HAVING never heard the true story behind this film, or seen the 1979 original, I was expecting the usual scares, mostly aided by sudden jumps in the music rather than much happening on screen.

And since I wasn't expecting to be particularly rattled - I think I have been desensitised to horror movies - it was a surprise that The Amityville Horror had me wanting to hide behind a cushion.

As the story goes, one fateful night at the Defeo house, in Amityville, in 1974, Ronnie Defeo murdered every member of his family while they slept. When later confessing to the murders, he claimed that voices in the house told him to kill everyone.

We pick it up one year later, as the Lutz family move into the Defeo's former residence, and sinister things begin.

The ghost of Jodie Defeo, the young girl murdered there, appears, and George Lutz begins to lose his mind.

Kathy Lutz unravels a dark history behind the house and tries to persuade her husband to get out because she believes it hosts evil powers.

The depiction of the house itself is very eerie, and the fast cuts and haunting music both add to the atmosphere.

From the first day that the family moves in, the tension continues to mount, peaking each night at 3.15am, when the Defeos were murdered.

There are a few glaring plot holes, including the priest who declares "Let's get you and your children out of that house!" and then promptly disappears from the rest of the film, but these did not stop me enjoying it. If the desired result was to scare me within an inch of my life, it certainly did the trick!

If you like scary movies, you should certainly make time to see this one - but it's not for the faint-hearted.