BASED ON A TRUE STORY: THE AMITYVILLE HORROR
Last week, I made a post that delved into the supposedly true story upon which my favourite horror film The Exorcism of Emily Rose claims to be based. It seems only fitting, then that this week I should make one looking at the events behind the horror movie that fights Emily Rose for the top spot - demonic-thriller classic The Amityville Horror. |
| The Amityville Horror (1979) |
For those of you who don't know, The Amityville Horror is a 1979 horror film based on a book of the same name published only two years prior. It follows the young Lutz family - George and Kathy, and Kathy's children from a previous marriage - who purchase a house in Amityville, New York a year after the previous occupants, the DeFeo family, were murdered by one of their own; the family's eldest son, Ronald Jr. The Lutzes last only 28 days living in the house before they're driven out by powerful paranormal forces which seem set on causing only harm.
The Amityville Horror is probably one of the most iconic films of the 'based on a true story' persuasion. And that's because... well, it is. Or, at least it seems to be on the surface. Certainly, the Lutz family exist and they did move into the now iconic home at 112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville, where they stayed for only 28 days. And, tragically, the murders that preceded their move-in by a year were all too real.
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| Ronald DeFeo Jr's mugshot |
A small party of people accompanied DeFeo back to his family home at 112 Ocean Drive, where his suspicions were confirmed - his parents, Ronald Sr (44) and Louise (42) were shot dead in their bed. Upon arrival of police, however, an even more sickening discovery was made - the rest of the DeFeo family were also murdered. Dawn (18), Allison (13), Marc (12) and John-Matthew (9) had all suffered a single fatal gun shot, whereas Ronald Sr and Louise were each shot twice. Each victim lay face-down in their own bed, and evidence suggested that Louise and Allison had each been awake at the time of their murders, and that all of them had taken place at around 3AM that morning.
DeFeo was originally taken into police custody for his own protection, as he stated that he believed his family had been the victims of professional hitman Louis Falini. However, after inconsistencies began to appear in DeFeo's story and Falini provided an alibi which proved beyond all reasonable doubt that he wasn't even in New York state at the time of the murders, police grew suspicious. The next day, DeFeo confessed to murders, claiming that he did so after he heard their voices plotting against him. He plead not guilty by way of insanity, however the prosecution claimed that DeFeo was lucid at the time of the murders, though they believed he suffered from Antisocial Personality Disorder. On 17th November 1975, DeFeo was convicted of six counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to twenty five years to life in prison for each murder. He is currently imprisoned at the Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, New York and every appeal he has made to the parole board thus far has been denied. He is now sixty seven years old.
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| The Lutz family, whose patriarch, George, was noted to bear a strong resemblance to Butch DeFeo |
Almost from the moment of moving into the house, the Lutzes - particularly George - reported feeling strong, negative paranormal forces at play. They claimed to hear strange sounds - including George reporting a phantom brass band that would march through the house - and that locked doors and windows would swing open and closed, as if by a pair of invisible hands. They called in a priest - Father Ralph Pecararo - to bless the house, only for him to be commanded by a disembodied voice to "get out", and develop stigmatic blisters on his hands.
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| George Lutz claimed he would wake up at 3:15AM every day - the same approximate time the murders are believed to have occurred. |
Eventually in January of 1976, only one month after moving into what was supposed to be their dream home, the Lutz family fled in the middle of the night, taking only three changes of clothes each. Their leaving shortly followed a second failed attempt at blessing the house, though the exact events of their final night remain a mystery. Regardless, their ordeal had garnered them international attention; by 1977, author Jay Anson had published The Amityville Horror, a book apparently depicting the events they endured, which would go on to be a huge commercial success. The case even drew the attention of Ed and Lorraine Warren, world-famous demonologists, who conducted a seance and paranormal investigation at the home on New York's Channel 5 in February of 1976. It was during this investigation that the now-famous 'Demon Boy' photo was taken depicting a small child (who is said to closely resemble John-Matthew DeFeo) peering around a door frame in the empty house.
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| The infamous 'Demon Boy' picture was taken by Ed Warren, who claimed the house was empty and no child was present at the time of the photograph's capture. |
Now, what if I were to tell you it may have been a hoax?
Since the publication of Anson's book and the release of some sixteen movies about the ordeal, many have called into question the validity of George Lutz's story, with some - including his own stepson - outright claiming that he grossly exaggerated the events that occurred in the house, perhaps even lying about the whole thing, in a shameless attempt to capitalise on the tragic story of a family's murder.
Allegations of George Lutz being less-than-truthful actually go back to DeFeo; though he initially claimed to have heard voices telling him to commit the murders, he has since changed his story several times over the years. At times he has even gone so far as to revert back to denying his guilt completely, claiming he was in New Jersey at the time of the killings. In short, DeFeo is, at best, unreliable and whether or not he heard the voices Lutz claimed to also hear is questionable.
Further, several people who were allegedly involved in the ordeal either claim the events didn't happen as Lutz recalls them, or deny them completely. Notably, Father Pecararo, the priest who the Lutzes called in to bless the house initially, claimed to have experienced no paranormal activity whatsoever in the home - no disembodied voice and certainly no stigmatic blistering. Even Christopher Quaratino, Kathy Lutz's son and George's stepson, claims that the events in Anson's book were exaggerated, with some being made up completely. In a 2005 interview with the Seattle Times, Quaratino denied that the haunting was altogether a hoax, claiming he remembers seeing shadowy figures and hearing locked windows open and close, but denies that the walls oozed slime or that there was any pig-like entity in the home. He referred to his stepfather as a 'professional showman' who had dabbled in the occult and brought the haunting upon himself.
Perhaps the most damning evidence for the haunting being, at best, hyperbolised for monetary gain and, at worst, an outright hoax is the confessions of William Weber. Weber was the family's lawyer and also, interestingly, had defended Butch DeFeo during his murder trial. Following a dispute with George Lutz over money, Weber confessed in 1979 that he, George and Kathy had fabricated the entire haunting 'over several bottles of wine'. The Lutzes were motivated by money, Weber by his desire to get a re-trial for DeFeo, aiming for a 'Devil made him do it' approach.
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| Anson's book claims to be 'A True Story': however, lawyer William Weber claims he and the Lutzes fabricated the story. |
Similarly, Dr Stephen Kaplan of the Parapsychology Institute of America had his suspicions that the ordeal was entirely fabricated, after he received a phone call from George Lutz in 1976 requesting an investigation from his team. When Kaplan asked Lutz questions about the nature of the haunting, he received vague and unconvincing answers, and when he informed Lutz that there would be no fee but the public would be made aware of if the story was a hoax, Lutz cancelled the investigation, claiming he didn't want any publicity around the family - perhaps why Kaplan was so shocked to see the Warrens's seance broadcast of channel 5. In addition, Kaplan discovered, with the help of a columnist at the local paper, that the Lutzes had returned to the 'hell house' just one day after they fled in the middle of the night to hold a garage sale, and that movers who went to retrieve the Lutz's belongings reported no sign of paranormal activity in the house. Kaplan published a book titled The Amityville Horror Conspiracy shortly before his untimely death in 1995, in which he maps out his overwhelming evidence against the Lutz's and Warrens's claims that the house was definitively haunted.
So what do you think, my lovely, spooky reader? Do you believe that George Lutz is telling the truth and that naysayers do so just to spite him? Or do you think that he created the story in order to make a quick buck on the tragic murders of the DeFeo family? Let me know!
Special thanks to the following sources where I did my research:
Keep it weird,
Jazz xo
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