The_Amityville_Horror
Kritikan
Sebagian besar kontroversi yang melingkupi "The Amityville Horror" dapat ditelusur balik dengan cara melihat penjualan buku ini dari tahun ke tahun. Cover dari buku ini menunjukkan bahwa ditulis berdasarkan kisah nyata, berdasarkan pada peristiwa variabel. Sebuah komentar dari Los Angeles Times diperlihatkan di depan cover: "A FASCINATING, FRIGHTENING BOOK... THE SCARIEST TRUE STORY I HAVE READ IN YEARS", dan dibawahnya dituliskan:"MORE HIDEOUSLY FRIGHTENING THAN THE EXORCIST BECAUSE IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED!" Tulisan ini menjelaskan bahwa buku ini lebih mengerikan daripada film The Exorcist karena berdasarkan kisah nyata. The Exorcist adalah sebuah film laris pada tahun 1973 yang menceritakan kebiasaan lama pada tahun 1970-an, yakni pengusiran setan atau roh jahat. Banyak peristiwa dari buku ini yang mirip dengan model cerita film The Exorcist, hal inilah yang menyebabkan munculnya kecurigaan. Joy Anson menjelaskan bahwa "Ada banyak bukti sederhana yang menguatkan, yang mendukung pernyataan keluarga Lutz atas peristiwa ini", tetapi sebagian orang masih tidak percaya. Tidak lama setelah peluncuran buku pada September 1977, para penulis dan peneliti lain mulai mempelajari peristiwa di 112 Ocean Avenue, dan kesimpulan yang mereka dapatkan sering berselisih dengan yang ada di dalam buku Jay Anson. <!-- The role of Father Pecoraro in the story has been given considerable attention. During the course of the lawsuit surrounding the case in the late 1970s, Father Pecoraro stated in an affidavit that his only contact with the Lutzes concerning the matter had been by telephone. Other accounts say that Father Pecoraro did visit the house but experienced nothing unusual there. Father Pecoraro gave what may have been his only on-camera interview about his recollections during an edition of In Search of... broadcast in 1980. In Search of.. was a series of half-hour television documentaries about the paranormal, and was narrated by Leonard Nimoy. Father Pecoraro's face was obscured during the interview to preserve his anonymity. In the interview, he repeated the claim that he heard a voice saying "Get out", but stopped short of giving it a paranormal origin. He also stated that he felt a slap on his face during the visit, and that he did subsequently experience blistering on his hands. As with many areas of The Amityville Horror, the inconsistent accounts given by Father Pecoraro about the extent of his involvement with the Lutz family lead to more questions than answers. The claims of physical damage to the locks, doors and windows were rejected by Jim and Barbara Cromarty, who moved into the house after the Lutzes. In a television interview filmed at the house for That's Incredible!, Barbara Cromarty argued that they appeared to be the original items and had not been repaired. The That's Incredible! feature also showed that the "Red Room" was a small closet in the basement, and was known to the previous owners of the house since it was not concealed in any way. The claim made in Chapter 11 of the book that the house was built on a site where the local Shinnecock Indians had once abandoned the mentally ill and the dying was rejected by local Native American leaders. The claim of cloven hoofprints in the snow on January 1, 1976 was rejected by other researchers, since a check on the weather records showed that there had been no snow in Amityville on the day in question. Neighbors reported nothing unusual during the time that the Lutzes were living there. Police officers are shown visiting the house in the book and 1979 film, but records showed that the Lutzes did not call the police during the period that they were living on Ocean Avenue. There was no bar in Amityville called The Witches' Brew at the time, and Ronald DeFeo, Jr. was a regular at Henry's Bar, a short distance from 112 Ocean Avenue.