[dollyface]

I'd also read somewhere that the house wasn't really haunted, and people have lived in there fine with no trouble.

Hollywood has to make their money though, and it's a shame that they have to exploit such a sad story to do that.

[weareilluminati]

I believe its fact, why not? my house is old and haunted. You have to live in the house in order to see and believe i guess.

[Verity]

:arrow:

[Friendship Town]

Originally Posted by Verity

The documentary also includes an interview with the author of "The Amityville Horror" who confesses outright that he conspired with the family who were supposedly haunted, that they lied and made it all up to sell the story and make money.

I think you're mixing up the author of the book (Jay Anson) with William Weber (Ronnie DeFeo's defense lawyer).

Jay Anson never said the haunting was fake, or that he (or the Lutzes) lied and made it all up. When asked about the haunting's authenticity, Jay's pat answer was, "I have no idea whether the book is true or not. But I'm sure that the Lutzes believed what they told me to be true."

That's how Jay put it in a 1979 interview with "Writer's Digest." Later that year he was interviewed for the TV show "In Search Of," during which he says, "I'm a journalist. I try to investigate as best as I can. ... When you first hear the Lutzes' story, it sounds like a very good haunted house story ... But then I spoke to the priest at his apartment in the Rectory. When I heard his story, and was able to put together a chronology of the events that took place within that framework of 28 days, I was convinced there are things out there that many people can not explain. ... The phenomena that occurred to the Lutzes and to the Father, I sincerely believe they took place."

Anson died in early 1980, less than a year after appearing on that episode of "In Search Of" (which also contained an on-camera interview with the priest, who backed up his involvement in the matter as being very real). If Anson said what you claimed, then it wasn't shown in the recent UK documentary "The True Story: The Amityville Horror," nor the 2006 UK documentary "Killing Mum and Dad" (which was mainly about the DeFeo murders), nor the 2005 UK documentary "The Real Amityville Horror." I've watched all of those documentaries and no such claim was made.

However, what you describe sounds very much like the situation with William Weber. Bill was the court-appointed attorney for mass-murderer Ronnie DeFeo, and when Jay Anson's book became a phenomenal best-seller, he sued the Lutzes, claiming a breach of contract. He claimed that the Lutzes told him about the haunting they experienced, and that they agreed to include their story in his (Weber's) upcoming book about the DeFeo murders, as a sort of footnote.

Then, according to Weber, everyone sat around, drank several bottles of wine, and agreed to amp up the haunting incidents - exaggerating them to make it all seem more sensational then it all really was (to sell more copies of the book).

This is where Weber claims that he helped invent things such as the green slime oozing from the walls and whatnot. And having helped invent part of the story, Weber claimed he was due part of the profits.

The court case was later dropped.

The Lutzes deny Weber's story. Weber claims to have tape recordings of that evening, where they all invented certain aspects of the story, but he refuses to make these tapes public. George and Kathy Lutz are both dead now, but they (and their family) have always maintained that the haunting was very real (just not exactly as it appeared in the books and movies)...

[Verity]

:arrow:

[Friendship Town]

Thanks. And yes, please let us know when you remember the title of that documentary. I'm only familiar with the three recent ones I mentioned (coming from the UK, at least). And yeah, those recent ones had very good production values - good point.

Originally Posted by WorldsGoneCrazy

...yet have i came across the reason for the Lutz's to leave the house? They havn't spoken about it in anywhere i've seen! Its amazing if what was portrayed in the films actually happened, and would love to spend a day (and a night) in the house!

What happened in the films is not what happened in real life. George Lutz has said the document closest to the truth was Jay Anson's book (and even there he had some problems - certain things like the oozing slime on the walls and seeing a face in the red room never happened).

When Hollywood came around to film the book, they took even more liberties, such as making the red room a "passageway to hell." In reality, the Lutzes found this tiny red room "strange," but it didn't seem to be a very integral aspect of the overall haunting. They found it strange for the following reasons:

1) Kathy found it by accident one day as she was down in the basement organizing the storage space. There was a movable shelving unit under the stairs, and when she moved it, she saw that it was "hiding" the opening to a tiny red room. A tiny space around 3 feet high painted entirely red. This seemed strange. The Lutzes wondered what its purpose was. Later people have claimed it was a plumbing access area, but George said there were no pipes running through it.

2) The room gave off very foul odors from time to time, which the Lutzes couldn't explain. Again, later people have suggested that maybe it was due to a faulty septic system or something.

3) The family dog wouldn't go near the red room. Normally fearless of most anything, the dog would simply cowar from it and run out of the basement.

4) The red room didn't appear on the plans of the house.

And that was it as far as the red room went. No passageway to hell - no evil psychic face seen inside. If it wasn't for the haunting, the red room would have been forgotten - but after they finally fled their home, they took stock of all the various "strange" things that happened to them during those 28 days.

I could go on forever, but in short, the movies are BS. However, after seeing the 2005 remake, George said it made the 1979 movie seem like a flat out documentary in comparison...

