Key Takeaways
Amityville . Even the name sends gelidity up your backbone . That ’s because the sleepy suburbia on Long Island , New York , was the internet site of what may be the Earth ’s most famous haunting .
In 1975 , a household of five moved into their dream home — a six - bedroom Dutch Colonial at 112 Ocean Avenue named " gamy Hopes " — sleep with that the menage had been the scenery of a grisly mass murder just a yr before . The syndicate was immediately surround by dreadful fantasm , bubbling dark-green guck , red - eyed squealer heads , levitate beds and sinister cries to " Get out ! " Twenty - eight day after , that ’s on the button what they did , vacate all their possession and telling their terrifying story to anyone who would heed .
The rule book , " The Amityville Horror : A True Story , " was published in 1977 and dissipate to the top of the best seller list . Hollywood bought the rightfield and released " The Amityville Horror " moving-picture show in 1979 , whichdespite tepid reviewsgrew into a franchise of at least 17 official picture show to date , andhundreds of Amityville ape , all " base on a true story . "
But how much of the Amityville repugnance history is fact and how much is fiction ? Or was the human beings ’s most famous haunt nothing more than an amateurish hoax?Robert Bartholomewcertainly reckon so . Bartholomew is a sociologist in New Zealand , specializing in aggregated craze and astonied that virtually 50 years after the aver haunting , we ’re still utter about Amityville .
" The Amityville myth persists in the face of consuming grounds to the contrary , " say Bartholomew . " It ’s starkly obvious that it ’s a humbug , but masses still want to consider . "
The Real Horror: The DeFeo Murders
One indisputable while of the Amityville tale is truly horrific . Early on the morning of Nov. 13 , 1974 , a 23 - year - quondam motorcar mechanic namedRonald DeFeotook a luxuriously - powered rifle and kill all six members of his family — two parents and four siblings — as they lay do drugs in their beds .
DeFeo and his lawyer , William Weber , exact that DeFeo was driven mad by a satanic presence in the house and pleadednot guilty by reason of insanity . The jury did n’t buy the"Devil made me do it"defense , and the justice sentenced DeFeo to six consecutive life sentence .
The former DeFeo home at 112 Ocean Avenue became ill-famed as " the murder house " and sat empty for nearly a year until George and Kathy Lutz incite in with their three kids and a dog . At $ 80,000 , the prop was a steal : In addition to the six - bedroom dwelling , there was a heated consortium and a boathouse on the Amityville River . But the Lutzes still recover it afinancial stretch .
The Lutzes Move in, the Haunting Begins
The story of what encounter to the Lutz family over 28 agonizing days in December 1975 and January 1976 has been restate many times and has morphed slimly with every telling .
In all versions , there is a local Catholic priest whom the Lutzes ask to bless the house , due to its earlier reputation . According to one level , the priest sensed a menacing presence in one of the upstairs bedrooms and warned the Lutzes not to sleep in that way . In the book , the non-Christian priest mat a sharp smack on his face and heard a groaning voice scream , " Get out ! " In the movie , the priest was also attacked by a drove of flies .
Then the really weird poppycock began . Doors slamming undetermined and shut at all hours . A haunting coldness in the house , despite roaring fervency in the hearth . Drops of gelatinous goo ( red in some version , green or disgraceful in others ) appearing on the walls and rug . One nighttime , Kathy transform into a 90 - yr - quondam witch . Another , the typeface of a demon - eyed pig appear in a bedroom window .
On their final night in the house , Georgereportedthat Kathy levitate and slid off the bed , while George was keep awake all night by the sound of the nestling ’s bed slamming on the floor above him , flick brightness level and an unseen presence lurk in the room . The next 24-hour interval , the kids awoke traumatized , saying they were ineffectual to move or leave their rooms .
The Lutzes , terrified and exhausted , could n’t take it anymore . On Jan. 14 , 1976 , they left everything behind at 112 Ocean Avenue , never to return .
The Creation of the Amityville Myth
before long after the Lutzes abandon the house , they encounter with William Weber , the attorney who represented Ronald DeFeo , the convicted killer . Weber , it change by reversal out , was alreadyshopping around the ideaof a book about the DeFeo family murders called " Devil on My Back . "
According to Weber , he and the Lutzes had a creative brainstorming academic session over " many bottle of wine . " The Lutzes apportion the report of the unsettling thing that they felt and see at the house and Weber shared details about the DeFeos and the violent death that only he knew . Weber claimed that several of these details were spun into the book and the movie .
Weber say the Lutzes that a neighbor ’s cat would peer into the DeFeos ' windowpane at dark . That became the red - eyed sloven . Ronald DeFeo ’s father had once smacked his mother while she held a plate of red - sauced spaghetti . That became themysterious ruby-red gooon the bulwark that morphed into immature slime burp from keyholes .
" We took literal - life incidents and transposed them,“said Weber in 1988 . " In other words , it was a fraud . "
Weber and the Lutzes parted ways after a fight over how money from the book deal would be part . The Lutzes took their story to Jay Anson , a journalist and filmmaker who had made a short documentary on the making of " The Exorcist . "
" Anson mind to 35 hours of taped audience with the Lutzes , then he ride down and wrote the Christian Bible , " say Bartholomew . " The best way to draw Jay Anson is a writer who did n’t let the facts get in the fashion of a undecomposed narration . "
Writer ’s Digest publish aterrific interviewwith Anson in 1979 , soon after the book and movie slew had made him fantastically loaded . He was excellently elusive about the truthfulness of his account .
" It ’s funny , almost nobody ever says to me , ' Hey that book of yours is a bunch of fuzz . I did n’t believe a word of it . ' or else , they ask if I think what the Lutzes told me is unfeigned , " enunciate Anson . " And I answer them the same direction I do you when you ask the question . I tell them that I have no idea whether the Quran is straight or not . But I ’m sure that the Lutzes believe what they told me to be true . "
Bartholomew is convinced that the Lutzes abandon the house because they could n’t keep up with the mortgage and tax payments and created the haunting story as an exculpation and a moneymaking side hustle . " They want to make some money off of it , " says Bartholomew , who co - authored a 2016 article in Skeptic magazine differentiate the40th anniversaryof the " myth . "
For their part , the Lutzes never retracted their story .
" Our critic are people who ’ve never been in the sign of the zodiac , just people who take a al-Qur’an , " LutztoldThe Washington Post in 1979 . " No one who was ever in the house , who enquire it , ever shout it a put-on . No one with any credentials who was in person involved ever called it a dupery . No one who help us there , with the auction , with getting stuff to the Salvation Army , ever holler it a dupery … All I know is what happened to me . "
The Amityville House — now with a different theatre identification number to monish horror fan — has been sell at least four prison term since the murders andnone of the newer ownershave reported seeing any psychic phenomena . Itlast sold in 2016for $ 850,000 . The house where the moving picture was film in 1979 has been completely renovated and iscurrently for salefor $ 1,699,900 .
