Some horrors just won’t die. The Amityville Horror is a case in point: The tale of a reportedly demon-infested house in Amityville, New York, became a best-selling novel and a hit horror film starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder. A good story never dies in Hollywood, and several inferior sequels followed in its wake (including a 3-D version). A new horror will be released April 15: The Amityville Horror, starring Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George.
Scary films are a dime a dozen, but what initially drew the public’s interest was the claim that the film was based on real events. The remake’s producers were also intrigued by the Amityville case not so much because of the horror film’s scary details, but the fact that the tale is allegedly true. “We were looking for truth in horror,” co-producer Andrew Form told Fangoria magazine. “I grew up in Long Island, so I was familiar with this when I was a kid. I remember going by that house and how scary it was.” Co-star Melissa George was attracted to the role because, she said, “If you’re going to do a scary movie, you might as well do The Amityville Horror, a true story, a famous book, a well-known moment in American history.” A famous book, yes; a moment in American history, perhaps. But a true story?
The history of The Amityville Horror, as with The Exorcist, begins with a best-selling novel. A book titled The Amityville Horror: A True Story, written by Jay Anson, was published in 1977 and quickly became a hit. Anson was not a resident of the infamous possessed house, but a professional writer hired to pen a book based on “true events” that happened there several years earlier.…
The story behind the story began on November 13, 1974, when six members of an Amityville, New York, family were killed. The parents, Ronald and Louise DeFeo, were shot in bed while they slept, along with two sons and two daughters. The sole remaining family member, Ronald Jr. (“Butch”), was arrested for the crime and later sentenced to prison. With the family dead (and Butch in no position to inherit the place), the house went up for sale. The horrific nature of the massacre unnerved the otherwise quiet Long Island neighborhood, though no supernatural activity was associated with the house at 112 Ocean Avenue.
The following year, a new family, the Lutzes, moved into the house. George and Kathy Lutz, along with their three children, said that shortly after moving in, the six-bedroom abode became a Hell house. It seemed that perhaps the demons that drove Butch to slaughter his family were not in his head but in the house. An unseen force ripped doors from hinges and slammed cabinets closed. Noxious green slime oozed from the ceilings. A biblical-scale swarm of insects attacked the family. A demonic face with glowing red eyes peered into their house at night, leaving cloven-hoofed footprints in the morning snow. A priest called upon to bless the house was driven back with painful blisters on his hands and famously told by a demonic voice to “Get Out!” And so on.
A local television crew did a segment on the house, bringing in several self-styled “ghost hunters” (including Ed and Lorraine Warren) and other alleged psychics. All agreed that a demonic spirit was in the house, and that an exorcism would be needed to stop the activity. The Lutzes left the house but took their terrifying tale with them, collaborating with Anson for their book. And, as William Peter Blatty did when he promotedThe Exorcist, Anson vouched for the truthfulness of his fantastic tale: “There is simply too much independent corroboration of their narrative to support the speculation that [the Lutzes] either imagined or fabricated these events.”
Many people expressed doubts about the events in the house. Researcher Rick Moran, for example, compiled a list of more than a hundred factual errors and discrepancies between Anson’s “true story” and the truth. The new film promises to mine Anson’s book more deeply than did the previous screenplays, including more about early Indians (whose vengeful spirits may lurk nearby) and devil-worshipping early settlers of the area. Yet, Moran explains, “Experts told me that the tribe mentioned was not from the Amityville area at all (actually, they had inhabited the eastern tip of Long Island, 70 miles away) and that the settlers mentioned were never local residents either. Anson’s tactic was clear—when strapped for good material for a book, pad it with quasi-factoids.” And Father Pecoraro, the priest who was driven from the house by demons? According to Moran, who interviewed Pecoraro, “he said he never saw anything in the house.”
Joe Nickell, author of Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings (and who personally visited Amityville, and interviewed later owners), also found numerous holes in the Am