Terrified young babysitters, worm-eaten zombies, and grimacing devils splattered Bob Judd’s bedroom walls, along with any other macabre movie posters that he could procure from Floyd’s Videorama. His favorite flick was the legendary Amityville Horror, a supposedly true ghost story that Judd often pondered over Genessee Cream Ale and jalepeno poppers. “You tell me why the house’s next owner went crazy like the last guy who lived there,” Judd would proclaim in a grizzled, inquisitive tone traditionally used for sweating confessions from perps. “And what about the house’s gateway to Hell, or the Indian burial ground?” I don’t know if he ever made the pilgrimage to Amityville, but countless others have journeyed to the bloody little Dutch Colonial for a glimpse, albeit cautiously, of the world’s most famous haunted house.
With all the media madness and later marketing frenzy following The Amityville Horror book by Jan Anson and resulting movie, much of the actual story has been lost more times than an AOL user. Here are your Cliffs’ Notes: Back in late 1974, a local loser named Ronnie DeFeo shot his entire family in the early morning hours at his house in Amityville, Long Island. In court, it was discovered that DeFeo massacred his family to collect $200,000 in insurance money, resulting in a closed case with a confession of murder, right?
This tale of suburban angst, however, was given new life when the Lutz family moved into the DeFeo house, and in one month sprinted from the place with tales that make The Exorcist about as frightening as that Ben Cooper Chewbacca costume still tucked away in your parents’ attic.
According to George Lutz, the Amityville house was possessed by demonic spirits that plagued his family with high weirdness. Doors and windows mysteriously opened and shut, trickles of blood dripped from keyholes, green slime oozed down walls, flies swarmed in the playroom, and family members were lacerated, burned, and molested by hellish creatures in the Amityville abode.
Since these types of hauntings run a bit beyond the lead-based paint issue of home ownership, Lutz did some investigating at the Amityville Historical Society. He allegedly discovered that in the 17th century, the Massapequa Indians sold his house’s property to John Ketchum, a Satanist who escaped from Salem, Massachusetts during the witch-hunts. If that wasn’t enough of a reason for moving to New Jersey, throw in a hidden room where animal sacrifices occurred, and a boathouse where a red-eyed pig kept appearing and invading the house. Yes, a pig with glowing red eyes named “Jodie” scampered throughout the house and grounds, thus proving that your girlfriend’s Shih-tzu isn’t all that annoying.
Given this arena of devilish madness, perhaps there was a more haunted reason for Ronnie DeFeo’s murder spree other than material gain for insurance money. This theory never made it to the courts, and DeFeo is still serving six life sentences, one for each slain family member.
The possession angle may have missed the legal system, but Long Island and the world couldn’t get enough of Amityvillemania. With Anson’s bestseller in 1977 and a hit movie two years later, this Long Island house was made more popular with the freaky set than Jim Morrison’s grave. Can you actually imagine living in that house after Lutz and family moved out?
Pity poor Joe and Barbara Cromarty, the couple who moved into the home at about the same time the story became a media sensation. Picture millions of horror and mystery fans reading a gruesome novel wherein your newly purchased dwelling is depicted as Roderick Usher’s summer cottage. Would the chapter with the bleeding toilet trouble you when you brushed your teeth? How about a hit movie featuring angry, vengeful spirits inhabiting the very room where you sleep? Finally, who would want to plod home from that damn phone-monkey desk gig only to find sightseers and lunatics from all over the country peering in your windows, digging up your lawn, and exorcising demons in your driveway?
The plot took a crooked turn when the Cromartys claimed that the only hauntings at their new home were the aforementioned curiosity-seekers and dime-store psychics. No red-eyed pig, no swarming flies, no demons growling in the darkness. With the exception of the Amityville Chamber of Commerce, no one seemed to notice the Cromartys’ claim of household peacefulness. The big machine had started, and true believers weren’t about to let a few killjoys ruin their fun. George Lutz even countered the Cromartys by claiming that the Amityville demons had followed him to California where they still terrorized his family. Scooby-Doo, wherefore art thou?
Since the Cromartys’ assurance of a happy home didn’t slow the revelry, how about a possible conspiracy between Lutz, Defeo, and William Weber, DeFeo’s attorney? Stephen Kaplan, vampire hunter and investigative reporter, viewed The Amityville Horror as a well-crafted hoax between the three guaranteeing early parole for Ronald and filthy lucre for Lutz and Weber. (After all, Lutz’s first press conference was held in William Weber’s law office.) Although Weber eventually admitted that he and the Lutzes created the story during a lengthy bout of wine drinking, the horror house tale had already stirred our inner Lugosi, and no dopey little confession could herald the sunrise.
