I can't believe there's going to be a remake to the horror classic Amityville Horror! Why mess with a classic and just re-release the original to audiences who were too young/not born when the original came out. Did we not learn anything from the horrible Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake???

Hollywood really is running low on originality.

Funny they say it's by the same guy that did "the Texas Chainsaw Massacre" yet make no distinction between the original and the remake...which is what the are refering to. And why does there have to be running shadows of children in the background? So done.

The thing is there is really only One story, I believe to it. The story is about the father who goes crazy and kills his whole family. I don't think there was ever anyone who experienced anything after that ...though the movies tell otherwise. I could be worng on this.

But there is no reason for a remake. What's next? Halloween? This guy seems to be on a roll now.

The whole haunting was proven to be a hoax. The dude that went org and killed his family is true, I believe.

Well hopefully me and my ex partner(hopefully partner again) be there on opening night.

purplegypsy said:

Well, while I'm not a fan of Hollywood remaking horror classics, I can say that the original hasn't aged well. It seems rather dated, and really isn't scary. I've never read the book, but from what I understand there were a whole lot of liberties taken with it for the film. The new version is suppossed to be more accurate to the book.

superspaceboy said:

The story portrayed in the book and subsequent film has pretty much been debunked as a hoax. The house WAS the site of a multiple homicide, with a man taking out his entire family. He later tried to claim "voices" had told him to do it, but later recanted.

The family behind the "Amytiville Horror" basically made the whole thing up in order to get out of a mortgage they couldn't afford. They then ran with all the book and movie deals thrown their way. Numerous people have investigated the claims, and just about all of them have concluded that the family was perpetuating a fraud (although they still stick to their story). Even paranormal investigators and "psychics" have made statements that they feel the case was phony.

Here's a good website for info on the real crime, and all the later fallout:

http://www.amityvillemurders.com/

I really enjoyed the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Yeah, it was a bit slick, but it had alot of beautifully filmed scenes, like when Leatherface was running through the sheets. The original hasn't aged well at all, the editing was very choppy and I usually fall asleep every time I watch it.

This Amityville remake looks goofy and overdone though.

I just watched another flick by Tobe Hooper recently, called The ToolBox Murders, which wasn't bad either. The death scenes are pretty intense, especially in the deleted scenes bonus on the DVD. It's sort of like a cross between Suspiria and Texas Chainsaw Massacre...

i'm a horror movie buff and I LOVE most of the Amittyvile movies. This remake looks interesting but it's probaly shit. TCM remake was pretty good.

I keep seeing TV spots for it, i'm mildy interested.

purplegypsy said:

Oh no !!! The 1st one already was crap, this one will have 2 b worse ! Dammit !!!

I started a thread about this remake a few weeks ago. I think it looks pretty good and its getting a pretty good buzz in movie circles. Its supposedly is WAY better than the original. The original was great when it came out but it did not age well at all. I love horror movies and have high hopes for this one.

Also liked Texas Chainsaw Massacure remake...I thought it was better than the original which also did not age well. I don't see a problem remaking old horror movies...just do it right.

Another good remake was Dawn of the Dead...although I didn't think it was scary at all...it seemed more like a action flick this time around.

My wife once drove down to Amytiville to check out the house when she was a teen. Apparently it was a popular thing for teens to do because there were cops there chasing away curious drivers.

JediMaster said:

you know what? i bought that pile of shit until i saw the trailer last week...how you gonna be faithful to the book when you change the big pig with red eyes into a lil girl that talks to the entire family? (where as he only talked to the girl in the book)...and it looks like the sons arent even in this version...

and the husband never had any "occurances" in a bathtub yet it seems to be the highlight of all the commercials..i guess we can thank "the ring" for that...

and dont even start me on the roof scene....this doesnt look like its coming anywhere close to the "true" version of the book....but thenthe book ended up being pure bullsh*t anyways so i guess it really doesnt matter...hehehehe...

i think a true story (ala Monster) of the original killings would make a powerful film....the family lives a perfect life.....son becomes a speed freak...seduces his own sister.....then kills the entire family after a two day drug binge is far more terrifying then "a ghost possesed me"....

and i guess the son/killer has revised his story once again (first it was a ghost made him do it..then it was his mother did it so he killed her)...his new story is that his sister and he planned to kill their (abusive) parents so the kids would be free yet his sister went all Comando and killed their brothers. Out takes ownership of only killer her (out of shoke).....to know the truth thats in that guys head.
[Edited 4/6/05 22:13pm]

Pagey said:

okay, the originals are classic....ill give Dawn's remake credit for campying it up but that remake of TCM was straight stanky arse.....

heres my issue with remakes, if you have nothing original to say about the stories (which neither of the above remakes you mention does) then dont remake it...

i am all about retelling stories though...The Fly is awesome...Little Shop Of Horrors is awesome.... but cha gotta put a new spin on it..give me something....

these studios think that they are making a easy money by remaking these stories..what they dont realize is that if they just put a lil care in packaging a deluxe DVD of the originals they'd probably make even more money...cheaper..

ask any fan of the Criterion collection.

sosgemini said:

I think Amityville is one of the best movies to remake since it desperately needs it. Have you seen the original lately? Its so bad its laughable. Of what I have seen in the previews and what I have heard from people who were at the recent press screening the new one rocks. Who knows, we'll find out in a couple weeks. But I still think the new TCM is better than the original...and I stand by my statement dammit!

