I have read a lot of the comments for "The Amityville Horror" and was surprised to hear that many people thought that it was not real. The movie of course was not real and neither was anything shown in the movie. But, as a resident of Long Island, NY where this movie takes place I can tell you that a gruesome murder did in fact take place. The house where the murders did took place is still intact and a family does in fact live in it. About 25 years ago a man in his 20's killed his family (Defeo's). His sister helped him. The man did not want to kill the children but the sister wanted to so she could move away with the boyfriend. So I would just like to say that the movie was in fact based on an actual event.