The Amityville Horror (1979, Stuart Rosenberg)

Despite not watching the horror franchises of the eighties while growing up in the eighties, I was familiar enough with them to know most franchises—so long as they started with an A list cast—had a generally well-received first installment before going to heck. And I knew The Amityville Horror was an exception; no one thought the first one was any good. And I was assuming it’d be bad. But I didn’t realize how low into the great Long Island undiscovered oil reserve this Horror would go.

There is nothing redeeming about Amityville Horror. Certain aspects could be even worse, but nothing is approaching good. Stuart Rosenberg can’t direct a horror or suspense sequence, which is fine because screenwriter Sandor Stern couldn’t script one. Maybe cinematographer Fred J. Koenekamp could shoot one, but only also maybe not because Koenekamp’s only decent photography is the exteriors (sans the silly thunderstorm shots) and none of the horror takes place outside. Even if Koenekamp could, Robert Brown wouldn’t know how to cut them. And then there’s Lalo Schifrin’s sadly silly score. It’s like the entire crew of the film is incapable of making this movie scary. Or interesting.

The actors don’t help things. They’re all in a race for worst performance. Rod Steiger wins if only because he’s energetic and terrible. Margot Kidder’s… better than “lead” James Brolin, but she shouldn’t be so much better. Brolin gets really bad. Like, in the big finale the dog seems embarrassed to be acting opposite him (in addition to being embarrassed with the whole production; the dog’s the hero, but it’s not worth it for the two hours). Sure, the script is terrible and Brolin’s character arc is incompetently executed, but it’s still mostly Brolin’s fault. Because if he’s actually trying instead of just phoning it, it’s worse. Steiger’s already won because he’s obviously trying and failing; Kidder’s resigned; Brolin’s… Brolin.

Supporting cast is all bad too. Worst is either Val Avery as a cigar-chomping stalker detective, Don Stroud as priest Steiger’s protege, or Natasha Ryan as the daughter. Stroud and Avery are bad in a way Amityville seems like a spoof of itself. Ryan’s just a terrible kid actor. Some of the problem is clearly Rosenberg either not being able to direct his cast or just not doing it. Incompetence or negligence seem to be the only two Amityville options, with the obvious caveat its running downstream from on high; i.e., no blaming Kidder for her negligence because what the hell else could you do.

Now, the story involves Native American burial grounds, exiled New England witches, tar pits, guys who kill their families, along with a lot of things to say about Catholicism.

Horror doesn’t have real subplots, but occasionally there are minor exposition dumps, and they’re often very weird. Kidder’s either a divorcée or widow with three kids. Brolin marries her, converting to Catholicism, which is a big enough deal his business partner, Michael Sacks, gives him crap about it. Maybe Sacks is just a piece of shit. Whatever. But Kidder starts the movie wearing around modified Catholic school girl outfits because part of being married to her is Brolin gets like impromptu nookie unless one of the kids needs something or there’s a ghost or whatever. Seems all good to start—including a really pointless, leaden sex scene—but Brolin’s soon very sick of playing papa bear to other cubs.

But it’s like it takes very long. Brolin’s sick of the kids before the end of the first act, so then it’s all about him chopping wood to show his displeasure with Kidder and the life she’s got him locked into thanks to her Catholic school girl outfits. Meanwhile there’s a whole subplot about the Church not supporting Steiger’s clinical psychology based determination it’s a Hell House because he’s got a secular master’s degree and what kind of loser believes in ghosts. Murray Hamilton’s the head Church official, hopefully getting a solid, easy paycheck. He’s really highly billed for three and a half minutes tops. But even if the Church is negligent in protecting Kidder and company, the house is able to mess with Steiger through the whole movie from afar, when Steiger’s in the church, so clearly the Church has no power?

Meanwhile, Ryan starts seeing an imaginary friend—actually a demonic little girl who appears in the form of a warthog—and messing around in the house, kind of old school gaslighting Brolin and her brothers by messing with objects, closing doors, sneaking up. She’s a little psychopath who locks her babysitter in the closet or whatever. The first act of Horror kind of shows the “rational” explanations for the horror events, but stops and goes all in on supernatural because Rosenberg isn’t incapable of doing things like implying. The whole film is seemingly allergic to subtext. Stern’s script rushes into the main story, filling in details as it goes, but never naturally, always in giant expository dumps the actors, director, and Stern’s script can’t successfully realize.

But with Ryan, it’s almost entertaining because the rational explanation for her hijinks are obvious. It’s not entertaining though, because Ryan’s terrible, the directing of those scenes is terrible, and so on and so on. Amityville never (from the AIP logo to be honest) suggests it might be good, but it also never even gets vaguely interesting. It’s always dull. Every shot, every scene, every minute… dull.

The Amityville Horror is The Amityville Horror.

That dog’s a good boy though; shame he didn’t get a credit.

