Editorials
‘The Amityville Murders’ – A Ghoulish and Exploitative Look at the DeFeo Murders [The Amityville IP]
Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a new Amityville Horror film to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”
There’s something frustrating about a film that begins with a lot of potential, and then thoroughly squanders it.
Writer/director Daniel Farrands’ The Amityville Murders is one such film. It’s one of the few “true” entries from the last dozen or so films, in that it actually tackles the Amityville story by focusing on the true crime murders of the DeFeo family. It’s well-shot, looks good, has mostly decent (albeit broad) performances.
These are all things that many of the IP cash-grab entries have been lacking.
Unfortunately it’s also incredibly sensational, relies too heavily on repetitive supernatural elements, and – most egregiously – features a distasteful ending that highlights Farrands’ unfortunate tendency to exploit real life tragedy for cash.
If the name sounds familiar, Daniel Farrands is well-known in horror circles for directing two of the genre’s most significant documentaries on longstanding horror franchises: Never Sleep Again (2010), on the Nightmare on Elm Street series and 2013’s Crystal Lake Memories, on the Friday the 13th series. He’s also been involved in docs on The Haunting in Connecticut (which he produced) and the 2005 doc Amityville Confidential.
All this to say, he has a certain amount of horror pedigree.
There are more than a few issues with The Amityville Murders, which purports to cover much of the same ground as the 1982 sequel Amityville II: The Possession. The film focuses on the DeFeo family over a period of three weeks, from late October 1974 through the night of Nov 13, when Ronald “Butch” DeFeo (John Robinson), the family’s eldest son, killed six members of his family with a shotgun as they lay sleeping in their beds.
The DeFeos are a deeply Italian family (ie: everyone is putting on very thick unconvincing accents) and family patriarch Ronnie (Paul Ben-Victor) works for the mob. Matriarch Louise (played, in a bit of inspired casting, by Amityville II’s Diane Franklin) is the doting, supportive mother who frets about her oldest children – Butch and twin sister Dawn (Chelsea Ricketts) – as they prepare to leave the nest. The other children, however, are non-entities in the film, which focuses almost exclusively on Ronnie’s abusive behaviour towards Butch and the tight bond between brother and sister. (Disappointingly for the “franchise,” there’s only one moment of implied incest: a dream sequence when Butch is high and briefly imagines his sister giving him head in his car).
Anyone familiar with the story, or anyone who has seen the original pair of Amityville films, or even anyone who pay attention to the opening scene, knows where this story is going. Farrands doesn’t so much reinvent the wheel as much as he tentatively introduces a few additional elements. This includes more emphasis on Butch and Dawn’s experiments with “summoning” the spirits in the red room in the cellar, as well as the suggestion that the pair are responsible for unleashing the shadowy figures that plague Butch’s vision as the calendar creeps towards Nov 13.
One other interesting element is the exploration of fate and acceptance. Part way through the film, Louise relates a dream she’s had where the family meets “a beautiful, terrible end. I see rain and blood and when it’s all over, I feel at peace because we’re all together [in our home] when it happens.”
This ominous prediction naturally anticipates the family’s demise, while also hinting at the supernatural prowess of the female members of the family. Butch and Dawn know how to summon because they have been taught by their grandma Nonna (Lainie Kazan), and – in the climax of the film – Dawn returns home and willingly embraces death, choosing to climb into bed and be shot by her brother, in order to fulfill her mother’s dream.
Unfortunately this is the only real element that justifies revisiting such a familiar tale. The Amityville Murders is also far too long for what it’s doing, particularly the last act. Farrands relies too heavily on Butch’s generic-looking supernatural visions, which quickly grow repetitive and dull. There’s also a throwaway subplot that suggests the mob is surveying the family home (as if to offer another explanation for the murders), but this fails to add anything of note. Throw in a litany of teen characters in the first act, all of whom disappear by the middle stretch, and large portions of the film feels like padding.
This would all be tolerable if not for the film’s conclusion. Not only does The Amityville Murder show all of the murders, including three underage kids (admittedly this isn’t that unusual for horror), but the film ends with actual crime scene photos of the real life murders, including the aforementioned underage children.
It’s gratuitous, it’s needlessly exploitative, and it’s extremely gross.
The fact that Farrands has gone on to make similarly tasteless films about the Manson murders (2019’s The Haunting of Sharon Tate), OJ Simpson (2019’s The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson), Ted Bundy (2021’s Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman) and Aileen Wuornos (2021’s Aileen Wuornos: American Boogeyman) confirms that he has discovered the lucrative potential of true crime narratives.
The point of this editorial series is to explore what kind of art gets made when a notable intellectual property becomes available to any creative. Thus far many of these have schlocky and campy low budget efforts; they’ve had a tenuous-at-best connection to the source material; some have even been in name-only or barely qualify as a feature. This is the first Amityville entry, however, that feels truly gratuitous: The Amityville Murders exists entirely for its ending, but that conclusion is so lacking in basic humanity that it undoes any and all audience goodwill.
