Since this is a website about films, let's start with the 1979 movie starring Margot Kidder and James Brolin. George and Kathy Lutz think they have found the perfect home for their family, only to find out that a year earlier, a guy murdered his parents and his four brothers and sisters in the house because demonic voices told him to do it. Pretty soon, the Lutz family starts having some seriously creepy events happening in their newly acquired home. George starts getting sicker and meaner by the day. He also is obsessed with the fireplace and chopping wood and develops an unnerving affection for his ax. Their parish priest comes to bless the house and is told by "the voices" to "GET OUT!!!!". Following this event, the priest becomes violently ill and eventually goes blind. The Lutz family endures all sorts of phenomena in the house... money disappears, the toilets flood with black slime, the door gets ripped off its hinges, a marching band that only George can hear, their daughter befriends a demonic pig named "Jody", Kathy breaks out in blisters after touching a cross, blood oozes from the walls, a swarm of flies at the wrong time of year, etc. Finally, after 28 days, the Lutz family can't take anymore and run for their lives. Although in reality, they did return the next day to have a garage sale.
Now here's where it gets tricky. This movie is based on a book by Jay Anson, coauthored by the real George and Kathy Lutz. After buying the house, with a sky-high mortgage, that George and Kathy cannot possibly afford, they along with author Jay Anson, concocted an "out of this world" story to justify leaving the house, and conveniently use the true events of what happened in the house prior to their purchasing it as the reason for the supposed hauntings.
As I said, there was a guy that actually did kill his whole family in the house, but it wasn't demonic voices driving him that night, it was greed and lots and lots of drugs. Ronald "Butch" DeFeo Jr was an unhappy camper. He fought with his family a lot, mostly with his abusive father. The family had quite a bit of money and Butch needed some cash to fuel his drug habit. Killing his parents would unleash the inheritance, but he would have to share it with the four brothers and sisters... Marc, John, Allison, and Dawn. Ronnie didn't want to share, so he killed them too. All were shot with a rifle in the dead of night (pardon the pun). Ronald DeFeo tried to make up a story about how he came home and they were already dead, possibly all killed as part of a mob hit. It didn't work and Butch was put in prison for the rest of his life.
Now, there are lots of rumors surrounding the house. It was supposedly built on an Indian burial ground, it was also supposed to be the home of a man named John Ketchum who was expelled from Salem for being a witch. There was also a story about how the Native Americans used the area as an exposure pen for the diseased and insane who were left there to die. All of which is complete bullshit. Butch's lawyer was also in on the game of ghost storytelling, thinking that he might actually be able to convince the jury that Butch was innocent because he was under the influence of demonic possession... it didn't work but gave rise to one of the best (albeit fake) ghost stories ever told.
Kathy Lutz passed away some years ago, and on her death bed, she admitted that the story was false and concocted over several bottles of wine, but George Lutz proclaimed it to be the truth until his dying day. But he did manage to make a living off of his story so why tell the truth when a lie can make you so much more money? When investigated, by fact checkers, not paranormal researchers, the entire story has more holes than Swiss cheese. The priest in the story could never be found. Small inconsistencies discovered in the book would be conveniently changed to match the events they'd already described, etc. The Lutz family had three children. Two have managed to achieve anonymity, but the oldest son decided to cash in on the franchise, but only after years of poverty and drug abuse.
After the Lutz family left, three different families have since lived in the house and all three families have said that it was a beautiful house with absolutely no supernatural phenomena whatsoever. In fact, one of the families actually sued Jay Anson, author of "The Amityville Horror" and George and Kathy Lutz, stating that their fictitious story has caused them to have a complete loss of privacy because of thrill-seekers, ghost hunters, and the obnoxiously curious. The town of Amityville even had the address of the house changed and the eerie eye-shaped windows of the house were remodeled to look like a different home entirely. The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, but that still hasn't stopped people from loitering outside, peering in the windows, and basically doing anything to disturb the privacy of anyone living in what is supposedly one of the most haunted houses in the world. It went up for sale a few years back to a man who was gonna charge money for tours of the house and the town of Amityville vowed to sue him so the deal fell through.
Truth is, this is a great ghost story. Easily believable due to the absolutely horrific events that really did occur there. Six family members were all murdered in their sleep by one of their own, which is pretty gruesome actually. One story that keeps coming up to support the paranormal aspect was that all members of the family appear to have been shot in the back while asleep and not one of them was woken up by the loud blasts of the shotgun, even though tests revealed that no one had been drugged. A popular theory is that Butch DeFeo didn't act alone and that the oldest daughter Dawn was his partner in crime. She and Butch were apparently tight so perhaps she told the others to lie face down while Butch shot them. Then once they reached the top of the house and everyone else was dead, Butch decided that Dawn didn't deserve any inheritance either and double-crossed her. She was the only one not lying on her back when shot and her bed had been the only one that was mysteriously wiped of prints. She was very much into drugs too and it's not a far leap to think that she may have had a hand in the entire affair.
A sequel to the original 1979 movie was made that focused on the DeFeo story (for at least the first half of the movie, the other half was an Exorcist ripoff with Butch becoming fullout possessed) and implied that Butch and Dawn had an incestuous relationship but that's all conjecture and has never been proven one way or another. It was the first of literally a dozen more sequels, rivaling only the Friday the 13th franchise in its abundance.
A remake of the 1979 film came out in 2005, using more of the DeFeo story than the original. Only this time, "Jody" was the youngest of the DeFeo children. It might have made more sense than a demonic pig, but alas there actually was no Jody DeFeo. The youngest daughter was named Allison. The remake was ok, but performed rather poorly and the best thing I can say about it is that Ryan Reynolds made for a much sexier version of George Lutz and remained shirtless for the majority of the film.
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