Pagey said:

I almost agreed with you...until the comment about the new TCM. The remake is a piece of shit, and that film had no business being remade in the first place.

Pagey said:

oh no..i agree that Amityville is a good candidate to be made..didnt i say that up there in one of my post? but they appear to be making some major creative liberties with the story....so why bother calling it Amityville then? Just call it "Spooky House" or something....

when i used to live in Long Island.. we drove by that house many times. it does have a creepy vibe about it,even before the movie came out. so yeah the cat that took his family out is true. but im still kinda wondering if the house being haunted is kinda true.

I mean ghosts do exist yes. trust me iv'e seen some thing that would make ya hair stand on end

TheRealFiness said:

No, its not haunted. The current owners have allowed dozens of paranormal investigators into the house (primarily to put all this speculation to rest), and EVERY one of them has concluded that the house is ghost-free. The Lutz's made the whole thing up to get out of their mortgage, and make bucketloads of money.

My mom said something like "They are remaking that AGAIN". I figured she was mistaken and one was a sequel, and I think that's what it was. There are at least seven different types of movies (some might be direct to TV or video) with the word "Amityville" in them. Everything from "Amityville: Dollhouse" (who doesn't love a scary dolly movie?)..."Amityville: 1992" (not that that many had been made yet...I guess they tried to distinguish the sequels by years made) and of course....say it with me "Amityville 3-D"! It's the third...and 3-D...it works on so many levels!

No wonder they kept making them....the first made $86 million in 1979! And $35 million in rentals when VCRs really didn't come around until years later (in popularity, anway).
[Edited 4/7/05 12:05pm]

klhk said:

So they did already remake this? My mom wasn't wrong?

VinnyM27 said:

No, TCM stands for Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You're mom is definitely thinking of the oodles of Amityville sequels that populate your local video store (Only the first three films actually made it into the theaters).

Here's a list of the Amityville Horror films:

The Amityville Horror (1979)
Amityville II: The Possession (1982)
Amityville 3-D (1983)
aka "Amityville III: The Demon"
aka "Amityville: The Demon"
Amityville: The Evil Escapes (1989) (TV)
aka "The Amityville Horror: The Evil Escapes, Part 4"
aka "Amityville IV: The Evil Escapes"
The Amityville Curse (1990) (Video)
Amityville 1992: It's About Time (1992) (Video)
Amityville: A New Generation (1993) (Video)
aka "Amityville 1993: The Image of Evil" - USA (working title)
Amityville: Dollhouse (1996) (Video)
aka "Amityville Dollhouse: Evil Never Dies" - USA
The Amityville Horror (2005)


There's also a documentary, released in 2000:
History's Mysteries: Amityville - The Haunting


---
[Edited 4/7/05 13:32pm]

JediMaster said:

Someone was on IMDB or is totally obessed with "Amityville". I was thinking it was TCM or some station remade it (I was probably thinking TMC...Turner Classic Movies doesn't do remakes and if they did..."Amityville"?....).

And what the hell does "It's About Time" mean in A1992....that is the most fucked up title ever! They just made one two years before, and that was also straight to video! Good Lord! Does anyone follow the "franchaise". Where these movies made by like different people who would just slap the name "Amityville" on there or was there some thought put into this, is there any kind of theme...are they actual sequels or do they just use the name?
[Edited 4/7/05 14:21pm]

VinnyM27 said:

Its About Time is about a clock from the house that was purchased by someone and then haunted. I sh*t you not.

lol.....

sosgemini said:

A clock, a dollhouse...and those were AFTER it went 3-D! These are so gimikcy, what's next? "Amityville...Donna Summer Album (Left in the Attic)"

It's spooky because despite being a good album, it sold very poorly...ohhh...

VinnyM27 said:

IMDB, all the way (cross-referenced, of course)! I've only actually seen the original, and parts of the third.


I'm pretty fascinated by hauntings and what not, so the Amityville case was of interest to me. I always have an open mind when reading about a "haunting" case, leaving open the possibility that it could be either a hoax or a real paranormal event. I did look into the Amityville case about a year ago, just for the fun of it, and came to the conclusion that the whole thing was definitely a hoax. That is about the extent of any 'obsession' with it that I might have had.

VinnyM27 said:

Yes! To be followed up by "Amityville: The Garden Gnome"!

Here is an interview with the real George Lutz this movie is based off of that was conducted by HORROR.COM.. Very creepy!!

With the advent of The Amityville Horror Boxed Set of DVDs (which includes two documentaries written for the History Channel by Farrands) and the new remake of The Amityville Horror (starring Ryan Reynolds as Lutz), both Lutz and Farrands are teaming up for interviews. Here’s what they had to say in a sit-down chat for Horror.com:


Staci Layne Wilson for Horror.com: How did the documentary come about? It aired on The History Channel a couple of years back, right?