The Amityville Murders is technically one of the best made entries in this series, but its ending is needlessly ghoulish and exploitative. It’s shameful.
The Amityville IP Awards go to…
- Best Dialogue: At the height of the climactic storm, Nonna tells Dawn: “We’re all haunted by something. By our past. By our mistakes. By our sins.” I’m not convinced any actor could have convincingly sold this dialogue.
- Runner-Up: Floozy Donna (Rebekah Graf), in an attempt to seduce Butch, excitedly exclaims: “This song gets me so hot. It’s the best!”
- Questionable FX: The Amityville films have routinely been challenged by dicey FX, so it’s hardly a surprise that a CGI bird that flies into the window and dies doesn’t look very good.
- POV: Farrands and cinematographer Carlo Rinaldi get a lot of mileage out of overhead shots, as well as the house’s roaming point of view shots, which play like a direct homage to Amityville II.
- Elephant Actor: It’s a delight to see Robinson back on screen. The actor made his start as the non-professional lead in Gus Van Sant’s 2003 Columbine movie (which I discussed earlier this year on Horror Queers) and he’s really solid as the lead!
- The Lutzes: The final scene offers both a post-script and a brief glimpse of Kathy Lutz that ties into the events captured in the OG 1979 film, as well as the 2005 remake. It’s inevitable, but it’s also groan-worthy.
Next Time: We’re finally leaving behind 2018 and jumping ahead to 2020’s Amityville Island, the third “franchise” entry from director Mark Polonia (Amityville Exorcism and Amityville Death House).
Soon after the New Hollywood generation took over the entertainment industry, they started having children. And more than any filmmakers that came before—they were terrified. Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976), Eraserhead (1977), The Brood (1979), The Shining (1980), Possession (1981), and many others all deal, at least in part, with the fears of becoming or being a parent. What if my child turns out to be a monster? is corrupted by some evil force? or turns out to be the fucking Antichrist? What if I screw them up somehow, or can’t help them, or even go insane and try to kill them? Horror has always been at its best when exploring relatable fears through extreme circumstances. A prime example of this is Larry Cohen’s 1974 monster-baby movie It’s Alive, which explores the not only the rollercoaster of emotions that any parent experiences when confronted with the difficulties of raising a child, but long-standing questions of who or what is at fault when something goes horribly wrong.
Cohen begins making his underlying points early in the film as Frank Davis (John P. Ryan) discusses the state of the world with a group of expectant fathers in a hospital waiting room. They discuss the “overabundance of lead” in foods and the environment, smog, and pesticides that only serve to produce roaches that are “bigger, stronger, and harder to kill.” Frank comments that this is “quite a world to bring a kid into.” This has long been a discussion point among people when trying to decide whether to have kids or not. I’ve had many conversations with friends who have said they feel it’s irresponsible to bring children into such a violent, broken, and dangerous world, and I certainly don’t begrudge them this. My wife and I did decide to have children but that doesn’t mean that it’s been easy.
Immediately following this scene comes It’s Alive’s most famous sequence in which Frank’s wife Lenore (Sharon Farrell) is the only person left alive in her delivery room, the doctors clawed and bitten to death by her mutant baby, which has escaped. “What does my baby look like!? What’s wrong with my baby!?” she screams as nurses wheel her frantically into a recovery room. The evening that had begun with such joy and excitement at the birth of their second child turned into a nightmare. This is tough for me to write, but on some level, I can relate to this whiplash of emotion. When my second child was born, they came about five weeks early. I’ll use the pronouns “they/them” for privacy reasons when referring to my kids. Our oldest was still very young and went to stay with my parents and we sped off to the hospital where my wife was taken into an operating room for an emergency c-section. I was able to carry our newborn into the NICU (natal intensive care unit) where I was assured that this was routine for all premature births. The nurses assured me there was nothing to worry about and the baby looked big and healthy. I headed to where my wife was taken to recover to grab a few winks assuming that everything was fine. Well, when I awoke, I headed back over to the NICU to find that my child was not where I left them. The nurse found me and told me that the baby’s lungs were underdeveloped, and they had to put them in a special room connected to oxygen tubes and wires to monitor their vitals.
It’s difficult to express the fear that overwhelmed me in those moments. Everything turned out okay, but it took a while and I’m convinced to this day that their anxiety struggles spring from these first weeks of life. As our children grew, we learned that two of the three were on the spectrum and that anxiety, depression, ADHD, and OCD were also playing a part in their lives. Parents, at least speaking for myself, can’t help but blame themselves for the struggles their children face. The “if only” questions creep in and easily overcome the voices that assure us that it really has nothing to do with us. In the film, Lenore says, “maybe it’s all the pills I’ve been taking that brought this on.” Frank muses aloud about how he used to think that Frankenstein was the monster, but when he got older realized he was the one that made the monster. The aptly named Frank is wondering if his baby’s mutation is his fault, if he created the monster that is terrorizing Los Angeles. I have made plenty of “if only” statements about myself over the years. “If only I hadn’t had to work so much, if only I had been around more when they were little.” Mothers may ask themselves, “did I have a drink, too much coffee, or a cigarette before I knew I was pregnant? Was I too stressed out during the pregnancy?” In other words, most parents can’t help but wonder if it’s all their fault.
