Some of the AMITYVILLE HORROR movies (the original, the sequels, and the remake) have been rerunning on various channels for Halloween week. While I know that the original “true story” was debunked to mentally ill Indian graveyard hell and back about 18 times, a question I’ve wondered that’s not answered on wiki:
Why did the Lutz family leave the house after a month?
I honestly don’t believe it was because the house was atop a hellmouth as they portrayed, but there has to be some actual reason. Even in the 1970s the house was a steal at $80,000 and they knew its history (the mass murders, not the crap about Injun spirits and witches) and even if they felt they’d bit off more than they could chew financially they should have been able to resell the place.
Best bets would be:
-They felt they’d bit off more than they could chew financially (though this one doesn’t make much sense as they’d been there less than a month)
-The house was in terrible shape and they didn’t realize until after they moved in how much work it needed
-They were batshit crazy like the Quaids and honestly believed it was as haunted as the book
But any and all of these could be wrong. Does anybody know?
And feel free to post about anything else at all related to THE AMITYVILLE HORROR books or movies.
I can’t find any backup in a short Wikipedia search, but I remember watching some true crime documentary show that claimed that George Lutz was in on some scheme to prove the house was really haunted in order to help the case of Ronnie DeFeo who, you may remember, killed his whole family there. I don’t remember the name of the program, and you would think such a wild claim would gain little traction on the web, but I can’t find any trace of it now.
I think the sequence of events as usually interpreted is:
-November 1974: Ronald DeFeo, Jr., a 23 year old with a history of violence and LSD and heroin use, murdered his parents and 4 siblings. There are odd things about the lack of signs of struggle but DeFeo’s story changes countless times over the next few decades. His attorney tries to have him declared insane but court appointed psychiatrist ruled him psychopathic but sane (and, incidentally, not particularly bright)
-November 1975: DeFeo is found guilty of 6 counts of first degree murder and receives six sentences of 25 years to life each.
-December 1975: The Lutz family bought the house (appraised at $110k, sold for $80k) from the DeFeo estate, fully informed about the murders.
-The Lutz family has the house blessed by a priest before moving in
-The Lutz family had some odd occurrences and general spooky feelings
-A month later the Lutz family leaves the house and is contacted by DeFeo’s lawyer when one of them makes some comment that they wouldn’t be surprised if the feelings they felt drove DeFeo to kill
-The Lutz family meets with DeFeo’s lawyer but what was said and talked about is hotly disputed and even leads to lawsuits twixt the Lutz’s and the lawyer
-The priest, who is extremely well educated but something of a nutjob where the spirit world is concerned, publicly said he believed the house is haunted
-There are several magazine articles about the allegedly haunted house
-The Lutz family signs a contract to write a book with Jay Anson
-Jay Anson and or the Lutz family grossly exaggerates what actually happened in the house and gives a “history” of the house and land that takes several local legends and some shit that was just spun from straw in the writing
-The book is a bestseller and is optioned for a movie
-The movie grossly exaggerates the book that had already grossly exaggerated the book
-Sequels, remake, and lots and lots of lawsuits twixt the Lutz’s and the movie producers and the lawyers and the Jay Anson estate (Anson died not long after the book came out)
I’m still working on why they left in the first place though (just generally freaked out? Or some sort of conspiracy? The Lutz family doesn’t seem to have known the DeFeo family).
How much time passed between when the Lutz family left the house and when they signed the contract for the book? And how much did the Lutz family themselves stand to make from the book?
This is pure speculation, but if they were hoping to make big bucks from a book about a real haunted house, it would seem wise to act as if they believed the house was haunted, and leave.
Correction to my previous post: the Lutz family maintained the blessing and return visit by a priest with a special interest in the occult, though the local priest and diocese both denied it ever happened.