Farrands: It did; in October of 2000. It came about after a long journey of trying to figure out how to approach this subject. I mean, I’m a horror writer. I wrote Halloween VI for Dimension Films, and some other projects. This is a story that I remembered from my childhood that I thought was just fascinating. And I remembered hearing these stories that it was made up, and there were other books by all these people who claimed they knew what really happened. But what I wanted to know was what did the Lutz family have to say after twenty years? I did some research to see if the family had commented on the story in recent years but there was never really any follow-up to it, and I thought, “Well, that’s really interesting.” At the time, there was kind of an anniversary around the corner and I thought, “Well, if I can track down the actual people who were involved, maybe we can do either a movie update on this, or a documentary or somehow revisit this story” There’s been a lot of straight-to-video, in-name-only Amityville movies that really didn’t have anything to do with the original story.



I ended up in communication for awhile with Professor Hans Holzer, who was one of the people who later came in, through channels that really weren’t associated with the Lutz family. He had investigated the case with a fairly well-known psychic at the time. So I was kind of getting his perspective on the case, and he put me in touch with Mr. Lutz. who was living a quiet life at the time, remodeling his kitchen, working on cars . I was probably one of the first people to approach George on the subject in quite some time



Lutz: Oh, certainly, on doing a documentary.



Farrands: I think the whole thing was, you know, sort of explaining what I wanted to do. That I wanted to tell the story from, from at least his point of view and also because it was such a controversy and there were so many people who had opinions who weren’t even a part of what went on. I wanted to give all the different people a voice on the show and sort of just put it out there. The whole idea was always to give an objective overview. We just presented each point of view and let the audience come away and decide what they wanted to believe. Whether it was the movie, the story, or the participants in this and what they brought to the table — and who was who. It’s a really colorful cast of characters. The strange thing about it is, the interesting thing, is it all began with the story of a family. People sort of seem to forget that.



Horror.com: Mr. Lutz, were you at all skeptical when Dan first came to you with this idea?



Lutz: We talked. I think our first conversation was about two hours long. I kind of trusted in the two hours in that it told me enough to continue to talk with him again. [Dan] had, I think not just a genuine interest, but he had a candid part to his character that showed through. I was looking for him to betray that as false, and he never did.



Horror.com: What do you think of the documentary as part of the boxed set of DVDs that’s coming out now?



Lutz: I haven’t seen the boxed set. Think there’s a bit of hubris involved in renaming this, but that’s pretty interesting in itself, calling it Amityville Confidential. The problem with the boxed set is, if it’s the same one that I’m thinking of, it also has Amityville II and Amityville 3-D.



There’s a specific requirement that MGM never do that. That Dino De Laurentiis Enterprises never does that. They did this in Europe, and we’re still trying to begin to unravel how to deal with that part. Doing it here, they’re not allowed to use Kathy’s and my name with regard to promoting the second and third movies. This was part of a settlement agreement back in 1993 with Orion Pictures, when the library was picked up by MGM and that distribution deal as such, or exclusions to this, apply to that. This is just another example of the kinds of things these people just do on their own.



Horror.com: The second and third movies weren’t very good, but in trying to remember, I’m pretty sure they didn’t use your family name.



Lutz: Let me explain that to you. When we did a sequel book, called Amityville Horror II, and that book was produced and it was out selling and a production company had been formed and we had announced our intention to do a sequel to the first movie.



The one thing that Kathy and I got from the original contracts with AIP, who did the first movie, was that we got the sequel rights. So we owned the sequel rights, and we still do. We were doing the sequel and we were conforming with every part of the contract, which meant we had to give AIP a right of first refusal. It was very interesting how that all went about, because they strung that out for quite awhile. Little did we know that they had done a deal with Dino De Laurentiis Enterprises.



Then it was announced that De Laurentiis was doing a movie called Amityville Horror II, not only in violation of our sequel rights and our agreement, he was doing it with the same company (which eventually became Filmways). They were all noticed not to do that and they did eventually change the name of the movie to Amityville II. But when the movie came out, they used our names in the advertising. So we actually sued them, got a temporary restraining order to enjoin the film and keep it from being released. My two attorneys went in, and the first time it was kind of a slam dunk. It was an immediate, “Yeah,” the judge said, “We’re not going to let that movie come out.”



The following week they were back in there with De Laurentiis and Filmways attorneys. They were back in there with something like 22 attorneys. The judge was overwhelmed. He allowed them to go forward. We would’ve had to have put up a bond, and the way a bond works is, if you lose the case in any way, shape or form later on, then you’re on for 90% of the bond. If we had put up, for example, a $3m bond at the time and had come up with $300,000 to keep the movie from coming out, if we had lost anything later, then we would have been on the hook for another $2.7 million.



Horror.com: Small pocket change!



Lutz: Yeah. That doesn’t work well. But [chuckles] we did get, immediately, a big huge poster put up in each theater: “This film has no affiliation with George and Kathy Lutz.”



Farrands: I remember that. Seeing that in the theater when I was a kid.



Lutz: I still have one of those. It’s framed. I’m moving my office around right now, but when I get done that’s going up on the wall first. So to finish answering your question, this lawsuit went on for 12 years and when it finally settled, there is a specific clause that says, “You don’t do this.” And they have done it again. They’ve done it three ways, here: By incorporating Amityville II, Amityville 3-D, with our names from the first movie, and they’ve done it with The History’s Mysteries. We’re also on that one.



