chiller blog

Posted Aug 25, 08 10:00 AM

Easter in Amityville

Easter, 199... well, er...

Easter. A while back.

My cousin Rick lived in Hackensack, New Jersey. I flew out for the weekend and he played gracious tour guide -- except for that incident where he mouthed about my taking five minutes to snap one photo (no way was that five minutes). Rick also copped an increasingly perturbed attitude when it came to being the lucky subject of ground-breaking compositions I had Ansel Adams-ed. Okay, alright, yeah, yeah, yeah -- so I did flop down on the Manhattan sidewalk, aiming my $20 camera to the skyscrapers and asked Rick to stand over me. He huffed away!

Honestly.

But Rick did indulge me that one thing anyone visiting New York has got to see -- Amityville.

Oooooh, Amityville! Bleeding walls, hell-hatched flies, and Rod Steiger in a caffeinated state of constant caniption. Beyond the Jay Anson best-seller, the Hans Holzer paranormal paperback expose and the 1979 Margot Kidder-James Brolin shocker. And, yes, beyond the not-exactly-subtle-but-still-kinda-creepy-yet-thoroughly-overproduced 1982 prequel, Amityville II: The Possession (premiering this week on Chiller).

And there’s a lot more beyond where that came from. An unofficial sequel – Amityville 3-D (1983) -- with Meg Ryan in an early throw-away role. Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes (1989), a TV chapter starring Oscar winner Patty Duke. A has-nothing-to-do-with-it straight-to-video con job retitle, The Amityville Curse (1990). More variants on the material bread-crumbed into video stores -- plots involving cursed clocks (Amityville 1992: It’s About Time), homeless people distributing mirrors (1993’s Amityville: A New Generation) and spooky Barbie residences resembling Hamptons real estate (Amityville Dollhouse, 1996). Interesting what a little IMDB’ing can yield -- David Newlon, executive producer of Dollhouse, doesn’t just play in my tennis league. He plays in my Thursday night pool. Watch out for that dude’s serve.

Finally, retooled from dormancy, the 2005 remake where Ryan Reynolds' washboard abs seem -- ohhh -- 20 years outta place.

Guess what? Amityville exists, probably an hour east on Long Island. A laid-back suburb where residents eternally rake autumn leaves and probably wish celluloid film never got invented. Nice people who seem extra-sensory in spotting sedans passing suspiciously... under the speed limit... trying to... find... mm-hmm.

Rick patiently chauffeurs. I crouch under the passenger window, half-obsessed, half realizing that I seriously should get a life. We turn left then right. Doubling back. Try this avenue. Down this block. All for the sake of a summer home with attic windows aligned like spooky eyes. "Ocean Avenue" -- I remembered that. But the house number... the house number?

"There it is! There it is! There it is!" I shout, gesticulating to the corner, rifling up fast and snapping like a paparazzi ingrate lacking an auto-advance feature. Now I know how Jeanne Tripplehorn felt when they set foot on dry land in Waterworld.

But hold the phone. Something's not right, quite. Sure, the architectural style's the same. But... didn't the house in the movie have a boathouse?

We drove around another ten minutes. It was then that I saw a homeowner chatting with a neighbor at the picket fence, the former's residence -- and a lake -- discreetly behind the two. The homeowner monitored me like a Beverly Hills taxpayer zeroing in on a tacky tour bus. The house, a freshly-painted eggshell white and spring yellow, now sprouted square-shuttered windows where demonic eyes formerly burned. This guy had plucked one of my childhood nightmares and transformed it into... into... well, his house.

I was numb. Rick steered us around the far lake road, just to be certain. There was the boathouse, aligned in perfect horror geography. Yup. e had it right, alright.

We stopped a few blocks away at a truly authentic site -- a genuine New York, Italian-owned-and-operated pizzeria. Over a consolatory Sprite and slice of pepperoni, the manager and his brother laughingly discharged that...

1. Yes, a family unfortunately was murdered by their son;

2. The son claimed, in his defense, that he heard voices in the house telling him to kill his family;

and

3. The Lutzes moved in, then moved out 28 days later... their accounts of possession, poltergeists, and malevolent forces sweeping into a national phenomenon.

But that's it, chief.

We left Amityville, with more than our gas and dining dollars remaining in the local economy. A legend had been, if not fully debunked in my mind, momentously defanged. A tinge of guilt lingered, the homeowner's protective gaze still resonating on my conscience. It was as if I was at the cemetery, my oldest brother telling me to be careful when I accidentally stepped on the corner grass six feet above where someone was buried.

Art -- or at least, decreasingly popular entertainment -- can imitate life in sensational terms, such so that it takes on its own life. But legends -- they live much, much longer.

Even when someone decides to put their new sofa over them.