Dirty Harry (1971, Don Siegel)

Dirty Harry only has one significant problem. It has a bunch of little problems, but it gets past those–sometimes manipulatively, sometimes just nimbly thanks to director Siegel and star Clint Eastwood–but the big one. It can’t overcome the third act. Villain Andy Robinson (I can’t forget to talk about him) has kidnapped a bunch of school kids. Eastwood’s got to stop him. It should incorporate the film’s (significant) stylistic successes–the big scale action sequence (Siegel loves shutting down a city block with Eastwood playing super-cop) and the harrowing thrills (the middle of the film has this phenomenal sequence where Robinson’s running Eastwood all around San Francisco from pay phone to pay phone).

Instead, the finale has neither. It feels tacked on, sure, but a lot of Dirty Harry feels tacked together. And I’m not just making that observation because I know from director Siegel’s memoir he, Eastwood, and screenwriter Dean Riesner literally sat around and taped scenes they liked from the various failed drafts of the script. Most of the time the tacking works–it leads to strange, nice scenes, usually giving Eastwood some depth–but not at the end. At the end, it flops. The big final action sequence? Well, it’s not big, but it should be. But it doesn’t work. Even if the film’s final shot, with the beatific, haunting Lalo Schifrin music, is awesome.

The film starts in the daytime–literally, with Robinson killing his first victim on a sunny, presumably warm day–and gradually moves the action to night. Much of the second act is at night. Most of the second act, counting screen time and not present action elapsed, takes place at night. Nighttime is where even affably, charmingly churlish super-cop Eastwood gets to be scared. The movie works up to it, establishing Eastwood as much of a caricature as it can–doing a good job of it, of course, and doing the occasional aside to make sure the audience knows he’s their kind of bastard.

The finale’s not at night. It’s during the day. A very, very problematic day. Plot holes galore in its timing. Plot holes really shouldn’t matter in the last fifteen minutes of a serial killer thriller.

So the daytime throws Siegel off a bit with the finale. As does the setting. As does the pacing (he’s only got about ten minutes to wrap things up). But he also seems to let editor Carl Pingitore take a break, which is a big mistake. Pingitore’s editing intensifies as the film does, through the first and second acts; it’s incredible during the nighttime suspense sequences. Siegel, Pingitore, cinematographer Bruce Surtees–Dirty Harry is often breathtakingly well-made. Often set to the perfect Schifrin score.

Plot holes, Siegel’s lax direction, and daylight timing aren’t the finale’s only problem. Dirty Harry’s big little problem–and one of its most surprising successes–has its (muted) blow-up at the end: how can these silly cops and politicians not get over their liberal sensibilities and understand Robinson’s dangerous?

By the end of the film, Robinson’s killed a wealthy, beautiful, young white woman, a ten year-old boy, a fourteen year-old white girl (who he raped), a cop trying to stop him (Robinson shot him up with an assault rifle), and maybe someone else. Maybe not. But definitely those four. Yet mayor John Vernon and district attorney Josef Sommer want to make sure Robinson’s “rights” are “protected” more than anything else. Double quotation works because, while the rights are specific, how to ensure their protection isn’t. Anyway, even worse, they’re convincing Eastwood’s boss–Harry Guardino in a nice, ruffled performance–they’re right.

Eastwood’s new partner is a pre-affirmative action but come-on hire. Except, after working a couple nights with Eastwood, college educated, Hispanic Reni Santoni comes to understand not just the reality of the street but also how much no one listens to Eastwood. How could they? Their characters are too thin to have ears.

Harry’s coats its dog whistles in beautiful filmmaking, but it doesn’t do anything to disguise any of them. So when it turns out the reality of the street is Eastwood’s rampaging super-cop basically gets along with the bad guys. Even when they’re black guys. It’s all in the game, though sort of in a pre-cop movie, post-Western sort of way. It can even make for likable Eastwood moments.

It just doesn’t add up when Robinson’s the villain. He’s a proto-incel gun nut who fantasizes about killing marginalized people. The film frequently dehumanizes the character with these whiny, squealing wails. It’s supposed to make it okay for Eastwood to torture him. But it also makes the character even more unlikable because Robinson’s wails are so good, you just want Eastwood to kick him in the face until he shuts up.

It’s also kind of okay because at that point in the film he’s killed two adults and two children in a variety of circumstances and methods. Harry’s other problem with making its political statement is how ill-suited it integrates with the story. Dirty Harry doesn’t have much character development. In its place is this subtext about the problems with liberal intellectual politicians letting pedophile, cop-killing spree killers literally run wild. At least be invested in that subtext.

Until the third act, the film does a pretty good job of integrating that subtext. It usually gets loud for a moment, then quiets down for a while. In between are some great scenes. Getting over that thin aspect of the script is one of Dirty Harry’s successes, because Siegel and Eastwood are able to leap and bound over the thinness. Until the third act.

So Dirty Harry doesn’t finish as strong as it should. It’s hard to imagine how it could. Aside from the final action sequence actually being suspenseful.

There’s a lot of good acting–Eastwood, Guardino, Santoni, Robinson (kind of until the third act), John Vernon (ditto). Amid all those third act problems, Ruth Kobart gives the phenomenal performance in a small role. The film’s expertly made. Siegel’s Panavision direction–with Surtees’s photography–is outstanding. Those great Pingitore cuts, that great Schifrin music.

It’s just got a bad finish.