Well written, it really captures the feel of the movie. Here's an amusing, related little interesting thing to share with you and others. Many many many many years ago when I was a kid, my friend and I decided to make a spoooky haunted house out of a large cardboard box,within which our action figures would do battle with many a supernatural horror. (Mostly like plastic skeletons, rubber spiders, tissue paper ghosts, pirates of the Caribbean model kits and such.) We fixed it up really nice and had lots of fun with it for hours and hours. Then, when we were taking a break from this non-stop adventure I took a look at the box and examined the printed writing on it, and found that it came from.. Yes, you guessed it.. Amityville.. *Insert spooky music here* Ooooo.. We thought that was soo cool. *Laugh*
--Onni

WHOA! The closest thing that has happened to me like that was back in sixth grade (when this whole case was my obsession). I had to do a report for my Spanish class, and the primary document that I found to use was published in Amityville, NY!

Oh, and I REALLY wish I had creative friends like dat! All we did at that age was jump off curbs on our bikes an' go "Man! That was wicked air!"

Okay, so, first, I'll say somethin' that I can't yet back with numbers: the Lutz's really didn't make that much money off the book and movie. Immediately after the movie was made, they sold the rights to the series, and moved on... I'll try to get more info on this subject later...

The skeptics have a full right to believe it's a hoax, and I love to read their ideas as much as those of the believers (as for me... I've had only a few things ever happen to me, but they were extremely convincin'!).

Prior to goin' to Jay Anson, George and Kathy went to William Weber, Ronald's defense attorney at the time, to get the rights to a book in favor of Ronald's "insanity" plea. They told him their story in his office, where, according to Weber, many bottles of wine were drank (something, by my observations of Weber durin' his Dateline interview, I highly doubt...). Well, the Lutz's got smart, due to the fact that Weber seemed convinced that this story wouldn't help his defense, and left him to find a more sutable writer.

I mention this because this is usually the most common stroy used by skeptics as their defense, as well as the Cromarty's story (the couple that moved into the house almost immediately after the Lutz's) of only being terrorized by tourists and drunk teenagers tearin' up their yard (In my opinion.............uhhh... if you wanted to be left alone, why did you buy the house in the first place?).

I believe that this story will always be looked at with a spiritual and skeptical eye. I almost want to compare it to when Bigfoot will be captured: No one will believe the story, and he'll die in captivity and no one will ever know. Even if this is proven by, say, another group or family living on that land, it will never be more than a popular spooky story to the public.... kinda how I wish it would stay...

The man (single) that currently lives there is a businessman that commutes to New York daily and only comes back to the house very late at night (discovered by some people that probably need to get a life ). I can't really come up with a name right now, but I'm pretty sure that that black SUV seen outside the house in those modern photos:

#http://img365.imageshack.us/img365/2672/1011068rq8.jpg

So far, as most would probably do, he has denied interview.

An interesting (but off topic) fact. A previous owner of the House, Peter O'Neil (In the house from 1987 to 1997) was a victim in the 9/11 attacks... kinda sad, but he did give an interview once, sayin' the obvious, that there was nothin' there.

To the media, no. Now, what I jus' said put me right in a trap. What the Lutz's did was jus' the opposite, an' they made money (not as much as most think). But, it depends on severity. I do believe that, somewhere among my many second-hand trinkets and stuff, I have picked up something(s) with some serious vibes connected to it/them (though I don't understand my failure to recognize these feelin's when I first touched them). On a couple of occasions, my bedroom door has closed on its own accord with me watchin', an' I can assure you it was not any of my housecats. Things like that are nothing in comparison to what the Lutz's, or many others, have experienced and dealt with.

I also don't feel any malevolence to'ards me or my family in this case, whatever it is, so I don't think about it much. When somethin' does happen, I kinda take it casually...

At first, it does seem strange that one family admits to somethin' like this, and then there's a huge media storm surroundin' them. Well, there's two major facts contributed to this reaction:

1) The previous murders. The brutal murder of the DeFeo Family in 1974 was still pretty fresh in the public eye, and, even for today's standard of daily killin's, it's still real evil...

2) The public was ready. Earlier, in the same decade, The Exorcist (1973) had successfully opened the doors of paranormal investigation to the public. Interest in the subject to normal people rose, and stories of the unexplainable origins sprouted up all over. Take The Entity (novel in 1978), a sorta blown-out-of-proportions true story of the spiritual attacks on a young woman (I recently found a copy, but haven't found the time or energy to read it yet). Such stories became popular during that time, and are commonplace today. But, why did the Amityville case become the Godfather of them all?

Well, to put it simply, It... hit close to the home.

A sort of abject image, where what was supposed to be the home of a new family, a place where memories and love were to be sown and grown, became a nightmare from beyond the thresholds of rational thinkin'. It is a faceless terror, one that can be many or all. The House, the Land, or a spirit: one or all could be the host or source of the evil, but that source or identiy is never really seen. Is the imaginary friend of a little girl the very same monstrosity George saw on one of his last nights in front of the fire?

Some things may never be explained...

Oh, and I did find out somethin' sad...

George Lutz: May 8, 2006 Heart Disease 59 years old
Kathleen Lutz: October 13, 2004 Emphysema 58 years old

They had been divorced since the later part of the 1980's...