By Geno McGahee
“God Dammit, this is my house!”—George Lutz (James Brolin)
The scariest part of this movie is knowing that it was based on a true story just like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre! Sure, they may have taken some liberties, and spruced it up a little to make it scarier, but it really happened!!!
In this “true” haunted house story, George and Kathy Lutz (James Brolin and Margot Kidder) move into a house with a history. The prior owner had gone stark raving mad and killed his entire family. Because of the death count, the house stayed on the market for quite a while at a very reasonable price. The price is so low that the couple cannot refuse, although there is some reservations on Kathy’s part, but George insists: “Houses don’t have memories.”
They move into the house with their children and have Father Delaney (Rod Steiger) over to bless the house, but he is chased out by ghost/demon that screams: “Get out” twice. He probably thought that Delaney was so old that he was hard of hearing and screaming two times was erring on the side of safety. Delaney hauls ass and is traumatized, and when he tries to warn the couple, he is taken out of the picture. Priests never make it in these movies.
As time goes by, the attitude of George becomes negative. When he gets his ass grabbed by his wife, he snaps at her. He is either really sensitive about his ass or an evil spirit has crawled up his ass. Whatever the case, the household is becoming tense with George’s attitude and now the children are seeing spirits that are stating that they “Don’t like George.”
The ghosts continue to affect George’s attitude, slowly driving him insane and consuming him with anger. History is bound to repeat itself. It is revealed that the original murderer that killed his entire family had heard voices and now George and some of the children are hearing them. The house is becoming infested with flies and doors are flying off of their hinges. Babysitters are getting locked in closets and nobody wants to even go near that house…most sensing that there is a force present.
It is revealed that the house is on satanic ground where there were sacrifices and satanic rituals. He is told that energy cannot be destroyed and that the evil energy still exists and there is even stories of native American tribes leaving their crazy people to die and that they are buried in that house. There is a lot of cool scary stuff involved in this house.
One of the coolest scenes of the film has to be when Kathy is looking through old newspaper clippings of the original murders and sees a picture of the killer and he looks identical to George. Eventually the family decides to cut and run and the house attacks.
Overall, this is a pretty good haunted house story with George Lutz really carrying the film and he carries it well. It was also nice to see Margot Kidder in another horror film. She was great in the original Black Christmas and she was very good in this movie. I recommend this movie…definitely over the horrible remake in 2005. It’s a pretty good flick.
Scared Stiff Rating: 7.5/10…hauntingly good.
