So what do you know about the real Amityville story?

[Catch22Dem]

Since there's a remake coming out soon, I'm just curious what you guys know of the story behind the movie. The creepy shit just fascinates the hell outta me. :D

[mermaid]

1. I Have Driven By The Actual House

and it looked creepy even from the outside. Maybe because I knew about what was INSIDE...but, still, it looked creepy. I remember thinking I'd NEVER want to go inside that place! And I grew up in a haunted house myself!

OK, no, our house I grew up in was nowhere near as bad as Amityville Horror was reputed to be...it was no "Exorcist" or "Poltergeist" by any stretch, but the house we lived in during my childhood was most definitely haunted!

My mom even remembers a lot of it, same as I do...twenty five years later. We would hear things like people walking up the steps at night...sometimes large objects falling DOWN the stairs...a few times, objects appears to move themselves...never anything MAJOR...but, nonetheless, they DID move themselves...and we had images of daemons appear in the wood panelling quite often.

When the house caught on fire when I was a kid, I remember that the only thing not damaged was that wood panelling! Not a trace of smoke, soot, fire or heat damage to that panelling, even though the fire had been contained in the kitchen right next door to the panelling...yet, everywhere else in the house, soot, smoke, and/or fire damage was evident...even in the room with the panelling...just not the panelling itself!

It was just mondo creepy, you know it?

After we left that house...it was in Richton Park, Illinois, incidentally...I went back and drove up to that house of my childhood. I couldn't even make myself get out of the car for a closer look...I just got a real creepy feeling come over me again....and I booked it outta there, never been near that goddam house again!

[meow2u3]

2. My mom called my dad "The Amityville Horror"

:evilgrin:

couldn't resist

[Joe Power]

3. There was documentary on TV yesterday

It was on A&E, or Biography, one of those type channels. It was about the DeFeo family murders. They interviewed a lot of locals. Most had more scorn for the Lutz's than for Butch DeFeo. Many people claimed to have been in that house, as workers, for parties, visiting, etc. and said that they had never witnessed anything strange whatsoever. This included people who claimed to have been alone in the house, and those who had stayed overnight.

If you're looking for a site to confirm the oo-ee-oo factor, this one is well done:

http://www.amityvillehorrortruth.com/

This is a nice one about the DeFeo murders:

http://www.crimelibrary.com/classics3/amityville/

Regarding the Priest in Jay Anson's book:

http://www.amityvillemurders.com/catholic.html

A good debunking site:

http://www.prairieghosts.com/amityville.html

As for the remake, I hope it is better than the original.

[Catch22Dem]

4. Good stuff....thanks (n/t)

[Maddy McCall]

6. Note to myself. Read these links later.

Thanks JP for providing them.

[mermaid]

7. Thanks For The Links

Interesting reading. I had always believed that SOMETHING had happened to the Lutzes in that house, but that it had been radically exaggerated. My reason for that belief had been my own experiences growing up in what I believe to have been a haunted house. And that nothing anywhere NEAR as dramatic as what was depicted in Amityville had ever occurred to us.
And we lived in this house for 8 years, too. Mostly, as I said earlier, it was just weird stuff, not really explainable...even now. Nothing that was really outrageous or anything...like I said...for me the strangest thing still is that wood panelling that was the only item completely untouched by any smoke/fire/soot damage from the kitchen fire we had...and it was in the adjacent dining room!

It just always seemed strange to me that the panelling in that adjacent room should remain unharmed, while my bedroom, for example, had sustained a lot of smoke damage, and required complete repainting, starting with a special sort of primer base.

Anyway, thanks for the links. I was not aware that the story had been so completely debunked and that the Lutzes themselves even admitted hoax, after a time. As I said, I was always skeptical that the events had been as dramatic as depicted, but...it seems there is ample evidence to be skeptical that anything AT ALL occurred there...other than, of course, the DeFeo murders.

[HawkerHurricane]

5. That it was a made up story.

Dare I say it: A con job.

The father moved out when he was unable to make payments on the house. He and a friend made up the story for kicks, and sold it for money.

http://www.csicop.org/si/2003-01/amityville.html

http://www.zerotime.com/articles/amity.htm

[xmas74]

8. that's what I heard too.

It was made up. Dad couldn't make the payments on the house, worked w/ the defense attorney for the previous tenant and concocted the story. It was supposed to help them both.