Long
Island used to be considered a great place to settle down and raise a family.
That was before Buttafuoco and Frankenstorm.
However, the thing that really freaked people out was the incident known
as The Amityville Horror in a raft of
books and movies. Now a grown man, the
eldest son of the terrified Lutz family finally breaks his silence on their
twenty-eight days spent at the notorious Ocean Avenue address in Eric Walter’s My Amityville Horror (trailer here), which opens
today in New York at the IFC Center.
Daniel
Lutz is a heck of an interview subject.
Not afraid of a little salty language, he sounds a lot like a typical
Long Island knucklehead, until you hear his story. Although there is a fair amount of general skepticism
expressed by others in the film, no one doubts his sincerity. Clearly, he never enjoyed being known as the
kid from The Amityville Horror. Listening to him unburden himself in what
appear to be staged counseling sessions, audiences might surmise the subsequent
notoriety was as traumatic for him as whatever might have happened in the house
itself. The same may well be true for
the circumstances surrounding his mother’s marriage to his stepfather, George
Lutz, whose name he was forced to adopt.
New
Yorkers will be especially interested to learn the extent to which local
channel five (now Fox 5) owned the Amityville story before Jay Anson’s “true
story” novel and the release of the films.
Appropriately, Marvin Scott (now with the City’s CW affiliate) appears
at length, along with his former colleague, Laura DiDio. Having spent a mostly uneventful night there,
Scott remains largely incredulous, whereas DiDio sounds like she gives it all
considerably more credence.
Scoring
a series of interviews with Lutz was certainly a coup, but it is precisely that
tension between belief and skepticism that really distinguishes Walter’s film
from a History Channel special or DVD extra.
Yet, the documentary still has plenty of creepy moments (particularly
with regards to George Lutz and his alleged background with the occult),
despite Walter’s level headed approach.
Many viewers will likely conclude there was definitely something evil going
on in that house, but whether or not it was supernatural is an open question.
