than on shocking you every few minutes. It works best if you like haunted house stories that take their time and get under your skin rather than ones built for quick screams.
On The Horror Database's 0–5 scare profile, The Amityville Horror rates psychological 4/5, visceral 2/5, gore 1/5, lingering effect 3/5, and overall intensity 3/5.
- Psychological: 4 of 5
- Visceral: 2 of 5
- Gore: 1 of 5
- Lingering: 3 of 5
- Intensity: 3 of 5
Slow burn vs Jump scares: 25 of 100 — leans Slow burn
Supernatural vs Real-world: 10 of 100 — leans Supernatural
Fun-scary vs Disturbing: 45 of 100 — balanced
Intensity over runtime
Shape only — no eventsReveal pacing shapeHide pacing shapeHidden by default — shows where the tension peaks and lets up.
A slow, creeping domestic unease that gradually thickens into dread, with sporadic jolts building toward a chaotic, intense finish.
Intensity across the runtime, 0 to 100: 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2, 3, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5.
How scary is The Amityville Horror?
On The Horror Database's 0–5 intensity scale, The Amityville Horror rates 3/5 — solidly scary, building its fear through slow-burn dread rather than shocks. The fear is mostly in your head — it unsettles far more than it assaults. Expect it to be restrained with gore and scary but not punishing. Some of it will follow you to bed, but it lets go within a day or so.
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