Hello Beautiful People! Welcome back to another book review! For this review I finally (this book has been on my list for such a long time) read and am now reviewing The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson.
The Amityville Horror was first published in 1977 and since that time the book has been long criticized, analyzed, and theorized about. I had never seen the movie before so I was excited to go into the book with a non-biased idea of the story. I kind of knew the basis of the book but I didn’t know a ton about it so it was interesting to get to check it out after all this time. So, let’s get into it!
My Review
I gave The Amityville Horror a 7.5/10. The main downfall of the book for me was how quickly it moved through everything. It felt a bit rushed to me. A part of me just kind of felt like I was missing important parts of the story. I did appreciate that Jay only really focused on the parts of the Lutz family’s life where they were dealing with paranormal things, but a part of me did want to know a bit more about the family themselves. I say this because a part of me wonders if things were exaggerated by them in order to sensationalize the story a bit more. I mean there were parts where the family members were levitating in their sleep seemingly from the ghosts and that just seemed way out to me.
Look, I’ll be straight up. I questioned the validity of the experience of the Lutz family after reading this book. The Amityville Horror follows the presented true experience of the Lutz family when they moved into a new home and were intensely haunted by the spirits there. There were parts that I could kind of see as being real but a lot of it I didn’t, and this is coming from someone who fully does believe in spirits. Aside from the questionable validity of the book I found it to be a fun quick read. The Lutz family weren’t in the home for long, so it’s not a huge tale but the short time they were there was pretty interesting. Another thing that kind of caused me to question their story is I am someone who doesn’t believe in bad spirits or ghosts. I thought pretty early on that they were probably mistaking the actions of spirits as being automatically bad. I also don’t fully believe in demonic spirits, but that’s because I don’t believe in heaven and hell so I was a bit confused by why they were assuming that all of these things were the actions of spirits that wanted to hurt them. When a lot of things were happening in the book I was thinking that it was probably actually just regular old spirits the whole time meaning no harm. I also as I said before don’t believe that spirits can cause people to levitate so through all of those parts I was just kind of rolling my eyes.
The one thing that I was confused by, but also peaked my interest in the book was an outsider’s experience with the family. Father Mancuso went to bless the new Lutz family home once they moved in, and after his one time in the home, he began to experience very weird medical things. A lot of the things he experienced are easily explainable, but I will say it’s odd that he started to experience these things after he went home. I will say I also found the ending to be a bit boring. I mean the family move out of the home but that’s kind of it. Some more people go to the home to explore if there are spirits there or not, but the conclusion kind of just ends like ‘welp it’s haunted!’ I don’t really know what else I was expecting to be totally honest, but I just felt like it needed something more to have the ending be a bit more satisfying.
I mean look if you’re in the mood for a quick, to-the-point, paranormal horror book then I recommend checking this one out. I feel like everyone is going to have a different idea on whether or not the Lutz family was telling the truth so it’s just an interesting one to read to make your own opinion on.
Summary and Commentary
The book starts off with a bit of a dive into the history of what would be the new Lutz family home. In February 1974 Ronald DeFeo murdered his entire family in their home. This included his parents and his siblings. In 1975 George and Kathy Lutz, their three children, and their dog would move into that same home. The couple was informed about the mass murder in the home, but the two presented that they weren’t superstitious and didn’t mind the history of the home. They were really quite excited about the home because of the reduced price and felt like they were finally getting the chance to have their dream home. Boy oh boy were they wrong. If I am being honest I kind of felt bad for them. I mean they thought they were getting the home of their dreams and whether it really was spirits or they were just scaring themselves I still feel for them that they had to leave their home out of fear.
The family’s children consisted of 9-year-old Daniel, 7-year-old Chris, and 5-year-old Missy. Due to the low price of the house, the family was excited to be able to be able to renovate and decorate to their heart’s desire. The day they moved in it was planned for their priest Father Mancuso to come and bless the home for them. The day Father Mancuso was to go bless the home he reported feeling unwell. He had yet to think of it as a connection to the new home he would be going to. I will say that before Father Mancuso went to the home he was aware of its history, so that may also be playing a role in his feeling unwell. When Father Mancuso arrives at the home he is instantly met with a menacing voice that seems to come from no one telling him to get out. He’s quite frightened by the voice, quickly blesses the home then leaves weirdly. Furthermore, when he was driving home he experienced some very odd things happening with his car. Yet these things can all still be explained away and really don’t have to have anything to do with spirits.
