‘The Amityville Murders’ Tries to Find Ghostly Answers to Infamous Murder Case

Alci Rengifo

Many horror films claim to be inspired by true stories. This tends to mean someone read about an infamous event and used the details to spin a script. But “The Amityville Murders” is something different and even questionable. It takes the notorious 1974 DeFeo family murders and attempts to turn it into a schlocky ghost story. Director Daniel Farrands apparently does believe Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr. was pushed into killing his parents and four siblings by ghostly forces. He has the right to believe such a notion, despite little evidencee, but he should have at least attempted to explore the idea seriously.

It’s 1974 in Long Island and the DeFeo family are the kind of Italian Americans who have barbecues, squabble over responsibilities and prepare for Halloween. Ronnie DeFeo (Paul Ben-Victor) is the bullheaded dad, crude and abusive, and possibly involved with the mob. His wife Louise (Diane Franklin) is the kinder parent, willing to overlook the aimlessness of their son Butch (John Robinson). Butch wants to go to college, but might not have the grades, he spends his time getting high and hooking up with childhood sweetheart Donna (Rebekah Graf). Ronnie has basically dismissed Butch as a loser. But his sister Dawn (Chelsea Ricketts) is a true friend. During a party the two hide away with friends in a secret room in their house and chant some kind of conjuring they used to do as kids. As you can already guess, ghostly forces begin to harass Butch and Dawn. As the house spirals into havoc, Butch loses his mind and edges closer to his notorious crime.

What exactly is the purpose of “The Amityville Murders?” For horror and true crime buffs, the DeFeo story is just one element of the haunted house case George and Kathy Lutz made famous with their book “The Amityville Horror,” which has spawned numerous movies. The Lutzes moved into the house where Butch DeFeo killed his family with a shotgun, all as they lay face down, and claimed to have fled after 28 days due to paranormal activities. We are essentially dealing here with a real crime that has bled into an urban myth. Butch’s tragic story could easily be an episode of David Fincher’s “Mindhunter,” instead Farrands tries ever so hard to find a ghost story where there isn’t much of one. It’s not that hard to imagine the various elements that spiraled into turning Butch into a killer. Just from the movie alone he comes across as depressive, remote, a heavy drug-user with an ultra-abusive father beating everyone senseless over any minor thing. At one point he punches Louise and throws Donna around because a local boy flirted with his daughter.  He’s basically your typical mafia-affiliated parent. Paul Ben-Victor, a veteran of movies large and small, delivers the best performance as the demented Ronnie. He calls his son an idiot and wonders why he won’t just enlist to go fight in Vietnam. He hides mob cash in a safe, while strange men in dark suits park outside the house (the movie never explains the nature of this criminal transaction).

If we are to believe Farrands’ interpretation, Butch DeFeo could have been driven to kill his family by the ghosts messing with his head. One can suppose it’s left to our own interpretation, but when you see coins levitating and glowing eyes manifesting themselves from a corner it’s hard to doubt the film believes in the paranormal. Yet to present such a hypothesis you can’t reduce the narrative to a B-movie. These are real murders after all. The ghosts are given little context, we must simply accept they come from whatever portal Butch and Dawn’s chanting has opened. Lainie Kazan plays the DeFeo grandmother, who apparently taught Butch and Dawn how to chant to the spirits. This is about all the exposition we get on why there are figures appearing like black smoke wandering around the house’s stairways and closets. Butch himself is reduced to simply crouching in corners, gripping his hair and walking around in some kind of zombie-trance. Dawn’s character has no purpose other than to scream and ask grandma for advice. As for the siblings, there’s little point to mentioning them because they quite literally do nothing except appear here and there before being shot to death in the film’s grim, final moments. All this is captured with lots of CGI rain and lightning.

What is missing is an approach closer to “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” also based on a real case with supernatural claims. In that film we get both angles side by side, one hinting at demon possession and the other suggesting mental illness. Here it’s all ghouls and spirits, but with little real insights into how or why this real tragedy happened.

“The Amityville Murders” might have a more fascinating backstory. Chelsea Ricketts and John Robinson shared with Entertainment Voice some of their experiences making the film. “I watched everything I could find, I read as much as I could,” said Ricketts. “I don’t think any of us will ever know what happened for sure. But living somewhat in the footsteps of these characters, the mix of abuse and drugs and just mental health alone is my takeaway. I don’t know how much I believe in the house being possessed. I definitely felt family pain, a lot of pain from stories of people who knew the family.”

John Robinson was also struck by the abuse but doesn’t doubt the paranormal possibilities, because of his own, personal experiences. “I was haunted before. I was in Michigan, I was staying in the old slave quarters of a plantation attic and I was full on haunted for four days. It was like somebody wanted to let me know that something happened to them. It was like, I’d be taking a shower and get out and there were dead bees everywhere, and I would check the windows and they were closed. I didn’t think much of it. Then there was this little door in the corner of the room and it started rattling like crazy, violently. It was at 10 or 11 pm, and I’m the only one in this house.” Robinson’s story shames the ghosts of the movie. “I sit down on the bed and I’m asking this spirit, or whatever, what’s going on and the pages sitting next to me fly across the room. But the most terrifying thing that happened was that I sat down on my bed, and I could feel the imprint of someone sitting down next to me. I still know the feeling, it’s the craziest feeling I’ve ever had.” Now that would be a good movie.

“The Amityville Murders” opens Feb. 8 in select theaters.