The house’s current owner, Brian Wilson (not the Beach Boy), vehemently denies any sightings of demon pigs in his kitchen or bleeding walls in his den. Wilson, like many people, claims that anyone who believes the place is haunted is a gold-durned wacko. This would presumably include Ric Osuna, an associate producer for a History Channel documentary titled The Amityville Horror: 25 Years Later. Ric believes that the only way to settle the ghost question would be to conduct a sonar scan of the Amityville property and perhaps find John Ketchum’s earthly remains, an Indian burial ground, or even that way-cool gateway to Hell that every young filmmaker yearns for. With all of this perpetual spooky hoodoo, I honestly can’t help but wonder what possessed (sorry) Wilson to buy the house of homicidal chic in the first place.
It amazes me why the town of Amityville refuses capitalizing on this pop-historical phenomenon. Salem has turned its witch trials into a profitable tourist industry, and Fall River, Massachusetts has converted Lizzie Borden’s home into a highly successful bed and breakfast / tourist attraction.
Peter Imbert, mayor of Amityville, was interested in moving the horror house downtown as a B&B or museum, but locals shouted treason, as such an act would exploit the murders of the DeFeo family. Couldn’t some revenue serve the taxpayers of Amityville? How about a portion of the money shunted into a fund in honor of the DeFeo family? Remember, sightseers are interested in a paranormal story, and surely have only pity for the slain family.
Why are we still mystified by the Amityville house twenty-eight years after the story first shocked the public? Why the pop-culture tidal wave of nine feature films, ten books ( Osuna’s brilliantly detailed work The Night the DeFeos Died was published in 2002), and countless websites? The horror house remains such a sensation because the demon was not only in our backyard, but the little bastard smashed through our collective whitewashed front door.
Most ghost stories occur in small, rural towns a la Blair Witch, but here was demonic possession in suburbia! The Amityville house was not hidden in the remote Black Hills Forest, but sat amidst crowded parkways with a short drive to Green Acres Mall. In Amityville, characters weren’t bounding through lonely woods, but chasing demons on their own piece of stale American pie.
The evil spirits in Amityville are the demons that haunt every suburbanite when he or she realizes that grisly murder does not only occur in the urban jungle, but has a home in the land of Levitt. Maybe the next Ronald DeFeo would date your sister, or befriend your child. Our capes and ranches were never really social forts against the bad craziness of the world, as proven on a cold winter night in Amityville, Long Island.
With all the media madness and later marketing frenzy following The Amityville Horror book by Jan Anson and resulting movie, much of the actual story has been lost more times than an AOL user. Here are your Cliffs’ Notes: Back in late 1974, a local loser named Ronnie DeFeo shot his entire family in the early morning hours at his house in Amityville, Long Island. In court, it was discovered that DeFeo massacred his family to collect $200,000 in insurance money, resulting in a closed case with a confession of murder, right?
This tale of suburban angst, however, was given new life when the Lutz family moved into the DeFeo house, and in one month sprinted from the place with tales that make The Exorcist about as frightening as that Ben Cooper Chewbacca costume still tucked away in your parents’ attic.
According to George Lutz, the Amityville house was possessed by demonic spirits that plagued his family with high weirdness. Doors and windows mysteriously opened and shut, trickles of blood dripped from keyholes, green slime oozed down walls, flies swarmed in the playroom, and family members were lacerated, burned, and molested by hellish creatures in the Amityville abode.
Since these types of hauntings run a bit beyond the lead-based paint issue of home ownership, Lutz did some investigating at the Amityville Historical Society. He allegedly discovered that in the 17th century, the Massapequa Indians sold his house’s property to John Ketchum, a Satanist who escaped from Salem, Massachusetts during the witch-hunts. If that wasn’t enough of a reason for moving to New Jersey, throw in a hidden room where animal sacrifices occurred, and a boathouse where a red-eyed pig kept appearing and invading the house. Yes, a pig with glowing red eyes named “Jodie” scampered throughout the house and grounds, thus proving that your girlfriend’s Shih-tzu isn’t all that annoying.
Given this arena of devilish madness, perhaps there was a more haunted reason for Ronnie DeFeo’s murder spree other than material gain for insurance money. This theory never made it to the courts, and DeFeo is still serving six life sentences, one for each slain family member.
The possession angle may have missed the legal system, but Long Island and the world couldn’t get enough of Amityvillemania. With Anson’s bestseller in 1977 and a hit movie two years later, this Long Island house was made more popular with the freaky set than Jim Morrison’s grave. Can you actually imagine living in that house after Lutz and family moved out?
