The Amityville Horror

For God’s Sake…Get out! For George and Kathy Lutz, their new colonial home seemed ideal: quaint, spacious and amazingly affordable. Of course, six brutal murders had taken place there just a year before, but houses don't have memories...or do they?

Did you know...?
The Amityville Horror claims to be a true story based on the lives of George and Kathleen Lutz, a young couple with three children who purchased the infamous house at 112 Ocean Avenue in December 1975. Their story became the basis for Jay Anson's international best-seller. So much controversy surrounded their tale that the Lutz' took a lie detector test in 1979. They both passed. The Amityville Horror was filmed at a house in Toms River, New Jersey, after authorities in Amityville denied permission for filming on the actual location. The Amityville Horror became the highest-grossing independent movie in history (even surpassing 1978's Halloween), earning an astonishing $86 million in 1979; a record that remained unbroken until 1999's The Blair Witch Project. Adjusted for inflation, it still ranks in the Top 200 highest-grossing films of all time. Lalo Schifrin's musical score was nominated for an Academy Award and is sometimes claimed to be the score rejected for 1973's The Exorcist, but Schifrin has denied this in interviews.