Farrands: [They did it] without consulting, without even checking.



Horror.com: I have to say, the first movie, I saw it when it came out and it really scared me. I was about 12. I’ve seen it many times again over the years, plus I read the book, and I’ve seen the new 2005 remake. The George Lutz character as played by James Brolin, at least he was a good guy in the beginning and at the end. As he’s written in the new version, he’s not very likable from the start and he goes downhill from there. I liked the movie from a horror fan’s standpoint — I think it’s scarier than the original — but I will say that I stayed for the end credits to see if they were going to say whether or not it’s based on the book. I was surprised when I saw that it was, because it takes a lot of liberties.



Lutz: They did some very “interesting” things here in the production. One of the things that never happened when the original movie deal was done… And I need to explain that that deal was done without our permission and that’s one of the reasons we got the sequel rights. That was a concession on their part to get us to agree to go ahead. Because otherwise, you never get sequel rights. That just doesn’t happen. Well, when they did this, one of the exclusions very specifically in that contract said, “You do not have anything to do with publication rights of our book.”



Well, it was announced last fall (2004) that MGM and Simon and Schuster would be doing a co-venture of some kind with regard to a reissue of the original book and they would be adding a new forward. When we discovered this, we also found out that Simon and Schuster had republished the book in 1990 and never told us. So we immediately asked for an accounting of what they had done in 1990. It took them almost 5 months to do that, and we reminded them that the rights had not been transferred to Simon and Schuster as far as we were concerned, because we had noticed them when they tried to buy the plates years later when they took it out of print. That was considered at that time to be sufficient notice that they no longer had any publishing rights. They still contend that they have the rights to this day, and they have refused to allow us to get the book reprinted as a result of the lawsuit that MGM has filed against me. Not only am I left at this point with being unable to get that book made available to just show people how bad this movie is compared to the original story and what was done and what was accurate, I’ve also got MGM to deal with — a multibillion dollar corporation — as an individual, being sued by them.



Horror.com: I think real fans of the genre will see the movie anyway, and knowing the back story, will instantly see that it’s very embellished. It doesn’t follow the book. When I asked Ryan Reynolds if he had any concerns playing you as portrayed, he said he wasn’t doing a biography film and that his only focus was on the screenplay. So I’m wondering, do you blame the actors that take these roles on? Should they have any responsibility?



Lutz: Well, I liked Jim Brolin. I enjoyed the time I met him, years ago. As far as he was concerned, it was a job he was offered and he took it. But what Ryan Reynolds has done is, he has made a number of statements in a number of different film clips with regard to promoting this movie. [He’s said] things like, they had gone back and done additional research or they were more true to the original book. I don’t blame the guy for taking the job, but if you’re going to make statements about the truth of what you’re doing then there should be some truth to that. You don’t get to have a part-time commitment to truth. So sure, there are some issues with that.



Horror.com: People might be afraid of you after this movie comes out. The character is really scary.



Lutz: These are damages that will continue from the moment this is released. Friends of mine who have seen the movie told me they lost count how many times the fictional George Lutz in this fictional remake of a true story tries to kill his family. Attempted murder is a very serious charge to make in a movie about real people who are still alive.



Farrands: And beyond attempted murder, the butchering of a family pet with an ax!

Horror.com: At least in the first movie, he went back and got the dog and they were still a family unit at the end.



Farrands: [Saying it’s based on a true story is] not only misleading to the public, but it’s so damaging to the people that are portrayed. These people, other than Kathy who sadly passed away in the early days of the production of this film… She was aware of it, and I don’t think, knowing her, that she would be pleased. God bless her, that she doesn’t have to live through the embarrassment and ridicule that will probably come of this.



Lutz: I’ve been talking with my children about this, and all of us agree that Kathy’s passing was a blessing in one sense for her, in that she will not have to deal with the aftermath of what this film will create.



Horror.com: I was wondering, as I was watching the movie, what the (then) kids’ thoughts were on this whole thing. I’ve never seen them come out with any books or be interviewed, or anything.



Lutz: There’s quite a bit of anger and contempt for the filmmakers [of this remake]. Let me put it this way to you: As a family, we have never had a problem with someone doing a true depiction. But when they do this kind of fantasy, an “Amityville Horror alternate universe”, when someone dreams up things… Actually, when you look at this movie you’ll see it pulls from about 5 other horror films.



Horror.com: Absolutely. I saw a lot of The Ring in it. And A Nightmare on Elm Street.



Farrands: One of the other elements of this film, where he builds coffins in the basement with his family’s names on them, there’s a potential that that comes from a fairly current mass murder story that took place in Fresno, CA. Where a man built, or purchased, coffins for his family and systematically killed them. He was ready to lay them in there when he was caught.



There’s a trial going on with that case right now, and we looked at that and said, “It’s very possible that the writer of this [“The Amityville Horror” remake] screenplay heard that story.” It made California news certainly, and quite possibly he thought, “That’s a creepy story. Let’s put that in the new Amityville Horror,” without any regard to the fact that that particular event never happened. The real George Lutz never attempted to murder his family, much build coffins for them. It’s pretty disturbing.