At one point in the film, Frank goes to the elementary school where his baby has been sighted and is escorted through the halls by police. He overhears someone comment about “screwed up genes,” which brings about age-old questions of nature vs. nurture. Despite the voices around him from doctors and detectives that say, “we know this isn’t your fault,” Frank can’t help but think it is, and that the people who try to tell him it isn’t really think it’s his fault too. There is no doubt that there is a hereditary element to the kinds of mental illness struggles that my children and I deal with. But, and it’s a bit but, good parenting goes a long way in helping children deal with these struggles. Kids need to know they’re not alone, a good parent can provide that, perhaps especially parents that can relate to the same kinds of struggles. The question of nature vs. nurture will likely never be entirely answered but I think there’s more than a good chance that “both/and” is the case. Around the midpoint of the film, Frank agrees to disown the child and sign it over for medical experimentation if caught or killed. Lenore and the older son Chris (Daniel Holzman) seek to nurture and teach the baby, feeling that it is not a monster, but a member of the family.
It’s Alive takes these ideas to an even greater degree in the fact that the Davis Baby really is a monster, a mutant with claws and fangs that murders and eats people. The late ’60s and early ’70s also saw the rise in mass murderers and serial killers which heightened the nature vs. nurture debate. Obviously, these people were not literal monsters but human beings that came from human parents, but something had gone horribly wrong. Often the upbringing of these killers clearly led in part to their antisocial behavior, but this isn’t always the case. It’s Alive asks “what if a ‘monster’ comes from a good home?” In this case is it society, environmental factors, or is it the lead, smog, and pesticides? It is almost impossible to know, but the ending of the film underscores an uncomfortable truth—even monsters have parents.
As the film enters its third act, Frank joins the hunt for his child through the Los Angeles sewers and into the L.A. River. He is armed with a rifle and ready to kill on sight, having divorced himself from any relationship to the child. Then Frank finds his baby crying in the sewers and his fatherly instincts take over. With tears in his eyes, he speaks words of comfort and wraps his son in his coat. He holds him close, pats and rocks him, and whispers that everything is going to be okay. People often wonder how the parents of those who perform heinous acts can sit in court, shed tears, and defend them. I think it’s a complex issue. I’m sure that these parents know that their child has done something evil, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still their baby. Your child is a piece of yourself formed into a whole new human being. Disowning them would be like cutting off a limb, no matter what they may have done. It doesn’t erase an evil act, far from it, but I can understand the pain of a parent in that situation. I think It’s Alive does an exceptional job placing its audience in that situation.
Despite the serious issues and ideas being examined in the film, It’s Alive is far from a dour affair. At heart, it is still a monster movie and filled with a sense of fun and a great deal of pitch-black humor. In one of its more memorable moments, a milkman is sucked into the rear compartment of his truck as red blood mingles with the white milk from smashed bottles leaking out the back of the truck and streaming down the street. Just after Frank agrees to join the hunt for his baby, the film cuts to the back of an ice cream truck with the words “STOP CHILDREN” emblazoned on it. It’s a movie filled with great kills, a mutant baby—created by make-up effects master Rick Baker early in his career, and plenty of action—and all in a PG rated movie! I’m telling you, the ’70s were wild. It just also happens to have some thoughtful ideas behind it as well.
Which was Larry Cohen’s specialty. Cohen made all kinds of movies, but his most enduring have been his horror films and all of them tackle the social issues and fears of the time they were made. God Told Me To (1976), Q: The Winged Serpent (1982), and The Stuff (1985) are all great examples of his socially aware, low-budget, exploitation filmmaking with a brain and It’s Alive certainly fits right in with that group. Cohen would go on to write and direct two sequels, It Lives Again (aka It’s Alive 2) in 1978 and It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive in 1987 and is credited as a co-writer on the 2008 remake. All these films explore the ideas of parental responsibility in light of the various concerns of the times they were made including abortion rights and AIDS.
Fifty years after It’s Alive was initially released, it has only become more relevant in the ensuing years. Fears surrounding parenthood have been with us since the beginning of time but as the years pass the reasons for these fears only seem to become more and more profound. In today’s world the conversation of the fathers in the waiting room could be expanded to hormones and genetic modifications in food, terrorism, climate change, school and other mass shootings, and other threats that were unknown or at least less of a concern fifty years ago. Perhaps the fearmongering conspiracy theories about chemtrails and vaccines would be mentioned as well, though in a more satirical fashion, as fears some expectant parents encounter while endlessly doomscrolling Facebook or Twitter. Speaking for myself, despite the struggles, the fears, and the sadness that sometimes comes with having children, it’s been worth it. The joys ultimately outweigh all of that, but I understand the terror too. Becoming a parent is no easy choice, nor should it be. But as I look back, I can say that I’m glad we made the choice we did.
I wonder if Frank and Lenore can say the same thing.
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