At 3:15 in the morning on their first night, George is awoken in the home by some tapping. This tapping really unsettles him and he freaks out a bit. I wondered why he instantly thought these taps were menacing. I mean if I heard some tapping my first thing wouldn’t be to be afraid and think something wrong so I wondered why this family seemed so high-strung. It also gets spoken about how when the family moved into the home there seemed to be high tensions and conflicts that weren’t around before they moved into the home. In my opinion, I think it’s silly to believe a house caused that. I mean they just moved into a new home which is hard work, they have three kids, and seemingly haven’t been sleeping the greatest. These things would cause this tension not spirits in the home. Furthermore, George consistently feels very cold in the house. He can’t seem to get warm and becomes a bit obsessed with keeping the house warm despite being the only one that’s cold. At this part, I wondered if there was a bit more of a mental health thing going on with everyone.
Kathy also describes not wanting to leave the house. It seems that her motivation to do the things she usually does has disappeared. Also with George, he wasn’t going to work and wasn’t taking care of himself as he usually did. I think it’s funny that they eventually try to connect these things to the spirits. It’s funny because it literally makes no sense, the only cause of this sort of thing would be that their mental health is struggling. One day Kathy finds all the toilet bowls to be completely black. This also didn’t make sense to me because how could spirits control toilet bowl water colour? And why would they even want to do that? I mean look I won’t act like spirits know what they’re doing but that just doesn’t make sense to me that spirits would do that.
One of the nights George gets up at his usual 3:15am time and finds the front door of the home to be ripped off its hinges. Now look if I was them I would be extremely freaked out too. I wouldn’t be freaked out for the reasons they are though I would think someone was messing with me or trying to hurt me. Missy their youngest child also started doing some weird things. She would apparently sit in this rocking chair in her room, staring out the window of her room, and hum a little tune. I mean it’s creepy as hell but I am not sure if it is spirit-coded. A week after Father Mancuso had been in the Lutz family home he came down with a terrible sickness. It was an intense flu-like illness that would come in waves and left him unable to do many things at this time. The Father had this desire to call the Lutze’s after he came down with his sickness to warn them about the house. This I found weird. I mean he had no way of knowing that was what was causing his illness, or that the family was unsafe in the house, yet he called them to tell them that. It seemed a bit weird to me for sure. When he called the home, after he warned them weird things started happening with the phone. They were unable to reach each other again.
Kathy’s family comes to visit and notices weird things in the home like odd drafts when no windows are open, hearing strange noises, and the house being cold in spots. Kathy also seems to experience some very intense nightmares and it seems as though the author is presenting that she’s dreaming about the murders that happened in the house. I mean the reality of the situation could be also that the history of the house is bothering them more than they are giving off. Missy also introduces her family to her imaginary friend Jodie the Pig. I thought this was a bit odd and I was getting The Exorcist vibes from how their daughter was acting. One day when Kathy is in the kitchen she smells some sweet perfume and gets the feeling that someone is giving her a hug from behind. Of course, this scares her but in my head, I was thinking this was sweet! If anything I thought the spirits in the home were trying to comfort her, show her she doesn’t need to be afraid, but yet she really took it as the opposite. After Christmas Kathy’s brother is getting married. Her brother stays over at the home the night before the wedding and when he goes to leave for the ceremony the money he had saved to pay for the place has gone missing. Part of me thought maybe George took it or something since he hadn’t been going to work but he then covered the cost so I threw that theory out. Apparently, the missing money was never found, but again I don’t feel like it was ghosts.
When Kathy and George are putting away groceries one day they find a hidden room by the cellar. It’s this horrifyingly creepy all-painted red room. Ugh, so gross a room painted all red can never mean anything good in any way. I don’t know what went on there but I am not sure I want to. Everything kind of continues on of them hearing, seeing, dreaming, and feeling spirits in the home. George becomes convinced it’s the DeFeo family trapped in the home, causing the family grief. So does Father Mancuso who also believes his illness to be directly linked to the home. I just wonder why they would seemingly so instantly jump to that conclusion and not another, but maybe for the sake of the book it was just faster that way. George also started having these visions that some sort of wealth (money it seems) is hidden on the property. I thought this was odd considering how much George speaks about their struggles for money. If his mental health is bad then no wonder he dreams of this treasure that would magically solve all his issues without needing to work.
In another strange occurrence, Kathy and George wake up one cool winter night to find all the windows in the home open except the ones in Missy’s room. This just seems odd to me because I am confused if they are trying to present that the house wants them to stay or go. With something like that happening, I would think the house would be sort of telling them it wants them to leave, but then at the same time with all these weird things happening Kathy and George claim they have no desire to leave the house. Kathy does openly talk about how she danced around the ‘truth’ (spirits) for a long time and seemed to just want to avoid what was really happening in the house and that it’s not random. One night Kathy and George think they saw a figure in the window, but when they went to go inspect they just found pig hove tracks in the snow. Now how does that make any sense, and why a pig of all things? Am I supposed to take that as a demonic thing? That morning George finds that the door of their garage has been ripped off its hinges. If it is spirits pulling the doors off hinges they have to be extremely strong like damn.
