The Amityville Horror/Fun Facts

From The Grindhouse Cinema Database

< The Amityville Horror

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  • The outdoor scenes of the movie were not filmed in Amityville, Long Island, but rather Toms River, New Jersey. Local police and ambulance workers played extras.
  • The Tom's River, New Jersey volunteer Fire Company Number One was used to provide the "rain" during one of the exterior scenes. If you look closely, you can see that it is sunny and not "raining" in the background, the next street over.
  • This film's theatrical success was followed by two theatrically released sequels - Amityville II: The Possession (1982) an official sequel/prequel; Amityville 3-D (1983), not an official sequel; and five direct-to-video low-budget sequels released from 1989 to 1996. Then there's The Amityville Horror (2005), based on the book written by Jay Anson.
  • Jay Anson who wrote the book "The Amityville Horror" actually wrote out a screenplay for this film only for the producers to turn it down. Eventually they found Sandor Stern and liked his take on it so he was hired for the job.
  • James Brolin was hesitant when he was first offered the role of George Lutz. He was told that there was no script and that he must obtain a copy of Jay Anson's novel and read it as soon as possible. Brolin started the book one evening at seven o'clock and was still reading at two o'clock in the morning. He had hung a pair of his pants up in the room earlier and at a really "tense" part in the book, the pants fell down from wherever they had been hanging. Brolin jumped out of his chair, nearly crashing his head into the ceiling. It was then that Brolin said, "There's something to this story." He agreed to do the movie.
  • Even though James Brolin became friendly with George Lutz and his children, he was highly doubtful of their story.
  • Finnish name for the film meant "For God's sake, get out of there!".
  • James Brolin said he didn't get a job for two years after doing this movie because of the cruelty of his character.
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