Do you believe scary movies could curse the cast or crew?
It seems highly unlikely if you are a rational sort of person, but what we are about to tell
you is uncanny.
Take the Poltergeist franchise for instance.
The little girl that starred in the movies died mysteriously from toxic shock while making
part three when she was just 12 years old.
Her older sister in the movie was killed by her boyfriend just after part two came out,
and two other main actors died either just before or just after a release.
This could just be coincidence, but it also sends shivers down the spines of those apt
to believe in the unbelievable.
The Exorcist curse story is far worse.
There are plenty of movie curses, but today we’ll focus on just one, in this episode
of the Infographics Show, The Amityville Horror: FACT or FICTION and Was There a Curse?
So, let’s start with what the movie was based on.
There was a book published in 1977 called “The Amityville Horror” by Jay Anson,
and it was about what is now called, “America’s Most Haunted House.”
This is what we know from the book:
The house in question was situated at 112 Ocean Avenue in the neighborhood of Amityville,
Long Island, New York.
It’s still there in fact, described as a 1927 Dutch Colonial.
It was sold for $605,000 in 2017, much less than it was on the market for.
It could get annoying living there as so many people visit the place on a horror sightseeing
pilgrimage.
That’s because in 1975, the mass murderer Ronald DeFeo Jr. killed his mom, dad, two
brothers and two sisters in that house.
At first, he was said to be insane, stating that voices had told him to do it.
It was a strange scene for police, as all the bodies were found face down in their beds,
and it seemed there had been no struggle.
It’s bizarre because the gun had no silencer, so no one could figure out why people in the
house hadn’t tried to escape or at least move from their beds.
No sedatives were found in the victims, either.
Were other members of the family involved?
An outsider?
demons?
By the way, DeFeo has changed his story several times over the years.
Just over a year later, in 1975, George and Kathy Lutz and their three children (9,7 and
5) moved into this house.
They knew about the murders, but the $80,000 they paid for a large old house with a swimming
pool and boathouse was nothing short of a bargain.
Now it must be said that Mr. Lutz was a very religious person and because of what he knew
about the house, he asked Father Ralph J. Pecoraro to bless the place.
According to the author of the book, who interviewed the father, when he turned up that day December
18 to bless the house, he heard a voice of a man demanding he get the hell out of there.
“Get out,” shouted the voice, and the holy man didn’t need much persuading.
Later in an interview for TV, the father said, “I was also sprinkling holy water, and I
heard a rather deep voice behind me saying, 'Get out!'
It seemed so directed toward me that I was really quite startled.
I felt a slap at one point on the face.”
He called George and told him what had happened, and warned him not to stay on the second floor
where he had heard the voice.
After this, crap got real.
George started waking up every night at exactly 3.15 am, so awake that he would go for a wander.
He later found out that’s when DeFeo had killed his family.
The others slept, but for some reason, they all slept on their stomachs.
Mrs. Lutz started dreaming about the murders and she also dreamed something weird: she
knew who had slept in each room and what order they had been shot in.
It goes on…they found a hidden room that frightened the life out of the poor dog.
This room wasn’t in the plans for the house.
They called it the “Red Room.”
The house would fill with flies occasionally; parts of it would turn ice cold, and now and
again a putrid odor was emit from certain areas.
The parents saw demon faces in the fireplace, green stuff coming out of keyholes, and if
that wasn’t bad enough, their 5-year old daughter made a new friend that didn’t actually
exist, something described as a demon pig with green eyes.
Doors slammed shut on many occasions, locks bust open on windows, cloven hoof prints were
found in the snow outside, a crucifix turned itself upside down.
You can watch George on YouTube talking about another occurrence: “Earlier that day I
saw Kathy turn into an old woman …during that night she lifted up off the bed about
3 or 4 inches.”
Yep, nothing to see here…
But perhaps the defining moment was some invisible force stamping on Kathy’s chest, causing
injury, or the fact George saw all the members of his house levitating.
With the kids tripping, hearing voices and singing weird songs, and the parents at the
end of their tether, they moved out.
The family had lasted just 28 days.
The parents even claimed at one point that the demon had followed them to another house,
but they didn’t talk much to the press as they were just about at the point of breakdown.
By the way, George and Kathy both took lie detector tests from some of America’s top
polygraph people, and they both passed.
Some people said it was a huge hoax to get money from a book, but the Lutz’s lost money
on the house and their belongings.
The priest backed them up, as did paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren.
(Those names should sound familiar if you’ve seen The Conjuring.) 25 years later, when
interviewed by the History Channel, George said, “It’s real easy to call something
a hoax.
I wish it was, but it wasn’t.”
And so, this is America, where no good mass murder/breakdown/demon story could escape
the silver screen.
The movie came out in 1979, called “The Amityville Horror,” starring James Brolin
and Margot Kidder.
As for the curse, well there are little things, such as Brolin saying that while he was reading
the script, his pants magically dropped from their hanger, but that’s not such a big
deal.
As for Kidder, things get a little darker.
The woman who is also famous for playing Lois Lane in Superman went through a series of
bad marriages, was hurt badly in a car crash, went bankrupt, and ended up having a nervous
breakdown.
She once told the press that what she had to do was face her demons.
She wasn’t referring to the house, but it might have been a choice of words some people
look too much into.
In 2018, she died of throat cancer, at age 69.
But that’s not suspicious.
Ok, so what about the famed writer, Jay Anson, who started the ball rolling regarding how
this house became public knowledge?
Well, he died at age 58, less than a year after the movie came out.
He did have a bad heart, though.
But the man that was first invited into the house to check it out was journalist and author
named Paul Hoffman.
Apparently, the Lutz family thought he was a criminologist.
Anyway, he died a few years after the film’s release, in a fire, at age 49.
As for Ryan Reynolds, who starred in the 2005 remake, he had this to say, “A lot of the
crew were waking up at 3:15 in the morning which was when all these atrocities in the
house took place.
I think it was a subconscious thing.
You read the script and suddenly pop awake at 3:15 in the morning.”
Still, there are many that say the entire thing was a hoax , and they’ve tried, perhaps
sometimes successfully, to debunk some of the family’s claims.
There was no snow, for instance, when the family said they saw hoof marks in snow.
It depends who you believe, though; even the son still stands by his assertion that the
house was haunted, and he has little to gain from lying.
A man named James Cromarty bought the house in 1977 and he lived happily there with his
wife for more than a decade.
He told the press, “Nothing weird ever happened, except for people coming by because of the
book and the movie.”
So, was the family lying?
Or was what they were seeing a case of mass hysteria?
Or, had the demon just moved on to greener pastures when Cromarty and co arrived?
We may never know.
But we’ll leave you with this.
A guy named Steven Kaplan who was also a paranormal investigator, didn’t believe the Lutz’s
and so set out to write a book about the case, and to prove once and for all it was a hoax.
His book was called ‘’The Amityville Horror Conspiracy.’
It was published in September 1995, three months after he died.
So, what do you guys think?
Haunted or just phony baloney?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video called Why are We Afraid of Friday the 13th
and the Number 13?!
Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe.
See you next time!