In 2005, Nichols played a brief role in the romantic drama "Shopgirl" and played a more notable role as a babysitter in "The Amityville Horror". For the latter, she was nominated for the Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Scream Scene and the MTV Movie Award for Best Frightened Performance. She later revealed that she almost did not audition for the film due to her fear of dogs. "Michael Bay has these gigantic [dogs. [...] And, when I went to audition for "The Amityville Horror", I went into his offices and literally these three huge dogs were there, and I almost turned around. I was like, 'No, I'm not going to read for this film.' I actually used the dogs in my audition to think of what would scare me the most." "The Amityville Horror" received generally negative reception from critics, but was a commercial success.