My Amityville Horror: Review
In 1975 a terrifying haunting happened to the Lutz family in a house in Amityville, New York. The home they lived in had been a scene to a gruesome murder and soon after they moved in they started to experience paranormal occurrences. It wasn’t until things got more violent that they decided to flee the house and never return. When news broke of what had happened the media got involved and eventually a film franchise was created with the title The Amityville Horror. 38 years later, Daniel Lutz (who was 10 years old when it happened) gives his first hand accounts of what happened in that house in Amityville and tells his side of the story.
The Amityville story is probably one of the well known stories as far as horror goes and I’ve watched all of the films so when I heard of this documentary I was intrigued right away to hear what Daniel Lutz had to say. Right off the bat he seemed like a man that is on edge and somewhat aggressive at times. Then he starts to delve deep into the the family dynamic that no one else would know. He tells stories about his step-father George Lutz and how he kept books of the occult and of mind control in his bookcases. When Daniel reveals these things my first thought is that George started to mess with things he shouldn’t have been. As the doc goes a psychologist begins to come to the conclusion that it’s entirely possible that everything he has experienced could be partially because he was 10 years old and very susceptible to suggestion. Meaning that as a child Daniel would overhear his parents or people talk about things and that he possibly made himself believe all of it was true, especially after the films started to come out. Then they start to uncover financial troubles that George Lutz was experiencing and that he was trying to sell the house but no one wanted to even come near it because of its history. This, I feel really starts to discredit the story. It makes it seem like George made everything up, made his 3 kids believe what was happening and did it all to ultimately get rid of the house and get publicity from it. The thing is, when Daniel starts to tell these memories he’s had you can see that he starts to get emotional. You can see that the whole ordeal (whether it be real or fake) has really scarred this man for life. He walks around with a brick wall in front of himself at all times and the moment the interviewer asks him if he would be okay taking a polygraph test he gets REALLY defensive. This documentary was done really well from a film making standpoint. The small scenes in between interviews were done really well and were stylized nicely. The information and all of the archived footage of T.V. appearances was interesting to see. Everything was very well organized, put together as well. Ultimately the doc tells the story and gives all reports from all parties involved in the investigation and lets you make your own decision whether or not you believe Daniel Lutz. This was really great (and creepy) doc that any horror fan should see.
MY AMITYVILLE HORROR is in select theaters and is available to watch on Cable VOD, SundanceNOW and other digital outlets (iTunes, Amazon Streaming, PS3 Playstation Unlimited, XBOX Zune, Google PLAY and YouTube)
