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Yes people have lived in the house since the Lutz's. The home was eventually changed architecturally to make it harder to find for tourists. Subsequent homeowners did not experience paranormal events and the original windows,doors, etc were in the house intact and undamaged despite the stories from the Lutzs.
The initial plan was to find a way to try and get out of the mortgage for the Lutz family and come up with a defense for Ron DeFeo for his appeal-demonic possession. It was hatched by Mr Lutz and Ron's lawyer in a bar. Despite the reduced price on the house, Amityville is a wealthy area and still way beyond the means of the Lutz family. The money from the book, etc was a nice bonus.
This story haunted me for years as I read it way too young -peer pressure and ridicule- and suffered from awful nightmares based on the incidents in the book. I was thrilled to finally see a documentary with the facts including a deathbed confession by the lawyer that it was a hoax. Since then I've also read an interview from the step-son who said Mr Lutz was involved in mild occultic activity and he believes there may have been a spirit because of that. I believe he said he also saw it after they left the house. He remembers a "man" being by his bed but not all the Exorcist stuff. Also, the Exorcist had come out not long before the Amityville story... No Indian burial ground there either.
Yes people have lived in the house since the Lutz's. The home was eventually changed architecturally to make it harder to find for tourists. Subsequent homeowners did not experience paranormal events and the original windows,doors, etc were in the house intact and undamaged despite the stories from the Lutzs.
The initial plan was to find a way to try and get out of the mortgage for the Lutz family and come up with a defense for Ron DeFeo for his appeal-demonic possession. It was hatched by Mr Lutz and Ron's lawyer in a bar. Despite the reduced price on the house, Amityville is a wealthy area and still way beyond the means of the Lutz family. The money from the book, etc was a nice bonus.
This story haunted me for years as I read it way too young -peer pressure and ridicule- and suffered from awful nightmares based on the incidents in the book. I was thrilled to finally see a documentary with the facts including a deathbed confession by the lawyer that it was a hoax. Since then I've also read an interview from the step-son who said Mr Lutz was involved in mild occultic activity and he believes there may have been a spirit because of that. I believe he said he also saw it after they left the house. He remembers a "man" being by his bed but not all the Exorcist stuff. Also, the Exorcist had come out not long before the Amityville story... No Indian burial ground there either.
this was one of my favorite scary movies when I was a kid,,the first "Halloween" was scary too
whether its based on a true story or not,,,the movie was awesome
I loved scary movies when I was a kid...
altho the exorcist was one movie I didn't see til I was older
It's not a matter of thinking it is, the fact is that the fiction story "Amityville Horror" is based on a true story. Loosely based, but still, it's based on that. The son is still in prison. He's insane, I think.
I saw an interview of him once. He keeps changing his story, even within the same interview.
The options in the poll don't quite cover all the bases.
Yes of course the book & movie is BASED on the true event of the DeFeo murders but as for the truthfulness of any paranormal activity, it was pure storytelling as has finally been admitted over the years by several people involved. And as others have mentioned, Mr Lutz has always been interested in transcendental meditation, the occult, etc, so any paranormal experiences he may have had were most likely products of his own conjuring.
I, too, was captivated by this story as a child, and 40 years later am relieved to learn it was all a hoax.
A murder occurred in the house. That can not be refuted. Over the years, an unusual number of owners have occupied the house. It is not in an area of starter homes, where that might be the norm.
There are differing opinions about the experiences of the Lutz family. I personally have heard that they negotiated a deal to live in the house for one year.
They could not fulfill that, because there were paranormal disturbances in the house, so they fled, the house.
George Lutz dabbled in the occult before they bought the house. He was on the darker side of occult practices, so naturally a house where an entire family had been murdered in cold blood, was attractive to George.
He was hardly a devoted stepfather. He resented his stepchildren and frequently beat them and abused them. Kathy Lutz did nothing to intervene. In fact, she joined in. This is recorded in the book "The Amityville Horror". If you believe nothing else in that book, believe this. All of the adult children report that George Lutz was an abusive man.
They decided to attempt to make some money from what happened to them with the book, which I think was highly embellished, and left out certain details.