Horror.com: What about this whole John Ketcham subplot in the movie?



Farrands: It’s such a small part of the story. It came up when I did my research for the documentaries and I took the time to go down to historical libraries and talk to people who had researched this. One young reporter, Laura DiDio, who appeared on my documentary, was an invaluable resource. She had uncovered things about the history of the property, and John Ketcham (I think they call him Jeremiah Ketcham in the new film) and there’s absolutely no truth to the actual research that’s been done. There is a Ketcham Street in the village of Amityville. There is a long connection to the family name of Ketcham, and there’s even a family burial plot there. But there’s really no evidence and no basis in reality to what’s in the film, which shows this character as a Satanic priest. He slices his own throat and he tortures Indians on the property, but the house was never a church of any kind. I think they suggest in the movie that the house was built in the 1690s, which is false, because the real house was built in 1928. They’ve gotten everything wrong. I mean, I sat there [watching the movie] and laughed, because everything about it — even about the lore of the house, is wrong.



Horror.com: I imagine the perspective of someone like you, who’s an intimate of the family, or yourself, Mr. Lutz, will be much different from your average, popcorn-munching movie fan. But I’ve often wondered, “Why not just remake the book faithfully?” That’s really scarier than any of the movies.



Farrands: That’s what we’re wondering.



Lutz: I don’t own the remake rights. I don’t have control over remakes. The one thing I do have is a clause that says that any additional remakes that were ever made after the first movie, have to be based on the same characters and the same basic situations. Obviously, they have strayed away from that.



Farrands: I don’t have a problem with fiction, as long as you just label it as such. These people aren’t even doing that. I think it would be easier to swallow this if they just said, “This is pure bull****.” They want to scare the public into thinking these events actually happened. And guess who has to deal with the fallout from that? Not them [the filmmakers]. They’re just going to rake in their money.



Lutz: Staci, I understand your perspective about people going and seeing it as a good scary movie. But there has to be some accounting for people that own the rights to nonfiction books and are depicting people that as characters in a movie that are real people that live today. There has to be some kind of line there, with regard to responsibility. And more important is that during the process of making this movie and excluding Dan and I from any access to what was going on, or any knowledge of what they were doing or what its content was, they were constantly making little movie clips and announcements about how they had gone back to the original book…



Farrands: [laughs]



Lutz (cont’d): …how they had done additional research that was going to make this film so much more accurate. Well, some issues were brought up to them and now they have admitted that they were looking for something that had a true story attached to it and they were looking to make a commercially profitable movie.



Farrands: But when you’re still going around touting it as the true story, and using the names… I mean, couldn’t they have had the decency to change the name of the family? They did change the kids’ names, but it’s still George and Kathy.



Horror.com: We see Law and Order shows on TV every week, “ripped from the headlines.” Is their position that this story is in the public domain because it’s so infamous?



Lutz: Let me help you out with that. About 3 years ago, I got the U.S. Federal Trademark registered for this as a nonfiction book, as well as a series of books we had done about this. You don’t get to ever say that the name “Amityville Horror” is in the public domain. It’s not and it never will be. It’s a Federally registered trademark.



Farrands: So many people have come out of the woodwork over the years that I know of, even in my experience in the few years that I’ve been involved with this, claiming that they could do whatever they wanted. “Well, that was a news story. We can talk about that. There were murders, that was part of the public domain.” The problem is, this was one family’s experience and story and they chose to tell it. Nobody knew that it would become a cultural icon, in a way. When something like that happens to you and everybody wants to sort of twist the events and tell the story however they want and make accusations, it makes every bit of sense to go and register this as a piece of property that you own. And the trademark office agreed.



Lutz: It’s not an easy thing to get a trademark. This was a process that took a year and a half. It was to just protect the right to have the story told in a particular fashion, which is what the 14 lawsuits that have taken place involve.



Horror.com: For Amityville II, they did change the name of the DeFeo family to something else. Why not just change yours?



Farrands: Because they think they can.



Horror.com: But why?



Lutz: They’ve even gone so far as to put flashes on the screen [in the new movie] — this is what I’ve been told — of the original crime scene photos.



Farrands: Yeah, of the dead bodies. I think they were the actual photos. Even if they weren’t the actual photos and were ‘mock-ups’ I still think it’s in incredibly bad taste.



Lutz: That’s really beyond…



Farrands: I don’t think the DeFeo’s ever asked to be a part of this story. The fact that there was a backdrop of these murders certainly made it more creepy and certainly they added to the existing mysteries about that house, and what went on there. But The Amityville Horror book was really not about the DeFeo murders.



Lutz: The book referenced them because it happened there. But it’s not a story about the family, or…



Farrands: And it certainly was never the intention, I don’t think, and certainly not in my documentary, to defame the family or their memory.



Horror.com: If not the DeFeo crime, then what are some of the theories as to why the house was haunted?



