Posted on 11/13/2012 6:41:48 AM PST by marshmallow
One of pop culture's most enduring nightmares began 37 years ago this December in the bucolic bayside town of Amityville, on Long Island.
That winter, George and Kathy Lutz and her three children from a previous marriage moved into a Dutch colonial house at 112 Ocean Ave, about 30 miles east of the city. Over the next 28 days, they contended, the family endured an onslaught of bizarre events that ranged from inexplicable hordes of flies to demonic visions. The Lutzes fled, leaving all their possessions behind. Their story, however, never went away. The 1977 book "The Amityville Horror: A True Story," and the 1979 horror movie that was based on it, sparked a media phenomenon that has yet to fade from public memory.
Now a new documentary, "My Amityville Horror," makes it personal, introducing a man who is still living through that nightmare. The film, which will have its New York premiere Saturday at IFC Center as part of the third annual DOC NYC festival, features the first-person testimony of Daniel Lutz, the eldest of the Lutz siblings, who was 9 when the events occurred. A recluse who had a troubled, combative relationship with his stepfather and claims to have been homeless for a period after leaving his family in his early teens, Mr. Lutz has kept his secrets to himself until now.
"He's been carrying around this weight for nearly 40 years," said Eric Walter, the young filmmaker who devoted three years to making the documentary, amid a decade of obsessive amateur research into the case. "It's not easy to talk about."
Nor is it easy to hear. Whatever happened, Mr. Lutz, now 46, appears to have suffered from it for much longer than the month he spent in the house. He recounts stories of abuse and family......
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
One hopes this man never opens his eyes to the reality of today... ghosts? spirits?
Wait ‘til he realizes the real time vicious, brutal, horror of the ruling nutso in the White Hut!
So Mr. Lutz was 11 when he got married and brought the house?
“Daniel Lutz, the eldest of the Lutz siblings, who was 9 when the events occurred.”
Right there in the article, all you had to do is READ.
Please asking someone to actually read the article before posting? Where do you think you are? FreeRepublic?
The two are not mutually exclusive. Evil can manifest itself in many forms.
So the tradition goes to the next generation, A Lutz needs money so they start saying they’re haunted. And the WSJ doesn’t even bother to notice that in the picture he’s holding up both the boy and the house are in sharp focus.
If I recall the story correctly, Mr. Lutz was a small boy at the time.
But seriously, you wouldn't want to live in a haunted house...been there, done that, got out without being hurt.
Good catch, he totally photoshopped that. I mean, you can tell that picture of him is a staged “glamour” shot from a photography studio.
The whole haunting story was faked
Bump
The 1977 book “The Amityville Horror: A True Story,”
And years later, the author (Jay Anson) admitted the story was a total HOAX. Back in the 1970s a TV program also debunked the story and showed how the story was a total hoax. They also showed that the current owners of the house never had any problems with it.
I missed it sorry.
What threw me is I didn't expect that the kids woukld take and still use George Lutz’s last name. That seemed odd especially since I believe the Lutzs divorced soon after the incident.
That book kept me awake at night the whole summer of 77. Between that and Son of Sam I was a freaked out kid.
Back in the 1980s, after the Lutz family left the home, a tabloid publication, that made lots of money on reporting the original “story”, claimed the “ghosts” were still following them.
The entire story is a total hoax.
Yes I remember the fear at night everyone had about Son of Sam killings in summer 1977. He attacked at night. Always couples or where people gathered. That was creepy. It went on for months.
I bought and read the book when it came out too. Imagine my Amityville Horror, after I was hired off the Civil Service list in 1980 to work as a Correctional Officer at Auburn Prison in Auburn, NY, and Ronald DeFeo was one of the cons there. Actually, he was pretty short, and not very big physically. Worked the prison garbage detail while I was there. I transferred out in December 1983 to a facility closer to home.
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