13 Spine-Chilling Truths About ‘The Amityville Horror’

In 1975, George and Kathy Lutz purchased what they believed would be their ideal home—a spacious Dutch Colonial in Amityville, Long Island. Despite the property’s dark history, they saw potential in the large house, complete with a boat house and ample space for their family. However, their dream quickly turned into a terrifying ordeal, as they claimed to experience a series of horrifying events.

In 1977, Jay Anson published The Amityville Horror, a book that claimed to document the supernatural occurrences the Lutzes endured during their brief stay at 112 Ocean Avenue. The book became a bestseller, and by 1979, it was adapted into a feature film featuring James Brolin and Margot Kidder. The movie, like the book, was a massive success and remains a cornerstone of haunted house films adored by horror enthusiasts.

Marking its 45th anniversary, here are more than a dozen eerie details about the 1979 film The Amityville Horror, exploring the origins of its story and the creative tensions between its lead actors.

Yes, The Amityville Horror is rooted in a true story (to some extent).

The authenticity of The Amityville Horror remains a topic of debate (details to follow), but two elements of the tale are undeniably factual. The film’s opening murders mirror the real-life killings that occurred at 112 Ocean Avenue in 1974. In November of that year, Ronald DeFeo Jr. entered the home and fatally shot his parents and four siblings using a rifle. The tragedy shocked the Long Island community, and DeFeo was later found guilty and imprisoned. 

A year later, George and Kathy Lutz bought the Ocean Avenue property for $80,000 (approximately $453,000 today), a steal considering the size of the estate. They moved in with their three kids but abandoned the house after just 28 days, alleging that paranormal activity forced them to leave.

However, the haunting itself may be fabricated.

So, did the Lutz family truly endure the intense and horrifying haunting portrayed in the 1979 film adaptation of their ordeal? While skeptics have spent years discrediting the Amityville Horror narrative, George and Kathy Lutz consistently asserted that, aside from some cinematic exaggerations, their account was genuine. Notably, renowned paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren also believed their claims. In a 2005 interview, Lorraine Warren, who inspected the house with her husband in 1976, described it as “the embodiment of evil.”

In 1979, the credibility of the Lutzes’ story took a significant hit when attorney William Weber, who had previously collaborated with them on potentially monetizing their account, revealed to People magazine that he believed the family’s narrative shared with author Jay Anson was “fabricated.” 

“We concocted this tale over several glasses of wine,” Weber admitted. 

James Brolin’s decision to star in The Amityville Horror was influenced by an unusual reason: a pair of pants.

Following the success of The Exorcist, producers were keen to capitalize on similar stories like The Amityville Horror, leading to a swift adaptation of Jay Anson’s book into a feature film. 

James Brolin, a rising star at the time, was offered the role of George Lutz. He was provided the book to read since the script, later written by Sandor Stern, wasn’t yet complete. While preparing for the role, Brolin had a peculiar experience that convinced him to take the part. As he recalled in a 2015 interview with The A.V. Club:

“I was reading the novel late at night, around 2 a.m. I had hung my pants over the bedroom door, and suddenly they fell to the floor. I was at a particularly frightening part of the book, and the shock made me laugh once I recovered. I thought, ‘I have to do this movie!’ That’s how it happened. The film went on to become a horror classic and broke records as the highest-grossing independent film at the time.”

The Amityville Horror was not filmed at the actual house. 

The Dutch Colonial residence at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville gained iconic status among horror and true crime fans, partly due to its unique windows that resembled eerie eyes. These “eyes” were prominently featured in the film’s poster, promotional images, and various scenes. However, the movie was not filmed at the actual Amityville house, nor was it shot in New York. 

Amityville locals, who had already endured the aftermath of the DeFeo murders and the media storm sparked by the Lutz family’s book, were reluctant to allow a film crew at their infamous property. As a result, producers scouted locations across the East Coast and eventually discovered a suitable replacement in Toms River, New Jersey. They leased the house for a five-figure sum from its owners.

Jay Anson himself praised the house as an almost perfect replica of the original after the production spent around $30,000 on renovations, including adding a boat house and the iconic windows. However, only the exteriors were filmed in Toms River. The production then relocated to Los Angeles to shoot interior scenes on soundstages. 

Margot Kidder found it impossible to stop laughing during the making of The Amityville Horror.

While Brolin was drawn to The Amityville Horror due to the eerie potential he saw in Anson’s book, Margot Kidder took on the role of Kathy Lutz as a strategic career move. Fresh from her role as Lois Lane in 1978’s Superman: The Movie, her team was eager to secure another high-profile project that could replicate that success.

“At the time, my agent suggested a ‘one for me, one for them’ approach. This was one for them,” Kidder shared with The A.V. Club in 2009.

Despite this, Kidder didn’t dislike working on the film. She remembered “laughing constantly throughout the shoot,” to the extent that director Stuart Rosenberg tried various tactics to scare her during scenes. In a behind-the-scenes documentary, Kidder recounted how Rosenberg purchased a bright, glowing stuffed pig to represent Jodie, the demonic pig in the film, and used it to startle her during filming. Unsurprisingly, this only made her laugh harder.

Kidder and Brolin didn’t buy into the idea that The Amityville Horror was based on true events.

During the making of The Amityville Horror, Brolin and Kidder were exposed to the alleged “true story” of the Lutz family, including visits to the actual 112 Ocean Avenue house and meetings with the Lutzes. However, they weren’t entirely convinced by the family’s account. 

In a behind-the-scenes interview, Brolin later described George Lutz as a “skilled salesman” and noted that the Lutz children answered questions about the haunting as if they were following a script rather than recalling genuine experiences. Kidder, on the other hand, admitted she adopted a “willingness to believe” from her interactions with the family, which influenced her performance, but she personally dismissed the story as “nonsense.”