Lutz: On March 6, 1976, a team of investigators went into the house. The team included Dr. Riley and Alberta Riley — he’s a parapsychologist from England and his wife is a trans-medium. And Ed Warren, who was the only Vatican-approved demonologist in the United States, layperson; and his wife, Lorraine, who is a light trans-medium. Mary Downey is a psychic with 40 years’ experience at schools and radio programs, teaching others how to use various gifts. Mary had a whole series of books that she had been involved with at that point and her credentials were impeccable. She was considered a time-walker; that means she’s able to go someplace and actually reestablish events in history and then give enough clues to actually document what it is that she finds. And that team, as such, was accompanied by a news crew and Dr. Alex Tenhouse, Dr. Karlis Osis and what were represented to me as field investigators from the Divine Institute at Duke University — which we later learned weren’t exactly as represented.



This whole team of people went in for a full day, and during that time a professional photographer who’d also accompanied the Warrens, and came and took photographs the entire time he was there — he set up an automatic camera on a timer on the second floor…



Farrands: Yeah, they used high speed film and all of the techniques available at that time to sort of capture, hopefully, any activity in the house.



Lutz: …And, um, a photograph turned up at one point where there was a little boy peering out of one of the bedrooms that my youngest daughter at the time had used. There’s a likeness of Padre Pio that’s so easily discernable and definable, that appears in the sun room on a mounted moose head of all things.



Padre Pio was asked by Lorraine Warren to go with her and accompany her in her prayers that day…



Farrands: He’s since been made a saint by the Catholic church. The story of Padre Pio is that he was a Catholic monk who suffered the stigmata for forty years.



Lutz: Getting back to your question. At the end of that day, after a number of individual and collective experiences, the consensus of opinion was that the house could not be cleansed by them. That it would require an Anglican or Catholic priest to come in and not to demean, not a parish priest, but it would require someone special for this kind of purpose. What was there had never walked the face of the earth in human form, it was not going to give up the house as such, and that it would have to be exorcised. As far as they were concerned, there was no more that they could do.



The bottom line of all of that is, Kathy and I felt that it was way beyond our right or responsibility to ask someone to come in and put their life in jeopardy to save a piece of real estate. So we left the house as it was, and I sold my land-surveying business and we went on out to California and started over again. We left the house, all of our furniture and clothing and everything.

Horror.com: OK, but is it the house or the property? If it’s the house, you’d think someone would have razed it to the ground by now.



Lutz: Laura DiDio did additional research, and she found a reference to these kinds of things in some Jewish texts that were a couple of thousand years old, and said that when you have a property like this, what you do is, whatever structure is on it you take it down. You destroy it, you salt the earth so that nothing can grow there for 40 years, and it’ll be fine. We weren’t about to do that!



Horror.com: [laughs] Well, gee, why not? Beyond the limits of your purchase agreement, was it? Didn’t you want to protect others who might live there after you?



Lutz: Well, I had my own family to deal with and we felt the house was locked and Laura had the key and that was the end of that. Later on that year we learned… and it wasn’t until Dan’s Histories Mysteries documentary was done… from Dr. Hans Holzer that he had also investigated the house that same year…



Farrands: January of 1977.



Lutz: … When he was in there, he went in with another trans-medium named Ethel Johnson-Myers, and Laura DiDio accompanied him and a representative from the bank because by then we gave the house back (in August of 1976). We had an auctioneer go in there and just auction everything off, including the boats and tools and furniture, and everything. We did have friends of ours go in there on Easter Sunday and collect the food and clothing and give that to the Salvation Army.



Farrands: But you never went into the house.



Lutz: I did go back on Palm Sunday. I went back with Dr. Heffernan, who is a parapsychologist, and he brought with him a girl that he used as a medium. He did a whole afternoon and said the house was cleansed and that we would smell violets. Well, I smelled flowers but I didn’t smell violets; I smelled something much less desirable. I was incredibly suspicious from that point on, that anything of value had been done.



So the house was investigated a numbers of times. It was investigated basically three separate times, plus the Warrens had gone in on their own with Laura DiDio, the first time on their own. So that’s 4 separate visits by qualified people — or seemingly qualified people. One of the hardest things back then was weeding out the ones without credentials from the ones who did have credentials. That’s another horror story.



Dr. Holzer had completely certified that the house was haunted. He felt that what Ethel Johnson Myers had discovered was that it was an Indian Chief, and he also felt that he had got a couple of photographs of the likeness of that individual. [He said] that this Indian Chief was incredibly angry and that the house would be a real problem to live in.



Without a doubt, we made the right decision. We left everything and we started over, and that was hard enough to do on its own. I don’t think we could have gone back there and survived.



Horror.com: Did you have any odd experiences after you left the house, or has your life been supernatural-free since then?



Lutz: Oh, I wish I could tell you that it’s been warm and wonderful. As a matter of fact, someone emailed me a question about that this morning — they asked me if I felt that what was in the house had left and come to follow us, or bother us, after we had moved. The way I always looked at it back then was that it had reached out from there, that it had never left as such. That doesn’t mean that today the house is a problem; I only talk about it when I owned it.



Horror.com: I see. So I have to ask, since the first thing I think of whenever I wake up at 3:15 is you, what do you think of? Do you ever wake up at 3:15?



Lutz: [laughs] Oh, yeah, sure. I’m sure as I get older I’ll wake up in the middle of the night, every night.



