Wednesday, May 1, 2024

The Amityville Horror Real Story: The House, Murders, and Movies

112 ocean avenue house

The dog's chain wasn't long enough and it was left hanging over the fence by its neck, its paws unable to reach the ground. He believes that the dog had been alarmed by a poltergeist of some sort that haunted their boathouse. Even the controversial book, The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson, did not claim that George ever harmed or tried to kill their half breed Malamute.

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Michael Natale is the news editor for Best Products, covering a wide range of topics like gifting, lifestyle, pop culture, and more. His past journalistic writing can be found on sites such as Yahoo! and Comic Book Resources, his podcast appearances can be found wherever you get your podcasts, and his fiction can’t be found anywhere, because it’s not particularly good. The effort to preserve the site was led by Sandi Brewster-Walker, the executive director of the Montaukett Indian Nation. Indeed, the land that Anson's book claimed was used by the Shinnecock would have actually been occupied by a Western cluster of the Montaukett.

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However, the following day he confessed to the killings, while the mob hitman Falini had an alibi, proving he was out of the state at the time. Physical evidence at the scene suggests that his mother and 13-year-old sister Allison were awake at the time of their deaths. The six victims were later buried at Saint Charles Cemetry in Farmingdale. A picture on the wall of the DeFeo family home, Ronald DeFeo Jr. with his father Ronald DeFeo Sr.

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George Lutz started hearing voices, random knocking noises, doors that would allegedly slam on their own, and other creepy stuff like that. Kathy Lutz also said that she discovered a secret room that wasn’t in the original house plans, and that this room was painted red — blood red. They followed the advice of a friend and had the house ‘cleansed’ by a priest before moving in, but as it turned out, that didn’t help much.

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One of the better known features of the Amityville Horror films is the distinctive jack-o'-lantern-like appearance of the house, which was created by two quarter round windows on the third floor attic level. The windows are often illuminated in the films, giving the appearance of menacing eyes. The first three films were filmed at a house in Toms River, New Jersey which had been converted to look like 112 Ocean Avenue after the authorities in Amityville denied permission for location filming. Although not all of the films in The Amityville Horror series are set at the former Lutz home on Ocean Avenue, the distinctive Dutch Colonial house is traditionally used as the main image in promotional material.

The book then alludes to a settler named John Catchum, or Ketcham, who was apparently buried on the property after being forced out of Salem, Massachusetts "for practicing witchcraft." Director Stuart Rosenberg had, once upon a time in 1967, directed Paul Newman in the critically lauded classic Cool Hand Luke, a film with both theological and countercultural themes. More significantly, all of these things laid the groundwork for a film that is crucial to understanding not just the Amityville Horror phenomenon, but the rise of the Moral Majority in the late 1970s and the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s.

But perhaps the story most indebted to The Exorcist is that of the "Amityville Horror," which is why it's not surprising to discover that the author of The Amityville Horror had a connection to the making of The Exorcist. Despite its graphic content, and some condemnation from the clergy, The Exorcist was the #1 film at the 1973 box office, beating out the #2 film, The Sting, by nearly $10 million. (Another Satan-themed film, the X-Rated The Devil in Miss Jones, was also the 10th highest-grossing films of 1973.) In a rarity for horror films even today, The Exorcist received 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and won an Oscar for its screenplay. William Friedkin's 1973 film The Exorcist, based on the 1971 novel by William Peter Blatty, was a cultural lightning rod like no other. Films had addressed America's anxiety about the late 1960s counterculture from a practical policing perspective in films like Dirty Harry and Electra Glide in Blue.

112 ocean avenue house

Anson's book used 45 hours of the family's recorded interviews as a basis. And one of the three Lutz children, Christopher Quaratino, confirmed that the hauntings happened. However, he also said that the events were exaggerated by his stepfather, George Lutz.

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The quiet village of Amityville, Long Island, has been made infamous by a hoax. None of us would be here today if a responsible publisher and author had not given credibility to two liars, and allowed them the privilege of putting the word true on a book in which in all actuality is a novel. The credibility of the hoax stems from using a charlatan Catholic priest, who has been banned from performing his religious duties by the Diocese of Rockville Centre, the equivalent of disbarment of a lawyer. This charlatan priest has been involved with a complicity to a lie and, therefore, deserves no credibility, and should be dealt with accordingly.

