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, each episode looking at a different aspect of the case.