Namely, George Lutz' own involvement with the occult and how the family came to occupy the house. I think George thought it was a bargain, and also thought that this location could help him in his occult practices. It also went along with his tough guy image. George road with a local renegade biker gang. Big man. He lived in the "Murder House".
Like the DeFeo family before them, the Lutz family was steeped in violence and dysfunction.
Like attracts like. The Lutz family was attracted to a house where a murder had taken place. And they had three children. I think most sane parents, whether or not they believe in the paranormal would completely avoid the idea of taking children into a house where there had been a mass murder - and this one involved children.
After the Lutz' fled the house, the home was purchased by the Cromarty family, who went to great lengths to dispel any idea that their new house was haunted or in any way, tainted. They even did an interview with "Good Houskeeping" magazine to refute the Lutz' claim about the house.
The Cromarty's were owners of a bowling alley and a seedy racetrack. Like the Lutz family and the DeFeo family, they were out of place in this upper middle class neighborhood that was occupied by professionals and solid business people.
The Cromarty's met with tragedy, when Mrs. Cromarty's son over dosed on drugs in Ronald DeFeo's bedroom. He was taken to a local hospital by ambulance where he was pronounced dead.
Yes, I think that there is something wrong with this house, and the land upon which it is built.
To anyone who thinks the Amityville horror has a shred of truth the real truth is already out there in a documentary called THE REAL AMITYVILLE HORROR.
The Lutzs posted an account of the house in a magazine...I think Good Housekeeping. The account was very different from the one we know today, very mild and mostly involved weird feelings, and a few odd things such as weird coloring that appeared on the walls, etc.
This was not a hoax at all, but probably a genuine mis-interpretation of data from people understandably unsettled by living in house where six people were murdered.
The Lutzs remembered hearing that Ronnie Defeo complained of hearing voices. Concerned, they contacted Defeo's lawyer William Weber for dinner.
Here is where the hoax started.
Weber listened to their complaints and was able to give rational explanations for everything they told him. That weird green/black residue oozing from the walls was actually left-over finger print dust. Those noises that they heard outside at night was actually the neighbor's cat prowling around that Ronnie himself hated and referred to as "the pig." The upstairs room was filled with flies out of season because the blood from the murders allowed an oddly fertile ground for flies to lay eggs. Etc. Weber further let them know that the voices that Ronnie allegedly heard were just a ginned up insanity defense.
But, as they got drunker, Weber made it clear that if they wanted to continue on with a little idea about a project to make some money, he would be happy to help, for a cut of course.
Weber himself revealed this because ultimately, they cut him out. They contacted writer Jay Anson with the absolute intention of committing outright fraud. And they did. The story now went nuclear, with fantastic exaggerations of the small and explainable phenomenon in the good Housekeeping articles.
The fingerprint residue become a horrid green ectoplasm that oozed from the walls.
The unseasonal flies became an endless swarm that attacked priests and disappeared.
The noises outside that were really only the neighbor's cat- the pig- prowling around became a literal demon pig that could change shape to be as big as the house or small as the doll.
Etc.
It really is disgraceful and it is shocking that anyone still believes this nonsense. Not only has it more or less been confessed, but as adults do we not realize that things like this do not happen? In an era when everyone is carrying around a cell phone camera, not a single uber-hauntings akin to Amityville or the Enfield Poltergeist has ever received the slightest corroborating evidence. Is this not a good indication that they just don't happen in the really real world?
On a side note, one of the Lutz children, who now goes by his original name, Chris Quarintino, now gives interviews, and describes phenomenon not only different from the original George Lutz story and the subsequent George Lutz story, but different from his brother. I am not calling the man a liar...a young child in a scary place with crazy parents can be very susceptible to suggestion, and the phenomenon he describes mostly does sound like if could have a plausible explanation (one thing he describes sounds suspiciously like sleep paralysis). Memory is highly fallible, and it has been proven that we tend to fill in the blanks. I mention this because it demonstrates a classic mythology regarding Amityville that never stops changing, and never will, when the truth is just much simpler.
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