Kidder and Brolin didn’t always see eye to eye.

While the film’s plot revolves around supernatural events, its emotional core lies in the disintegration of a family under the strain of living in a house that seems intent on harming them. This required Brolin and Kidder to portray a couple unraveling under pressure, often in conflict. Interestingly, their on-screen tension sometimes mirrored their off-screen dynamics. 

“I was quite arrogant back then, considering myself part of the hip, young Hollywood crowd, while I saw Jim Brolin as representing the older, more traditional side of Hollywood,” Kidder later reflected.

Kidder elaborated that the friction between the two actors stemmed from her preference for improvisation, which involved embracing spontaneous moments in a scene. This approach “irritated” Brolin, who favored a more structured and rehearsed method. Brolin, for his part, simply chuckled and acknowledged, “Yeah, there were challenges.”

Producers encouraged the stars of The Amityville Horror to act as if the set was haunted.

The creators of The Amityville Horror aimed to generate as much horror-themed publicity as possible, leveraging the alleged true story of the Lutz haunting. One tactic involved persuading Kidder and Brolin to play into the idea that eerie events were occurring on set. Similar strange incidents had been reported during the production of other Satanic-themed horror films like The Exorcist and The Omen, and the producers believed such rumors could boost interest in their film.

“I found it amusing to watch the studio’s publicity team fabricate stories about terrifying events happening on set, which were completely untrue,” Kidder recalled.

The studio’s strategy worked so well that press conferences for the film often included questions about the authenticity of the story. Kidder recalled one such event where she was unsure how to respond and turned to “the writers” beside her. Their reply was straightforward: “They said, ‘We’ll never tell,’” she remembered with a smile.

Brolin mastered the art of ax-throwing for his role in The Amityville Horror.

In The Amityville Horror, George Lutz’s reaction to the haunting involves frequent use of an ax, as he obsessively chops firewood outside and stacks it in the living room fireplace.

In one intense scene, George hurls the ax into a tree on his property. To prepare, Brolin received lessons from a local resident in Toms River. According to a 1978 article in the Asbury Park Press, Thomas Hirshblond, who had forestry experience and supplied much of the film’s prop firewood, taught Brolin how to safely throw an ax using a target in his family’s backyard. Brolin even joined the family for coffee during his visit.

The flies buzzing around Rod Steiger in the film were real.

One of the most memorable moments in The Amityville Horror features Father Delaney, portrayed by seasoned actor Rod Steiger, being overwhelmed by flies pouring out of the Lutz family’s windows. These flies, which infest a specific room in the house, serve as an early warning of the sinister nature of the Ocean Avenue property. The sight of them clinging to Steiger delivers one of the film’s most unsettling scares. 

The scene’s effectiveness stems from the fact that the flies swarming Steiger were genuine. The production team devised a method to make the flies naturally gather on the actor. Steiger revealed that they “sprayed my face with a mixture of sugar and beer,” then released hundreds of flies. The technique was a success, creating a highly convincing effect.

Stephen King initially panned The Amityville Horror—but later changed his mind.

Released in late July 1979, The Amityville Horror became one of the highest-grossing films of the year, earning over $86 million during its initial theatrical run. Despite its box office success, the film received mixed reviews from critics. Among its detractors was Stephen King, who criticized it in a 1979 Rolling Stone article about 1970s genre films. 

However, just two years later, in his influential nonfiction book Danse Macabre, King revisited his critique. He provided a detailed analysis of the film, highlighting how Amityville effectively mirrored the economic anxieties of 1970s America. While he still called the movie “stupid” and “simplistic,” he argued that these qualities were integral to its appeal. King likened the film to a “campfire tale” and compared its impact to timeless urban legends like “The Hook.”

The Amityville Horror spawned an unusually bizarre franchise.

The box office triumph of The Amityville Horror made sequels inevitable, and they arrived quickly. Amityville II: The Possession, a fictionalized prequel centered on the DeFeo family murders, debuted in 1982. Amityville 3-D, which adopted a meta-fictional angle and followed skeptics facing supernatural events at the house, came out in 1983. A TV movie, Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes (written and directed by Sandor Stern, who penned the original film), was released in 1989 and focused on a cursed lamp from the house causing chaos for a new family.  

If you thought a cursed lamp was the peak of the franchise’s strangeness, think again. More sequels emerged, such as 1992’s Amityville: It's About Time, which revolves around a family encountering a time-warping cursed clock, and 1993’s Amityville: A New Generation, where a group of artists confronts a haunted mirror. Then there’s 1996’s Amityville Dollhouse, which is exactly what it sounds like.

The main franchise attempted a comeback with a 2005 remake featuring Ryan Reynolds and a reboot-like film titled Amityville: The Awakening in 2017. However, since “Amityville” is a town name and not trademarked, numerous unrelated and peculiar films have capitalized on the name. These include Amityville Vampire, Amityville Gas Chamber, Amityville Karen, Amityville In the Hood, Amityville Christmas Vacation, Amityville Elevator, and, of course, Amityville Death Toilet. (Yes, these are all real films.)

The original Amityville Horror house still stands, with no reports of further paranormal activity.

The original Dutch Colonial house that inspired The Amityville Horror still stands, though its address and iconic windows have been altered. Since the Lutzes left, the property has changed hands four times, with its most recent sale in 2017 for $605,000, as reported by The New York Post. None of the subsequent owners have reported any ghostly occurrences (despite visits from true crime and paranormal enthusiasts), and recent photos reveal it to be a charming residence.