There have been so many great haunted house horrors through the years, and The Amityville Horror is the quintessential movie of its kind. Haunted house movies can be extremely creepy and atmospheric when done right, the tension builds and builds, they grab you and don't let you go. They can also be a hell of a lot of fun. The Amityville Horror has all this in abundance. What makes it even the more intriguing is the fact that it is supposedly based on real events.
Now I have read everything there is to read about what happened in Amityville, Long Island, New York. I do believe that some real shit did happen in that house. The DeFeo's moved in. Ronald DeFeo Jr killed six members of his family. They were found by police in their beds, lying on their stomachs. It's estimated that the whole thing took a mere 15 minutes from start to finish. The police determined that the rifle hadn't been fitted with a silencer, so the gunshots should hypothetically have woken the DeFeos up; however, there was no sign of a struggle. He was tried and convicted for the 1974 killings of his father, mother, two brothers, and two sisters.
The Lutzes moved in next. George and Kathy Lutz married in July 1975 and each had their own homes, but they wanted to start fresh with a new property. Much of the DeFeo family's furniture was still in the house. They lived in the house for less than a month. George Lutz was one evil son of a bitch. He practised the black arts and drove whatever entities were in the house to begin with - haywire. Daniel Lutz (his step-son) claimed he witnessed George practicing telekinesis in the garage one day, and that he has a ton of books on "sacrificing virgins".
Some weird shit went on in that house. That boy you see in the photo - he wasn't there when that photo was taken. A priest was blessing the house when he heard a masculine voice demand that he "get out." The house was plagued by swarms of flies despite the winter weather. Kathy had vivid nightmares about the murders. The Lutzes' 5-year-old daughter, Missy, developed an imaginary friend named "Jodie," a demonic pig-like creature with glowing red eyes. George and Kathy saw the image of a demon with half his head blown out. It was burned into the soot in the back of the fireplace. George saw Kathy transform into an old woman of 90: "the hair wild a shocking white, the face a mass of wrinkles and ugly lines, and saliva dripping from the toothless mouth." Ed and Lorraine Warren visited the house. They were among the very first to investigate the Lutz's claims, corroborating the evil presence in the house with their expertise in demonology and clairvoyance.Anyway, it is one of my favorite haunted house horrors, up there with Don't Go to Sleep (1982), Ghosthouse (1988), Burnt Offerings (1976), The Shining (1980), The Woman in Black (1989), The Innocents (1961), House of Lost Souls (1989) and others.