Just a short review, but I did enjoy this documentary for the most part. It's shot like most documentaries between talking heads, interviews with Daniel Lutz and others, as well as Lutz playing many styles of guitar in little shots to fill spaces. The man tells his story of being a young boy at the time of the supposed hauntings his family, the Lutz', experienced while living in Amityville after the DeFeo murders. He has obviously been haunted in one way or another, and depending on your views of the supernatural, you might lean more to one side. Daniel was clearly damaged, but significantly more so by the way his mother and his stepfather George Lutz took the chance to go national with their stories of hauntings in the Amityville home, and no matter how much he claims there were supernatural going ons while they lived there it is very evident the family drama going on surrounding everything that had supposedly happened was the most crippling dilemma in Daniel's young life.
All in all, I give this documentary an 7 out of 10 stars. It's well shot, and interesting. The only thing which holds me back from giving any more stars to this review is subject matter itself: Daniel is a bit of a jerk, and I understand these events he perceives as having happened are certainly what constitute having a traumatic deal with life, but he agreed to do the documentary, and spends moments snarling at crew members. One particularly off-putting moment was when they visited an older lady (Lorraine Warren) who was close with Daniel, and she asked them if anyone on the crew did not believe in God because her intentions were to unveil a supposed holy relic (a piece of the cross Jesus was crucified on, I believe) to everyone present; Daniel gets a bit unruly about how everyone reacts to being questioned about this, and says if they don't say so now he'll "call them out on it later", which struck me as a bit of a tough guy move. His personality can be awfully rotten at times, and for a guy who acts like he wants to be a part of the documentary, he simultaneously tries to embody an attitude of a guy who wants to tell everyone to get lost, hiding from the media; overall, he is a confused man, or perhaps he also is trying to get his 15 minutes. Either way, objectively it's a decent to good documentary, and highly recommended for anyone interested in the Amityville hauntings, as I have been for some years now.
All in all, I give this documentary an 7 out of 10 stars. It's well shot, and interesting. The only thing which holds me back from giving any more stars to this review is subject matter itself: Daniel is a bit of a jerk, and I understand these events he perceives as having happened are certainly what constitute having a traumatic deal with life, but he agreed to do the documentary, and spends moments snarling at crew members. One particularly off-putting moment was when they visited an older lady (Lorraine Warren) who was close with Daniel, and she asked them if anyone on the crew did not believe in God because her intentions were to unveil a supposed holy relic (a piece of the cross Jesus was crucified on, I believe) to everyone present; Daniel gets a bit unruly about how everyone reacts to being questioned about this, and says if they don't say so now he'll "call them out on it later", which struck me as a bit of a tough guy move. His personality can be awfully rotten at times, and for a guy who acts like he wants to be a part of the documentary, he simultaneously tries to embody an attitude of a guy who wants to tell everyone to get lost, hiding from the media; overall, he is a confused man, or perhaps he also is trying to get his 15 minutes. Either way, objectively it's a decent to good documentary, and highly recommended for anyone interested in the Amityville hauntings, as I have been for some years now.