Book of the Week: The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson

When I was a kid, hands-down Amityville horror was one of those movies that was so dark and creepy, I couldn't really sit through it until I was probably 10 (which, if you've read and heard my ramblings over the last few years, you'll realize was pretty late for me, considering I had watched Dead Alive probably a dozen times at that point.) This is the book that started it all.

I'm not going to say it's based on a true story. I desperately want to, but I think we can all agree that events in this story are highly dramatized. There have been lawsuits. Debates. Fights. I'd like to believe drunken horror nerd brawls, even, about the events in this book based on the horrific ghostly experiences of the Lutz family in 1975. They left the house in just under a month.

For context, in 1974 Ronald DeFreo Jr brutally murdered his family in this house (which, to its credit, looks like a pretty damn creepy house even without the overlay and flames on the modernized book cover above). This book is not about Ronald, but each element of the book sort of comes together very well, and if you haven't had enough of the fictional story, there's so much you can explore after you've read this (from DeFreo to the Warrens, a pair of paranormal investigators whose cases inspired Jay Anson to write this). True or not, it's a great book, a modern classic, and well worth your time on a stormy night or a sunny day.