TELEVISION

FT’s very own couch potato, STU NEVILLE, casts an eye over the small screen’s current fortean offerings

Forty years ago, a publishing sensation was born: a book, promoted as wholly factual, by journalist Jay Anson about the haunting of a house in Amityville, Long Island, which had been the site of a massacre years before. The perp, Ronnie DeFeo, claimed at the time he’d been possessed by malign forces that had forced him to take the lives of his family; when the young Lutz family subsequently moved in they apparently experienced all manner of terrifying phenomena. Anson’s book sold in the millions and a film (and multiple sequels) soon followed, confusing and elaborating the story for the next four decades. Now, 40 years on, MGM+ have attempted to unsplice the knots of confusion in a well-crafted four-part series, Amityville: An Origin Story, each episode looking at a different aspect of the case.

Part 1, “The Haunting”, deals broadly with the alleged events: Chris Quarantino, elder son of Kathy Lutz (and stepson of George) says he wants to set the record straight about the paranormal goings-on in the house on Ocean Avenue . With George and Kathy Lutz dead, he’s the key witness. The series sets out its stall, with unsubtle indications of where it’s likely to go.

As is customary with any documentary featuring beardy American lateSixties criminal subcultures, there’s a Beatles reference (George’s early flirtation with Transcendental Meditation provides the link, rather than the usual “Helter Skelter”.) There’s a

Anson’s Amityville book sold in the millions and a film soon followed

lot of focus on Lutz’s Vietnam experience, his time with a biker gang, drugs, drink and guns; though by the time he had married Kathy he seemed to have cleaned up his act. However, soon after moving into the house he started wandering around at night talking to himself and became quick to anger. What’s odd is that the programme waits until the last 15 minutes to start cataloguing the alleged paranormal events – talking pigs, mysterious trotter prints in the snow, a fly infestation, a bleeding wall – as if they were a mere afterthought; which they may well have been all along.

Part 2 (“The Crime”) starts with Mad Men-era ads for Long Island as the ideal suburb, all tail-fins and sun loungers, along with Amityville’s history as a mob haven. The scene set, there follows much big-lapelled, bouffant, archive news footage of the shooting of six members of the DeFeo family. Much is made of the bodies; a friend describes them being carried into the church with the credibility-stretching detail that the coffins were open, in some cases exposing the gunshot injuries, and that DeFeo’s mobster grandfather was toting a gun at the wake. The implication is that the family were in no way innocent despite three of the victims being children. DeFeo is interviewed, describing the antagonism between him and his father and describing the murders as “a shame”: he initially denied involvement, before a suspiciously quick volte-face, suddenly becoming hell-bent on taking the rap.

Part 3 (“The Big Time”) focuses on Anson’s book and the subsequent film adaptations as the whole thing becomes a wellrun and lucrative circus. There are lots of Exorcist and Omen references; the cultural zeitgeist was very possession-oriented. The Lutzes themselves apparently deduced that DeFeo did commit the murders, but was spiritually coerced into doing so by the house. William Weber, DeFeo’s defence attorney, was writing a book about the case and offered the same opinion: the fact that the Lutzes made their initial statements from Weber’s office tends to point to a rather obvious conclusion, given there was clearly money to be made. Enter the investigators, including Hans Holzer and Ed and Lorraine Warren. There are séances and news reports; the Lutzes dispense with Weber and instead engage Jay Anson; and we all know where it went from there. The Lutzes did extremely well from the proceeds, especially as the juggernaut rumbled on with the movie – universally panned by critics, but a huge success at the box office. However, the cracks began to show as friends of both the DeFeos and the Lutzes said they found the supernatural claims ridiculous – local vox-pops say much the same, and Weber then cheerfully and damningly admits that the whole story was a fraud, cooked up over several bottles of wine.

And so on to the final part, “Feedback Loop”, which tries to make sense of what’s gone before; and it transpires there was rather a lot they were holding back. Stepson Christopher flatly pins the whole thing on George, alleging that Lutz was using drugs they’d found stashed, presumably by Ronnie DeFeo: cut to a montage of people speaking in tongues, unrelated pics of Uri Geller and Crowley, and (for some reason) guppies. A highlight is George and Kathy’s “exorcism” at the hands of “The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Exorcist”, Christopher Neil-Smith of St Saviour’s, London. The terminology is important here, as the ritual is described as an exorcism by George, but as a blessing by others – and they are very different things. Just because Neil-Smith was an exorcist, it doesn’t mean every rite he performed was an exorcism. Footage of the ritual lurches into the comic as the reverend, who bears a strong resemblance to Robin Williams, grabs the heads of the Lutzes, kneeling before him at crotch level, and, with his head rolling and yelling, appears to be enjoying the occasion.

Holzer points out that there was money to be made; this, along with Weber’s earlier admission, makes it clear how we’re supposed to view the whole saga. And then, in the last 15 minutes, comes a big reveal: documents from George Lutz’s previous annulment reveal that he may or may not have had Antisocial Personality Disorder, along with the disclosure that psychiatrists examining Ronnie DeFeo concluded he experienced similar. So, this is where it’s left – cynical, manipulative people spot a cultural trope and exploit it mercilessly. And 40 years – and 30 film sequels – later, the exploitation continues. With thanks to Ruth Morris.