Happy Halloween! May the tricks and treats be bountiful and the veil between realms thin. We are glad our neurodivergence has been weird and allowed us to drop this A to Z Horror review on the spookiest of all days.
Over on instagram, we’ve been following the Nightmare on Film Street 31 Day Horror Challenge. Head over there to see what films we chose for their prompts this year. It has been a blast and thankful its over as I can now focus once again on A to Z Horror!
The latest watch was a classic of paranormal activity and hauntings with quite possibly the most famous of haunted houses, the one at the center of The Amityville Horror. Directed by Stuart Rosenberg and starring Thanos’s father and original host of “Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction?” (1997), James Brolin. It’s fitting as the film is one to tout the label of “based on a true story,” and later found to be complete and utter fantasy mostly made up by the book’s author. But, hell. It’s atmospheric and unnerving and one of our favorites here at A to Z Horror. And it’s also got Lois Lane herself, Margot Kidder!
James Brolin is obviously the star of the move playing the ill fated George Lutz to Margot Kidder’s Kathy. His transformation from handsome and loving father to vehement and out of control antagonist is a visual and physical one. It’s one that starts subtle. Pale skin. Bags under the eyes. Disheveled hair. Easily irritated. It mirrors the history of the house’s previous owner.
Speaking of the previous owner. This is where the true story comes to play.
Before the Lutz’ moved in the house was owned by the DeFeo family. And one night in 1975, Ronald DeFeo Jr. grabbed a Marlin Model 336 Carbine rifle and murdered his entire family. DeFeo was convicted of second-degree murder (six counts) and would eventuallty die in the Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, NY in 2021, having had all requests for parole and appeals denied.
So, was Ronald DeFeo possessed by some evil entity in the basement that would later go on to torment the Lutz’s? The Amityville case became so famous that famed paranormal invesitgators and charlatans, Ed and Lorraine Warren investigated the case.
It’s a fantastic foil that has helped propel this film and the underlying story in the zeitgeist of American Folklore and Mythology.
If you go to check out the rest of the Amityville series just be aware that there is a main series and then several others that just here to capitalize on the name and fame. If you are wondering how that is possible, well: Amityville is a real place, and you can’t copyright names or places that actually exist. So The Amityville Horror has spawned several copycat films as well as legit sequels.
Here’s a fun game. I’m going to list a bunch of movie titles and you try to pick out which ones are real Amityville movies and which are purely our imagination:
Amityville Dollhouse, Amityville: It’s about time, The Amityville Asylum, Amityville Death House, The Amityville Playhouse, Amityville Exorcism, Amityville: Vanishing Point, Amityville Toybox, Amityville Clownhouse, Amityville Island, Witches of Amityville Academy, Amityville Harvest, Amityville Vibrator, The Amityville Moon…
Actually… ALL of those are real movies…
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Check it out from the Cabell County Public Library.
https://cabellcounty.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/test
*THIS POST AND THE A to Z Horror REVIEWS ARE NOT PROVIDED, ENDORSED, or SPONSORED by Cabell County Public Library*
We at Quill and Leaf urge you yo visit your local library and see what they Horror they have to offer A to Z.