‘The Amityville Horror’ Is the Granddaddy of Supernatural True Crime Films [Murder Made Fiction]

After a month of Australian true crime titles, including Greg McLean’s Wolf Creek (listen), creature feature Black Water (listen), queer murders in Snowtown (listen) and, finally, abduction thriller Hounds of Love (listen), Jenn and I are turning our attention to supernatural true crime for April.

That means a return to my favourite (?) horror series, The Amityville Horror! See also: The Amityville IP

In 1979, Stuart Rosenberg‘s film adaptation of Jay Anson‘s 1977 book became a massive success, grossing $86M on a $4M budget. Starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder as George and Kathy Lutz, the film details the ordeal of a family that moves into 112 Ocean Avenue, Long Island, New York in 1975 and escapes 28 days later with nothing but the clothes on their back.

The Lutz family claimed that the house was haunted, and recounted a number of terrifying supernatural events, including windows and doors flying open on their own, ghostly touches, red eyes glowering at them, and drops in temperature that kept George freezing.

But which parts of the story are real and which parts have been embellished? Is there such a thing as supernatural true crime when nothing can be confirmed or proven? And how does that affect the real case at the center of the story: the murder of six members of the DeFeo family in the house a year earlier?

Jenn and I kick off a month interrogating these two cases and the creation of the biggest horror “franchise.” For this first week, we introduce the case, discuss the films that influenced Amityville in the 70s, and how it, in turn, influenced subsequent North American haunted house films, including James Wan’s successful 1-2 punch of Insidious and The Conjuring.



Want more fictionalized true crime? Subscribe to our Patreon (patreon.com/murdermadefiction) for a primer on the Lutzs, as well as continuing episode by episode coverage of Hulu’s Good American Family and Paramount+s Happy Face, which explores the crimes of serial killer Keith Jesperson.

We’ve blown past 75 episodes and have accumulated 50+ hours of bonus content, so there’s plenty to dig into!

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