Recently, I published a piece in Quillette on the cultural phenomenon that was The Amityville Horror. In 1975, a young family – George and Kathy Lutz and their three young children – moved into a house on Long Island, New York, whose previous occupants had all been murdered. Well, one of the occupants survived, but only because he was the one who had murdered the other six. The murderer, Ronny DeFeo, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison. A year after the murders, the house was sold to the Lutzes and then – well, according to George and Kathy, some evil spirit in the house terrified them and their children so traumatically that, 28 days after moving into the house, they abandoned it for good. The source of this haunting is never fully explained. Could it have been the unquiet ghosts of Ronny DeFeo’s victims? Could it have been the unquiet ghosts of the Indian tribe that once occupied the area? Or could the haunting be explained by the fact that a Catholic priest who was called in by the Lutzes to bless the house never completed the job? Almost certainly, the tale of the haunting was a con job by the Lutzes, who found themselves over their heads financially and decided to try to profit from the loss of their home by making up a horror story. Eventually they found an editor at Prentice-Hall publishing company willing to publish their story. The book itself was written by Jay Anson, a no-name journalist in his mid-fifties with no previous books to his credit. Not exactly promising material for a bestseller. But a bestseller is exactly what Anson (with a big assist from the Lutzes) produced. The novel – oops! – I mean nonfiction book was published in 1977 and became a runaway hit. The book sold roughly eleven million copies, making it one of the biggest bestsellers of the 1970s. A 1979 film version became the second highest-grossing film in America. Dozens of spinoffs have followed that original book and movie. The franchise is still producing new material, including a four-part documentary series about the phenomenon that was released just last year by MGM.
NIGHT STALKS THE MANSION
NIGHT STALKS THE MANSION
NIGHT STALKS THE MANSION
Recently, I published a piece in Quillette on the cultural phenomenon that was The Amityville Horror. In 1975, a young family – George and Kathy Lutz and their three young children – moved into a house on Long Island, New York, whose previous occupants had all been murdered. Well, one of the occupants survived, but only because he was the one who had murdered the other six. The murderer, Ronny DeFeo, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison. A year after the murders, the house was sold to the Lutzes and then – well, according to George and Kathy, some evil spirit in the house terrified them and their children so traumatically that, 28 days after moving into the house, they abandoned it for good. The source of this haunting is never fully explained. Could it have been the unquiet ghosts of Ronny DeFeo’s victims? Could it have been the unquiet ghosts of the Indian tribe that once occupied the area? Or could the haunting be explained by the fact that a Catholic priest who was called in by the Lutzes to bless the house never completed the job? Almost certainly, the tale of the haunting was a con job by the Lutzes, who found themselves over their heads financially and decided to try to profit from the loss of their home by making up a horror story. Eventually they found an editor at Prentice-Hall publishing company willing to publish their story. The book itself was written by Jay Anson, a no-name journalist in his mid-fifties with no previous books to his credit. Not exactly promising material for a bestseller. But a bestseller is exactly what Anson (with a big assist from the Lutzes) produced. The novel – oops! – I mean nonfiction book was published in 1977 and became a runaway hit. The book sold roughly eleven million copies, making it one of the biggest bestsellers of the 1970s. A 1979 film version became the second highest-grossing film in America. Dozens of spinoffs have followed that original book and movie. The franchise is still producing new material, including a four-part documentary series about the phenomenon that was released just last year by MGM.