Farrands: [laughs] It seems like people have made a lot of that idea. Including, and especially, in the new movie. I mean, they bonk you over the head with it.



Horror.com: I know, but I’ve felt this way ever since I read the book and this was years ago, long before the remake. It’s been in my mind ever since then.



Farrands: It’s even more so, now. From my own research, this is an approximate time of the DeFeo murders. It seemed that, it was around that time that he [Lutz] was waking up and being drawn to the boathouse, inexplicably. Just another thing. It was never more than just another thing.



Horror.com: [laughs] Buzz-kill. OK, now speaking of the boathouse… to right the wrong in the remake about what happened to the dog, Harry…



Farrands: He was a black lab.



Horror.com: Mr. Lutz, can you clear up what really happened with the dog? I know you didn’t kill him in the book, and I remember clearly that in the first movie, the character went back into that awful house to save the dog before fleeing — big difference in the 2005 version.



Lutz: Harry was a terrific dog. At that point, he was about a year and a half old, and he was pretty much fearless. But the very first day we moved in, he literally hung himself trying to get out of the dog run. We had chained him in there so we could move stuff without worrying about he was going to run off to, and he climbed over the fence but the chain was too short for him to get all the way over so he was hanging there. We had to lift him back into the pen.



Farrands: You mean, you didn’t ax him to death? [sarcastic laugh]



Lutz: He lived with us for years and years later. We took him with us out to California. We got there on Mother’s Day 1976, which is when he escaped New York and landed in San Diego. He was such a good dog.



Horror.com: What about that scene in the first movie?



Lutz: I promise you, we never forgot him. That wasn’t possible. He was a member of the family and we had him for a long time and enjoyed every moment of it.



Horror.com: It’s interesting you should mention that the dog had problems starting on day one, because animals are ultra-sensitive to danger.



Lutz: His patterns of behavior really changed. One example is that when Kathy discovered what was called the Red Room down in the basement — that was the small room that was painted all red and was hidden behind a bookcase — we’d taken him down there to show it to him and he cowered away from it. It was the only time I ever saw him cower away from anything. But he wouldn’t go near that room. The times that I would hear the front door slam in the middle of the night and I’d go running downstairs to see what had happened, or I would hear what I can only term as the sound of a marching band tuning up and walking around down there stomping on the floor, Harry would be asleep. He would be undisturbed by this. He would be sleeping right by the front door. The very night that we were out of the house and had moved in with Kathy’s mom, he was tied to the piano and he dragged that piano in his sleep, across the room. For years, he would have nightmares, but those became less and less. But he had so much built up in him, and he could not express it to anyone, that he worked it out in his sleep. It was a terrible thing to watch.



Horror.com: Switching gears a bit here — Dan, are you in favor of the DVD, since it has your documentaries on it, or not?



Farrands: Well, I believe the documentaries alone are for sale through the History Channel website. I guess I can only say that I think these shows are the saving grace of this boxed set. I mean, not to pat myself on the back, but when they bundle the original movie, which certainly had its share of problems in accuracy, with two other movies that were pure fiction, I suppose it’s a good thing to include a program that at least attempts to give you an overview of the true story and the controversies surrounding it. In Hollywood there really is such a limited interest in doing anything based on the truth. This fiction had been done and it was a little bit more exciting in a visceral way, so Hollywood had sort of figured that, you know, why deal with the truth? There really wasn’t blood dripping down the walls and all these things that they said and put in all of these films. The truth has gotten lost.



So I think to have a documentary that at least attempts to portray the truth of what happened and to go and interview the people who were involved — and even some of the people who weren’t involved but thought they were, and attempted to trade on it and make a name for themselves by saying that they had some incredible knowledge that this was all baloney. Or that the family had admitted to some sort of hoax. I really wanted the Lutzes to have their fair share of screen time and to be able to say their peace.



I think especially for Kathy in particular, I remember when we finished the interview with her, which went on for about 8 hours and was in the blazing hot early summer months in Arizona, and it was a tiny room and those lights, and… And she was very ill at the time. I just remember that when we finished the interview there was sort of a sense of closure for her. You know, that she had finally said her peace, she wished us well with it, and I think she put some faith in me that we would not misquote her or take her out of context, and she was very thankful. I think I spoke to her once very briefly after it aired and she seemed very pleased.



Lutz: She was pleased. I think I can absolutely say that. What I should express here though, is that, that 8 hours of grilling… these people had their questions ready, and we kept waiting for them to say, “Ah, we got you. We tripped you up.” And I think in the backs of their minds, after hearing some people proclaim so loudly that what we had experienced was not true, that they had to do this in a way that satisfied their own curiosity.



Farrands: Kathy’s responses, in particular… I mean, she took so much time before she really articulated. She articulated everything very well, but it wasn’t rehearsed. When we asked a question, she would stop and really consider the answer before she attempted to give an explanation. I haven’t experienced something like the Lutz family did, but I think it’s very difficult in layman’s term to explain something that’s like a psychological attack.