Pity poor Joe and Barbara Cromarty, the couple who moved into the home at about the same time the story became a media sensation. Picture millions of horror and mystery fans reading a gruesome novel wherein your newly purchased dwelling is depicted as Roderick Usher’s summer cottage. Would the chapter with the bleeding toilet trouble you when you brushed your teeth? How about a hit movie featuring angry, vengeful spirits inhabiting the very room where you sleep? Finally, who would want to plod home from that damn phone-monkey desk gig only to find sightseers and lunatics from all over the country peering in your windows, digging up your lawn, and exorcising demons in your driveway?
The plot took a crooked turn when the Cromartys claimed that the only hauntings at their new home were the aforementioned curiosity-seekers and dime-store psychics. No red-eyed pig, no swarming flies, no demons growling in the darkness. With the exception of the Amityville Chamber of Commerce, no one seemed to notice the Cromartys’ claim of household peacefulness. The big machine had started, and true believers weren’t about to let a few killjoys ruin their fun. George Lutz even countered the Cromartys by claiming that the Amityville demons had followed him to California where they still terrorized his family. Scooby-Doo, wherefore art thou?
Since the Cromartys’ assurance of a happy home didn’t slow the revelry, how about a possible conspiracy between Lutz, Defeo, and William Weber, DeFeo’s attorney? Stephen Kaplan, vampire hunter and investigative reporter, viewed The Amityville Horror as a well-crafted hoax between the three guaranteeing early parole for Ronald and filthy lucre for Lutz and Weber. (After all, Lutz’s first press conference was held in William Weber’s law office.) Although Weber eventually admitted that he and the Lutzes created the story during a lengthy bout of wine drinking, the horror house tale had already stirred our inner Lugosi, and no dopey little confession could herald the sunrise.
The house’s current owner, Brian Wilson (not the Beach Boy), vehemently denies any sightings of demon pigs in his kitchen or bleeding walls in his den. Wilson, like many people, claims that anyone who believes the place is haunted is a gold-durned wacko. This would presumably include Ric Osuna, an associate producer for a History Channel documentary titled The Amityville Horror: 25 Years Later. Ric believes that the only way to settle the ghost question would be to conduct a sonar scan of the Amityville property and perhaps find John Ketchum’s earthly remains, an Indian burial ground, or even that way-cool gateway to Hell that every young filmmaker yearns for. With all of this perpetual spooky hoodoo, I honestly can’t help but wonder what possessed (sorry) Wilson to buy the house of homicidal chic in the first place.
It amazes me why the town of Amityville refuses capitalizing on this pop-historical phenomenon. Salem has turned its witch trials into a profitable tourist industry, and Fall River, Massachusetts has converted Lizzie Borden’s home into a highly successful bed and breakfast / tourist attraction.
Peter Imbert, mayor of Amityville, was interested in moving the horror house downtown as a B&B or museum, but locals shouted treason, as such an act would exploit the murders of the DeFeo family. Couldn’t some revenue serve the taxpayers of Amityville? How about a portion of the money shunted into a fund in honor of the DeFeo family? Remember, sightseers are interested in a paranormal story, and surely have only pity for the slain family.
Why are we still mystified by the Amityville house twenty-eight years after the story first shocked the public? Why the pop-culture tidal wave of nine feature films, ten books ( Osuna’s brilliantly detailed work The Night the DeFeos Died was published in 2002), and countless websites? The horror house remains such a sensation because the demon was not only in our backyard, but the little bastard smashed through our collective whitewashed front door.
Most ghost stories occur in small, rural towns a la Blair Witch, but here was demonic possession in suburbia! The Amityville house was not hidden in the remote Black Hills Forest, but sat amidst crowded parkways with a short drive to Green Acres Mall. In Amityville, characters weren’t bounding through lonely woods, but chasing demons on their own piece of stale American pie.
The evil spirits in Amityville are the demons that haunt every suburbanite when he or she realizes that grisly murder does not only occur in the urban jungle, but has a home in the land of Levitt. Maybe the next Ronald DeFeo would date your sister, or befriend your child. Our capes and ranches were never really social forts against the bad craziness of the world, as proven on a cold winter night in Amityville, Long Island.
The Amityville Horror House as it exists today
The famous side entry to the house
The site of Henry's Bar, Defeo's local hangout - it's now a 99 cent store!
3 comments:
Good post.
In the early 1990s, I lived in a rental cottage across the street and a few houses down from the "Amityville Horror House." I did not realize I lived so close until moving day. When the LILCO rep came by to turn on my electricity, he asked how I felt living so close to "the house."
Pretty much every local I met while living there believed the whole "house is haunted" story was a fabrication -- although the Defeo Murders really happened. Most locals will misdirect anyone from out of town who drives by asking for the location of the house.
On a personal note-- I was creeped out by living so close to the house and moved out (and far away) after only 6 months.
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