We've received your submission. Ronald DeFeo Jr. DeFeo, whose nickname was Butch, spread terror across Long Island following the gruesome slaying of his family at their home at Ocean Ave. The home — its original address was Ocean Ave. But they ditched the property after only one month due to reported paranormal activity , which inspired a book and movie.
On Nov. The house has been on the market four different times since the murders. The property sits on Amityville River and features a large boat house with a boat slip and two-car garage. However, George does go back for his dog, almost losing his life in the process when he falls into a pit of black slime. George's time in the house costs him a lot, from his relationship with his business partner to his budding connection with his stepchildren to, possibly, his very sanity.
The film stops short of telling us exactly what happens to George after he flees, informing us only that he left everything behind and, along with his family, moved to another state. So, we know that at least initially, he and Kathy manage to hold the family together, which suggests he's regained some semblance of the man he once was. What we don't know is just how haunted he is by the experience, and of all the members of the Lutz family, he seems the least likely to be able to fully shake the trauma away.
Though her husband seems to interact much more directly with the dark presences in their new home, Kathy Lutz also endures her fair share of trauma in the Ocean Avenue house. She's present for numerous threats to her children, including a window crushing her son's hand and, of course, her daughter's persistent mentions of someone named "Jodie. Perhaps most frightening of all, though, is her understanding that her husband is slowly descending into madness and eventually violence.
The good news for Kathy is that, while her husband seems lost in the house's maelstrom, she's more proactive about searching for solutions.
She does research into the background of the house, looks for clues that might explain the horrors, and she even searches for spiritual guidance that might alleviate some of it. In the end, she's also the one who manages to pull her husband back from the brink and, by extension, save her family, largely thanks to the violent dreams that plagued her and showed her the way forward.
As with George, we don't know exactly what happens to Kathy next, but it's unlikely she'll completely give up the search for answers. Even if she never visits that house again, she won't be able to let go of the darkness, if only to prevent it happening to someone else.
Though we rarely see it unfolding from their point of view in the film, the Lutz children are also very much caught up in the horrors of their new home, even if they see things differently than their parents. The two boys, Matt and Greg, seem to largely experience things in bursts of terror, whether that's fear of their stepfather's wrath or fear of the house itself.
Daughter Amy, however, has a much more direct connection to the house in the form of her invisible friend, a demonic pig named Jodie, who she seems to view as a benevolent playmate right up until the very end, when the final night sends the whole family into a spiral. What's left unspoken by the end of all of this is how exactly the Lutz children will end up coping with the events in the house, if indeed they end up preserving the memory of it at all.
It's possible they'll grow up to dismiss the events as some brief episode from their past, overshadowed by brighter days ahead. It's also possible they'll need quite a bit of therapy to overcome the trauma they've endured. Then, of course, there's the very specific question of Amy's connection to Jodie and whether or not leaving the house managed to sever it. That demonic pig could still be out there somewhere, waiting for its moment.
Though the film focuses primarily on the Lutz family's story as they move into and then swiftly depart the Ocean Avenue house, The Amityville Horror also emphasizes the terror of its narrative by spending a lot of time with Father Delaney.
He's the priest who arrives the day the family moves in to bless their new home and subsequently endures all manner of terrors long after he's left the property. The physical horrors inflicted on him after leaving the Ocean Avenue house would be bad enough — illness, burns, nearly dying in a car crash — but for Father Delaney, the real terror comes later, when he tries to convince his fellow priests that something is very wrong.
All of his claims, all of his calls for aid, all of his pleas for an official exorcism are denied, and he's left shouting for God's aid more directly. In response, whether through divine or demonic intervention, he's stricken blind, and by the time the movie ends, he's a shell of his former self, unable to fully answer Kathy Lutz's calls for help as he tries to recuperate.
If nothing else, though, the events at the end of the film absolutely vindicate Father Delaney. If others are finally able to see what he was trying to reveal, he may yet regain some of his faith.
If not, he may be as lost as the Lutz family's idyllic vision of their home life. Arguably the weirdest case of an inexplicable horror franchise though is the Amityville series. The first film, The Amityville Horror, released in , and is regarded by many as a classic, although we'd argue the remake starring Ryan Reynolds is better.
Amityville II: The Possession arrived in , and served as a prequel to the original. The dreadful Amityville 3-D materialized in , and after that, things would head to direct to video land, and really get out of control.
To date, there have been a whopping 23 horror films made with Amityville in the title, some loosely connected to the older movies, and others that just seek to use Amityville 's notoriety for their own purposes. Many of these are bottom of the barrel schlock, and one might be inclined to wonder why MGM, who owns the rights to the older Amityvilles, doesn't put a stop to this sullying of the brand name.
The answer to that is simple: they can't. To be clear, none of the individual Amityville films are public domain. Nobody involved pulled a Night of the Living Dead, and forgot to get their copyrights in order.
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