Amityvilleville podcast review: Sifting through the wreckage
From the infamous murders to a seemingly endless wave of terrible sequels, Alex Goldman and Caroline Thompson sift through the bizarre legacy of The Amityville Horror
In November 1974, 23-year-old Ronald DeFeo shot and killed all six members of his immediate family as they slept in their home in Amityville, Long Island. By the following Christmas, the DeFeos’ old family home had been taken over by George and Kathy Lutz, a young couple with three children, excited to be taking their first steps on the property ladder. Though delighted to have purchased their first home for just $80,000, the family fled the property after 28 days, citing a number of run-ins with paranormal beings who refused to give them a warm welcome to suburbia. Or so the story goes, at least.
Exact details of what went down at 112 Ocean Avenue remain unconfirmed: some claim the Lutz family had been haunted by the ghost of DeFeo Snr, while others claim the property’s expensive upkeep forced them away. Still, horror writer Jay Anson was inspired by this tale, penning a 200-page novel, The Amityville Horror, in 1977. Liberal with its use of artistic licence and comically graphic, the book and subsequent film developed a cult following, culminating in the production of nearly 100 spin-off films over the next 50 years.
Giving themselves the enormous task of watching every single Amityville film and documenting all their thoughts are podcaster Alex Goldman and culture writer Caroline Thompson, the latter of whom describes the brief as ‘the podcast where Alex Goldman and I watch 90,000 fucking terrible movies and report it, for you, the viewers’. While the original story was a tragic one, Goldman and Thompson keep things light-hearted, laughing their way through savage takedowns of each of the sub-genre’s offerings. Although the episodes are structured rather loosely and at times sound like the conversations typically overheard while waiting to order at a busy bar, the largely inane chit-chat and occasionally strong one-liners make this sufficiently good background noise for any horror fan.
New episodes of Amityvilleville are available every Friday.