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George’s stepson, Christopher Quaratino, who was 7 when he lived in the house, came forward in 2005 to say that events in “The Amityville Horror” books and movies had been stretched to the point of fiction. At times, his wife was physically transformed into an old woman and once levitated, George said. One night, he heard his children’s beds “slamming up and down on the floor” but claimed he couldn’t do anything because an invisible force was paralyzing him. Researchers Rick Moran and Peter Jordan rejected the claim of cloven hoof prints in the snow on January 1, 1976. Their investigation revealed that there had been no snowfall at that time.[2] No neighbor reported anything unusual during the time that the Lutzes were living there. Police officers are depicted visiting the house in the book and 1979 film, but records showed that the Lutzes did not call the police.[13] There was no bar in Amityville called The Witches' Brew at the time.

When the Lutzes moved in, all of the furniture from the DeFeo family remained intact from the night of the murders. They had purchased the furniture for $400 as part of their mortgage agreement. Many people expressed doubts about their horror story, which fell under even more scrutiny after DeFeo’s defense attorney, William Weber, admitted he and the couple came up with the tale over several bottles of wine. Two months later, a local TV crew did a segment on the house, bringing in so-called “ghost hunters” and paranormal experts to evaluate the couple’s claims. In December 1975, a month after DeFeo was convicted of the murders, the Lutz couple and their three young kids moved into the house, which they had reportedly snatched for $80,000.

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Following his visit to the house, Father Mancuso allegedly developed a high fever and blisters on his hands similar to stigmata. Talking about their experiences subsequently, they reported that it was as if they "were each living in a different house". But it wasn't until after the Lutz family moved into the house in December of 1975 that the purported haunting of the Amityville Horror house allegedly set in. George and Kathy Lutz believed their purchase of the 4,000-square-foot house at $80,000 was a steal — but moved out 28 days later after terrifying incidents allegedly forced them to flee. DeFeo Jr. changed his alibi several times, from claiming he was at the bar during the time of the murders to mob hitman Louis Falini killing his family while forcing DeFeo Jr. to watch. He eventually confessed that he gunned his own family down, and stood trial on Oct. 14, 1975.

In an effort to establish an insanity plea, Ronald DeFeo, Jr. testified to hearing voices that told him to kill his family. The bulk of Osuna’s book provides a wealth of documentation and data that at the very least casts doubt over the rigor with which the trial was conducted and how the evidence was treated. For example, in the crime scene photos, which are reproduced in the book, blood stains can be seen in places that do not add up with the story that the DeFeo’s were all killed in their beds, which serves to support Osuna’s version of events. The discovery of a bullet with a different caliber from the Marlin rifle Butch discarded after the massacre in the marital bedroom is also highlighted by Osuna. However, it is in Osuna’s chronicling of anomalies during the trial that the Amityville Case starts to deal with paranormal phenomena. The Amityville Horror movietrailer for the 2005 remake starring RyanReynolds and Melissa George as husband andwife George and Kathy Lutz.

They depicted a conflict between youthful rebellion run amok and the firm, harsh hand of the law. But those films also suggested to the parents in the audience that their long-haired hippie kids they didn't understand were criminals deserving of prison, or even death. Two years prior, across an ocean, at Thomas Edison's Black Mariah studio in West Orange, New Jersey, filmmaker William K. Dickson was documenting two dances performed by members of the Sioux nation. Filmed on the same day, the 16-second Buffalo Dance and 21-second Sioux Ghost Dance would prove to be, in the estimation of Edison film historian C. Musser, "the American Indian's first appearance before a motion picture camera." The notorious Long Island house last sold in February 2017, following the passing of David D’Antonio.

Jay Anson's novel The Amityville Horror describes it as a pig running through the snow. The Amityville true story reveals that unlike what is stated early in the movie, Kathy's former husband, Sebastian, was not dead. The pair had divorced, but according to son Christopher Lutz, the kids still saw their birth father regularly on Sundays. George did insist on their adoption though, at which point their last names changed from Quaratino to Lutz.

On the Brewster Burial Ground, there are also three statues devoted to specific members of the Brewster family that had been erected in the 1950s by a descendant. The cliche became so pervasive that people tend to ascribe it even to stories that don't contain that element. But in 1979, attorney William Weber, who represented Ronald "Butch" DeFeo, came forward with a claim that not only said the Lutz family contrived the entire haunting, but that he was an instrumental part of its creation. Trying to reopen the case and have DeFeo plead insanity, Weber claimed to have approached George and Kathy with the idea that, if they also claimed to experience strange things in the house, they could get a book deal and the story could aid his client's case. The book wasn't just a bestseller; it also had the benefit of being "based on a true story," while having the cinematic narrative propulsion Anson added through his years of experience in the film industry. The reality is, it wasn't the images on the TV screen, nor the voices from the walls of the Amityville house, that caused DeFeo to kill.

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