Even as the book and movie based on their lives brings them international fame, the Lutz family suffers from an increasingly terrifying haunting. Based on a supposedly true story.

Year of publication:
Publisher(s):

Average Grade
Jack Witzig	Much more effective than Jan Anson's Amityville Horror, the second book in the series is better at presenting the Lutzes as humans and not just as victims. I'm sure author John G. Jones embellished events (assuming they happened in the first place, of course), but his story focuses on the characters' fears and not just on the frightening events happening to them. Less an excercise in imagined special effects than a psychological thriller, Amityville II is an intriguing work. (Oct 16, 2000)
	Submit your review

Based on events that supposedly happened to the Lutz family in the several years after they left the haunted house in Amityville, New York.

A sequel to Jay Anson's Amityville Horror. Furthered in Amityville: The Final Chapter. Basic story continued in other stories of variously fictional content, including Jones's Amityville: The Evil Escapes and Hans Holzer's The Amityville Curse.

The controversey over the veracity of the Amityville haunting has spawned any number of books.

In the late seventies, the Amityville Horror created a great deal of controversy--controversy that lasts, in fact, even to this day. What really happened is a mystery, one that was not helped by the ever-increasing number of fictional movies bearing the Amityville name, some of which have little or nothing to do with the real events or the supposed haunting. So what really happened, and what do people claim happened? Part of that depends on your beliefs. However, what follows is an attempt to put some things in order. Good luck.

• November 13, 1974: A young man named Ronald DeFeo Jr. killed six members of his family--his parents, two brothers, and two sisters--with a high-powered rifle. Despite his defense of demonic possession, DeFeo was convicted of murder and sentenced to 150 years in prison, a term he is still serving.
• December 1975: The Lutz family moves into the house at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville. In early January, they "flee" the house, leaving many of their possessions (some of which had been the DeFeos') behind. They claim to have been terrorized by an evil force.
• 1977: The Amityville Horror, a book by Jay Anson, is published. It is followed by two sequels (written by John G. Jones), at least one other fictional book, and spawns a slew of non-fiction books about the murders and the haunting.
• 1979: The Amityville Horror movie adaptation hits the screen, further exaggerating the supposedly real events that were already enhanced by the book. As of 1999, there are eight films in the series with a ninth reportedly on the way.
• 1979: Hans Holzer's nonfiction account of the DeFeo murders, Murder in Amityville, is published. Depsite the proclamation on the front of the paperback of a "big TV special," Murder in Amityville is filmed but never makes it to television due to lack of interest on the network's part.
• 1980s and 1990s: The number of films and books on the subject grows. One of the owners of the Amityville house changes the famous "eye" windows, and the house number changes. No owners since the Lutz family have reported any haunting activity. Meanwhile, Ronald DeFeo continues to serve his sentence, waiting for his first parole hearing in 1999.
• 1999: The twenty-fifth anniversary of the DeFeo murders sees a possible resurgence in Amityville interest. Ronald DeFeo has his first parole hearing in September. Parole is denied.
• 2000: A TV documentary in the vein of Murder in Amityville is scheduled to air.

• The Amityville Murders