From everything I know, what happened in that house was a very calculated psychological attack — there were some physical things that happened as well, but from their perspective it really appeared that it was trying to get at the family unit. I never came away with any sense that this was fabricated — there was enough evidence and from other people that we also interviewed, such as Laura DiDio, the Warrens, and even people that you wouldn’t imagine. There were several people that we interviewed in the town of Amityville today those sort of the man-in-the-street interviews you try to capture when you’re on location - and people we got to know, who were very open-minded about this story and even talked to us about some other strange things that they claimed happened in the house in later years. Whether that is, from their point of view, urban myth or people trying to kind of associate themselves with what is arguable the own’s most famous story, The official stance is that nobody in the town believes that any of this is true, but I can tell you from my experience that there are a number of Amityville residents today who haven’t written it off.



There are still stories about the house — of things that have happened, or people who have seen things and heard things. Whether those things are documented, I can’t comment on that. But it appears that there’s a real rift between people who want to say it’s true and people who say it wasn’t.



I think it’s unfortunate for the town, because even though it sort of brought some of this kind of phenomena to light and I think, in many ways, for other people who experienced this sort of thing, it gave them the confidence to come out and say, “Yes, this stuff does happen.” The Lutzes have been contacted over the years by a number of other families who have gone through a similar ordeal. The downside for the community was, it’s a little bedroom community on Long Island, and it’s very peaceful — you know, Amityville means the Town of Friendship — and what they had to contend with was the public interest in this story and the hoards of people parading up and down the streets looking to, you know, see the ghosts… There was one story of a man who brought goats to eat the grass, to try to drive the evil spirits out. It brought out all kinds of people, especially after the book and movie came out.



Horror.com: Well, I am curious to know about the book title. Doesn’t putting the word “horror” in it sensationalize it right there?



Lutz: I think [author, Jay] Anson pulled it from a work done by someone years earlier called The Dunwich Horror.



Farrands: I didn’t know that. That makes sense.



Lutz: [laughs] Well, you never asked me, Dan!



Farrands: The one question I forgot to ask in that 8 hour interview… Damn.



Horror.com: What advice do you have for people who might be going through what you went through?



Lutz: I can certainly understand why someone who experiences this kind of thing would not want to talk about it, back then, for fear of ridicule. And I can more than understand now why… if you were going to consider going public and coming forward talking about this kind of thing as something that happened to you now, you might have better tools than we had back then. New electronics have been developed and certainly, there are a lot more qualified people available to help. Communications are so much more advanced that it might go better for someone else to get it documented and get the right people involved and find out what’s really going on.



The first thing that anyone needs to do is, if they find themselves in this kind of situation or hear of it, is you know need to leave it. You need to get away from it. You need to get some perspective and collect your thoughts. When Dan spoke about the onslaught of psychological attacks that accompanied this, there is a complete breakdown of communications that go on. There are mood swings, and headaches and nausea, and all kinds of physical reactions, but there are also deeper layers of self-doubt and there are thoughts that come that you know are not your own. When they come, and you begin to realize that something is going on that is just not right, that is just not normal, that is just not part of your own nature. You really do need that space from where ever it is that you are that you’re experiencing that so you can collect your thoughts and you can collect a bit of perspective. You don’t deal with this stuff by yourself and survive. Without the help and we had and without the grace of God, I don’t believe that you and I would be having this conversation.



Farrands: And you didn’t need to have your family take you out and tie you up and drive away in a speedboat. [laughs sarcastically]



Lutz: No.



Horror.com: I know you haven’t seen it, but I imagine since there are lawsuits you’re going to have to watch the remake. Any thoughts on that?



Lutz: My friends who go with me [to see it] will probably tie me up to keep me from getting arrested. [Laughs, stops] One cannot steel oneself from the pain and misery that it will cause their own family. This will be another 25 years of undoing the effects of what people create who don’t have any care for the responsibility of what they do. This defames the story itself, it casts the story and my family in a completely false light. The damage it will do will continue and we will deal with it. I will not be silenced about this.



Farrands: No matter what [kind of business it does], people will see it. Today we have DVDs that bring these movies to a whole new generation of people and you know, the average American filmgoer, God love them because they’ve given me a career, will be duped into believing that this is the true story.



Horror.com: Well, horror fans are definitely going to the see the movie anyway, regardless. How do you counteract any falsehoods, since you can’t stop people from seeing it?



Lutz: Well, that’s not my intent. My intent is for people to understand what it is they are looking at. It’s a fabrication. It is our devout hope that someday… although the rights to make the original story into an accurate portrayal probably can never be done… but the sequel events, the events that happened to all the other people that were involved in helping us, [we’d like to see]. If Dan and I can find someone to make that movie, to find someone who’d be willing to do make a nonfiction movie about this, you bet.



Farrands: Which is why I think the documentary, so far, is as close as I could get to fulfilling that.

that whole post up there is from rottentomatoes.com. even the creepy statement...i dont use "creepy".

Did anyone see it this weekend?

I just did and thought it rocked. It wasn't a masterpiece by any means, but for a thrill ride horror flick it was pretty effective. My girlfriend was screaming threw the entire movie (as was most of the audience). Forget the "True Story" shit and just go to see a fun haunted house movie.

One thing...we saw a lot families in the audience...some with little kids (like 5 years old). The poor kids were crying...its definitely NOT for kids. You gotta wonder what people are thinking sometimes.