Kathy and George start to get really freaked by things happening in the home. They call Father Mancuso to see if he will come back and bless the house again. When they try to tell him about things going on in the house the phone line cuts out. Father Mancuso is like ‘Oh hell no I am not going back there’ which I found so funny because I mean it’s relatable but isn’t he supposed to help no matter what? Like isn’t that his duty? Father Mancuso tries to bless the home from the safety of his church but also starts to get really sick when he tries to do this, which is odd. One night George wakes up and Kathy is levitating in the bed. The thing that’s also odd about all of this is how many different spirit-driven things are happening, it seems like the ghosts just want to mess with them in every single way. Father Mancuso calls some of his superiors and people who are more inclined with some of this stuff to help the Lutz family. His superiors seem on the fence as to whether or not what the Lutzes are feeling is real or if it can all be explained by normal things. They also tell the Father that he may be letting his beliefs get the best of him, and are clearly getting him worked up. Apparently, George and Kathy wouldn’t learn of what was really happening with the Father until much after they left the home. The Father calls the family and tells them what he was told, and that they should think of leaving the home. The Lutz family doesn’t seem 100% on board.
One night when George finds Kathy levitating she also has these marks on her face that eventually disappear. It just seems so weird because to me it can’t be a mental thing because both George and her saw the marks, but it seems weird again that a spirit would do this. George and Kathy have a local medium come to check out the house. She finds odd things within it feeling that the house is on a burial ground, and quickly wants to leave the home. The medium doesn’t want to ever go back to the house again after she has been there. I mean things like this definitely don’t help Kathy and George think something other than demons and spirits is happening. When Kathy’s brother and wife come to visit they also have some alarming experiences in the house. The one thing they did help me kind of believe the Lutze’s really were experiencing this was the fact that so many others experienced other things while being in the home. Soon after a weird slime substance starts leaking from the walls. I mean this is a thing again that multiple people saw and experienced so there has to be some validity to it, or everyone in that house is just losing it.
Kathy wakes up one morning and is covered in these hot painful welts all over her body. She calls her mother in a panic asking her to come help. Her mother is shocked to see the state that her daughter is in. I wondered why so much of this stuff was happening to Kathy when the worst George got was being cold. That night Kathy and George decide they can’t stay in the house any longer and plan to leave for Kathy’s mother’s home. However, a freak storm starts that stops them from being able to leave. I am still just confused if the house wants them to stay or go, it’s very back and forth. Their son also gets his hand crushed in a window and going to the hospital keeps him from leaving the house permanently. Missy drags George to her room to meet Jodie and he’s met with two menacing red eyes looking at him from the window. When George and Kathy again try to leave the house with the kids they are stopped and forced to spend another night in the home. They then try to leave again after that but are stopped again by a freak storm.
Finally, on the 28th day, the Lutz family lived in the home, and they finally were able to escape with the whole family unit. After a terrible final night of being touched, hearing noises, and weird temperature drops, the family decides enough is enough and leaves. It was in interesting to see how much fear Father Mancuso had over the Lutz family and their home, it clearly took over a lot of him. Even once the Lutz family has escaped the home they continue to experience weird things now believing that whatever was in the home may have followed them out.
The story concludes with some discussion over the sensationalized story, and the investigations that went on in the home after. The investigations brought up that there was something negative in nature taking over that home. How or why is unknown but nonetheless the negative spirits seem to own the home. The home was simply a resting place but the spirits didn’t have to stay there if they didn’t want to, explaining why the Lutz family was still experiencing things after they left. The author further leaves us with his own beliefs. He feels that everything the Lutz family experienced was real, due to how many people experienced what they did in the home. The Lutz family further did not know about the experiences of others in the home outside of their family members until way after they left the house. This led the author to believe that all involved were speaking the truth. He does acknowledge that there are explanations to everything, so it can for sure be passed off as non-spiritual. He also acknowledges that not all of the actions in the home that happened may have come from bad spirits there may have been good ones present as well. He acknowledges that at times when for example Kathy is hugged or smells perfume, this may have been a spirit trying to comfort her, to let her know someone good was there looking out for them. Look, I won’t deny that bad spirits could be real but I don’t think they are. I definitely believe that if there was a bad spirit in the house then there were probably more good than bad there. A lot of the actions that happened in the house didn’t seem like they were done to hurt the family, they may have just interpreted it in that way.
I think books like this are fun because it just gets us as the reader questioning and guessing. No matter what religion you are a part of or what you believe in I feel like lots of people will interpret this book differently. I don’t totally disbelieve that there were spirits in the house, but I don’t feel like all were bad or wanted to hurt the family. I feel like some things were maybe exaggerated in order to make the story more sensational.
I hope you enjoyed this review, and thank you for reading! Feel free to check out all my social @baddiebookreviews to be kept up to date for when I drop a new review!
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