This week, The Amityville Horror (2005) opens, introducing a new generation of people to a story that's about thirty years old now and now truer then it was back when the original film, The Amityville Horror (1979), was released.

Back in 1974, Ronald Defeo, Jr. murdered his entire family in the infamous Dutch-colonial house on 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, Long Island. At the trial, Defeo claimed that he had seen the devil and that demonic voices had forced him to kill his family.

Fair enough.

About a year later, the George and Kathy Lutz and their family moved into the house. They were told up front that the Defeo murders were committed there, and they bought it, anyway (it was only $80,000). Once they moved in, strange things started happening:

They began to hear mysterious noises that they could not account for. Locked windows and doors would inexplicably open and close, as if by invisible hands. George Lutz, a sturdy former Marine, claimed to be plagued by the sound of a phantom brass band that would march back and forth through the house. When a Catholic priest entered the house, after agreeing to exorcize it, an eerie, disembodied voice told him to "get out."

After the aborted exorcism, the events began to intensify. The thumping and scratching sounds grew worse, a devilish creature was seen outside the windows at night, George Lutz was seemingly "possessed" by an evil spirit and green slime even oozed from the walls and ceiling. The family was further terrified by ghostly apparitions of hooded figures, clouds of flies that appeared from nowhere, cold chills, personality changes, sickly odors, objects moving about on their own, the repeated disconnection of their telephone service and communication between the youngest Lutz child and a devilish pig that she called "Jodie." Kathy Lutz reported that she was often beaten and scratched by unseen hands and that one night, she was literally levitated up off the bed. (From "Amityville: Horror or Hoax?")

These strange things culminated in a hellish night during which the family fled the house, never to return.

But their story has, rightly, been called a giant hoax, and no serious paranormal types consider it to be "a true story." Once strange phenomena started occurring, the Lutzes didn't call the police. They called up a family friend, Jay Anson, who was a novelist. It was Anson who penned The Amityville Horror in 1977, an account of the horrors the Lutzes faced at 112 Ocean Avenue. Anson also worked on the screenplay for the 1979 film, but died before it was released (how mysterious . . . or not).

The house was built in the 19th century, and no family before or since the Lutzes (with the exception of the Defeos, of course) has ever had any paranormal experiences there.

Additionally, the Lutzes make claims that are not true:

• The "built on an Indian burial ground" explanation so popular in contemporary horror films comes from the 1979 film and the book. No evidence to substantiate this claim has ever been found, and area historians say that there were no Indian settlements where Ocean Avenue is now.
• The mysterious "red room" from the film that was supposedly not in the house plans was in the house plans. The 1979 film shows the room behind a cinder-block wall, but the room's entrance was merely blocked. Furthermore, the entire room wasn't painted red. (And it probably wasn't a Portal to Hell.)
• The Lutzes have changed their story over time. Facts change from the book to television interviews (especially an episode of In Search Of in which they reveal all-new facts, like their daughter's eerie singing).

Hopefully The Amityville Horror will be a good movie. What I do not hope is that people keep attempting to pass this off as a "true" story. Its veracity is in question (and that's putting it lightly), and there are plenty of substantiated hauntings elsewhere in the world.