As for the reasons why the Lutzes fled - to put it simply, they just ran out of excuses to stay. One effect the house had on them was that they had this feeling come over them which made them never want to leave. Kathy normally loved Christmas shopping, but when they lived in that house she'd rather stay inside. George found excuses to stay home and not go to the office. They signed up for some reupholstery classes (Kathy bought material to recover the old DeFeo dining room set) but never went.

So the feeling to leave the house was very strong.

The other factor for them staying as long as they did was that they tried to explain away all the various incidents as being "normal" in some manner rather than "paranormal." I've personally had a few "odd coincidences" happen to me, and I constantly flip flop in my mind over whether they were just nothing more than coincidences, or something more. I'm sure some of you have been through something similar.

George said (looking back over 30 years) he thinks the first incident which really made him think "this is something that I can't explain away" was when Kathy told him of being embraced by an unseen force one day. He knew Kathy wasn't one to lie or be subject to hallucinations and the like.

During their stay, the strange events seemed to escalate, and the family started to get scared. Once that happened (during the final few days, I believe) the Lutzes tried to "re-bless" the house on their own. A friend of theirs told them he once had a similar situation in his childhood home, and what they did was to open all the windows in the house, take a crucifix and go from room to room chanting the Lord's Prayer and commanding whatever was there to leave. Their friend said this worked for them, so the Lutzes tried it.

As they did this, they heard voices saying "will you please stop."

I may have this wrong, but I think this was the beginning of their final night in the home. If not the actual final night, it was close to it. Unfortunately, Jay Anson rearranged the events in the book to make for "a better story," so the dates and order of events in his book aren't necessarily accurate.

Anyhow, the events of that final night really scared the family. But they didn't scramble out of the house in the middle of the night as depicted in the movie - they lasted through the night. It still wasn't enough to chase them out of the house as the movie portrayed.

That next morning, George called Father Ray (the priest who blessed their home) and begged him for some sort of help or guidance. Father Ray simply said, "why are you still there?" The simplicity of this remark struck George like a ton of bricks. For some reason it didn't occur to them to simply pack up and leave. I know this sounds odd, but it goes back to that feeling of them never wanting to leave the house.

So Father Ray told them to pack a few things and go somewhere else for a few days. So that's what they did - they packed a few changes of clothes and a few other things (like you would on a mini-vacation - hair dryers, razors and such) and they went to live with Kathy's mom (who lived perhaps 10 miles away). At that time, they didn't realize they would never return to the house.

Once at Kathy's mom's house, they could clear their minds and assess what had just happened. They tried to "get the house fixed," and that eventually led them to Stephen Kaplan, Bill Weber and the Warrens.

This is my own summation of what happened, based on the research I've done - but there may be errors. With some of this stuff, you're left trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together...

[Hi I'm a Spammer]

I've heard it is a true story.

[Datin]

I don't recall a basement in the house (they lived on the water, so.... I don't see how there could be one) I do recall a boat house which an area one drives the boat into (like a garage) that would be in the area one calls the basement. Many of the old houses have small rooms off this that fisherman kept their tackle in. About the odd odor, perhaps the Lutz's never lived on the water. Low tide smells AWFUL, but you get used to it, in fact, even learn to love it after awhile.

[Friendship Town]

The house does indeed have a finished basement. They lived on the water, but the elevation of the property rose from the water's edge out to the street, so the basement of the house sits above the water level, and there could be no confusion between the basement (under the house) and the boathouse (which is not attached to the house, but sits a few yards down the driveway, where it acts as a combination boathouse and 2-car garage).

I tried to post a picture of the property for you, but I got an error saying I wasn't a member long enough to do that. It considered a photobucket picture as being a link.

Anyway, as for the strange odor coming out of the "red room" at various times, who knows what that could have been. It could very well have been something totally natural - but the Lutzes couldn't figure it out. I haven't heard the "post-Lutz" residents mentioning any smell down there - I wonder if any of them smelled anything. The 1980 TV show "That's Incredible" did a show on the house featuring the Cromarty family (who owned the house at the time). They went around and tried to debunk the various incidents, but they never touched on the odors coming from the red room. And the things they did try to debunk were mostly fictional elements added to the Lutzes' story by Hollywood, so it was kind of a waste of time...

[SamuelBonilla]

To save everyones trouble about the investigation of that house i will actually live in their and to prove everyone that the story if it being haunted is fake. Since it around that time everyone was probably getting high and can't seem to tell differences between reality and Illusions. When i move in their i am going to make sure that nothing would get in to my head because your mind loves play tricks on you and would be really logical about everything including sounds since it has no heat or anything. I will show everyone how it feels to actually live in that place. If it is haunted then its haunted if it is not then its not so that way everyone could save their breathes and life about think that stuff. I don't think that i would make up any stories because i heard in the movie that there before it was build that there was a demon worshipers and then in the other movie a indian barriel ground? i mean that sound a bit confusing. So yes i am going to buy that house or at least rent it for a month and prove what really goes on in this house. If there are anyone out there that wants to do a investigation and yet don't really know anybody who actually lived there for a certain amount time you know who to contact.