Amazon.com video review:
Based on a bestselling, allegedly nonfiction book about
haunted goings-on in a Long Island house (The Amityville Horror
Conspiracy), this rather cheesy horror movie is more silly than
unsettling. James Brolin and Margot Kidder star as newlyweds who move
into the empty home and are gradually affected by the legacy of a
murder committed on the premises. Rod Steiger is a priest who can tell
what's up and gets dispatched in a rather ugly way. Director Stuart
Rosenberg can't lift the action above a certain level of tawdriness,
and the audience ends up watching the horror from a distance instead
of feeling involved. In the wake of The Exorcist, this
1979 spooker seemed like a no-brainer knockoff--and still
does. --Tom Keogh
