MovieChat Forums > The Amityville Horror (1979) Discussion > James Brolin was awful. awful, awful

James Brolin was awful. awful, awful


James Brolins performance here is one of the worst performances i have ever seen! I ve heard he attacked Margot cause of her method acting?? WOW now i understand why his performance was, instead of a Jack Nicholson-The Shining type of a performance, was a wooden, awkward, over the top and annoying one(i had a feeling like he thought when he did those scenes LOOK AT ME IM ACTING). Again since this is a typical haunted house horror film his character was supposed to get more frightening and haunting as the days in the story went by(again like Nicholson in Shining), instead he was unconvincing and very irritating with his same LOOK AT ME IM SCARY face that he kept from the second day already(LOL) till the end of the movie, without changing it a bit. He also had 0 chemistry with his wife and children(at the beginning). Another more professional actor would have done miracles with this underwritten part/character. Again a very laughable performance that includes such an obvious, over the top acting that for an example children in amateur high school plays are using. Margot on the other hand saved the day and was very convincing at times, as she used as much as she could of her screentime to actually show her characters depth. I guess its No question why Margot overshadowed Brolin with her performance.

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I thought they did a great job.

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[deleted]

I agree that Margot was better, even though there are a couple of shots where you can clearly see she is either laughing outright and has to turn away from the camera or is dying to laugh but just controlling it. James Brolin, I thought, was very good in some scenes and then very unintentionally funny in others. "Your the one who wanted a house. This is it! So just shut up!" comes to mind as one of a few. Rod Steiger was definitely the worst though once he really got going with all the histrionics. Especially the church scene. It's almost spoof material.

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It was a "so bad it was good" performance like Steiger's.

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I'm coming apart! Oh, mother of God, I'm coming apart!

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I never thought I'd say this about Brolin, but I disagree!

He acted quite well in this one. Brolin is usually as wooden as oak, but I thought his performance as a man who is being suppressed and attacked by evil....was quite believable.




I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus.
Didn't he discover America?
Penfold, shush.

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I too agre Fiat.

I thought Brolin was excellent in this movie! It was a very hard role to pull off, but he did a terrific and convincing job.

Probably one of his few performances I like.

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I actually thought he was pretty good too. He played it as natural as he could considering the type of movie it was.

I remembered being majorly creeped out by the book. Really terrifying.

The movie was mildly freaky at times. I think the anticipation was even worse than the actual events as portrayed in the movie at times.

Pretty creepy movie, but the book felt more intense. For me anyway.

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I actually think he was very good in this!

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Oh, it was not. Stop exaggerating.

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Overkill exaggeration. Brolin simply wasn't that bad.

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