Amityville: Origins of the Horror Story

Factual America

On November 13th 1974, Ronald DeFeo shot his family dead in Amityville, New York. Not long after he was convicted of the killings, the Lutz family moved into the DeFeos’ former home. They did not stay long. After just 28 days, they fled, claiming to have been driven out by paranormal activity.

The Lutz family’s experience formed the basis of The Amityville Horror. Released in 1979, it went on to spawn a seemingly endless number of sequels, prequels, and derivatives: over 40 to date.

In his docu-series, Amityville: An Origin Story, director Jack Riccobono explores what happened to both the DeFeo and Lutz families. Matthew Sherwood discovers in conversation with Jack that what took place did not happen in isolation. As Jack says, the 1970s was a dark time in America. There was fear in the air, abuse behind closed doors, an increase in drug addiction, and strange new belief systems sprouting up.

Jack takes Matthew through the mystery of the silent rifle used in the murders, and the question of why the Lutz family moved into the DeFeo home: did they do it for commercial gain? Was it a hoax? He and Matthew look at the question marks over George Lutz’s character as well as George’s role in the perpetuation of the Amityville story: he never stopped pushing it.

Greed, family dysfunction, sensationalism, the truth vs media misrepresentation. The origin of the Amityville horror is much closer to us than we realise.

Watch the episode at https://factualamerica.com

“I was drawn to this possibility of sort of this cross-genre exploration, and I really felt like there was something unique about this series...you had this true crime component, but then you also had this paranormal story, and then you had this sort of larger cultural landscape that we could explore.” – Jack Riccobono