Eric Walter
My Amityville Horror is a new take on the well known story as director Eric Walters brings Daniel Lutz's story for the first time.
Daniel Lutz was just ten years old when his family fled the Amityville house and he is speaking about what happened for the very first time.
I caught up with Walters and the film's producer Andrea Adams to chat about the new movie and the inspiration behind it.
- My Amityville Horror is your new documentary so can you tell me a little bit about the movie?
Eric Walter: My Amityville Horror is the first person perspective of Daniel Lutz, who was ten years old when he lived in the Amityville Horror house in 1976 and his family is notorious for being affiliated with the books and the films.
They claimed that the house was haunted and after twenty eight days of living in the house they fled to the other end of the country. Ever since then they have been overshadowed by something that they cannot explain.
The interesting proposition for this documentary was to show how someone deals with these events in their own life - I don't think that that was Daniel's intent but it was a thread that came out of it in the process of making the film.
Andrea Adams: My Amityville Horror offers a new perspective into the mythology that surrounds Amityville...
EW: this is also the first time that any of the children have spoken out publicly fully about the story and their version of the story.
AA: So it is Daniel Lutz's version of the story and what he believed happened and how, as Eric said, it has psychologically affected him since.
- This is such an incredibly well known story so where did this movie start for the both of you?
EW: (Laughs) That is a big question. I have had a very intense and passionate interest in this story since I was very young.
I read the book and was totally taken over and frightened by it - it painted a picture in my mind and I can still remember that feeling.
Then I heard interviews with George Lutz and other participants on radio shows and saw some of the documentaries and that got me really interested in the idea 'This is a true story. Or is it?' So that whole debate was very interesting.
I ended up creating my own website surrounding the case and after meeting with various reporters and people involved with the case over the years I presented a very unbiased presentation of all the known documentation, file documents etc.
I put it online for people like myself to come back and make up their own mind about what they believed happened.
So I think that perspective was a pre-cursor to how we presented the film. I was contacted in 2009 by a gentleman who, out of the blue, emailed me and said 'I have Danny Lutz here and he is ready to come out with his story.
The next day I got a phone call from the guy - and I really believed any of it - and he was this really jovial guy and he was an open guy who was talking openly about Danny. I didn't buy it until I saw a picture of Danny and the striking resemblance her had to Kathleen Lutz, his mum.
I was then very interested and so I flew to New York and conducted over twelve hours of interviews with a digital recorder. I was just essentially a very young guy who got really lucky in the sense that of being someone who is passionately interested in the story.
But I wasn't totally buying everything either - that is not to say that Danny is lying - but I just wasn't open to believing everything. So it was allowing him to speak openly about it and get that all on tape.
AA: My story doesn't start as far back as Eric's does but I have always been interested in the paranormal.
As far my relationship to this project Eric had already gone and conducted the audio interviews with Danny and he had done some work on the documentary with out other producer John Blythe and they brought me on to help produce the film in a more logistical sense.
So I have become much more intelligent regarding the Amityville case and all of the personalities surrounding it. While that it how I got involved with the project I grew up watching the X-Files and The Twilight Zone and things of that nature.
So I have always been interested in the paranormal but it just took Eric entering my life to realise how much that was a part of my upbringing.
- Daniel Lutz has been out of the public eye for over thirty years so why do you think he has now decided to tell his story? And what do you think he is getting out of it?
EW: That is a very good question and I do think that there are many many reasons for it. Most prominent in my mind is that he has finally found the right person to help him do this - he could have called up a studio or done this twenty five years ago. It is very interesting.
My own suspicion is that George Lutz who was his hated step-father, by his accounts, has now passed away and I asked him 'would you have still done this is George was still around?' And he was like 'absolutely I would' but I do wonder if that would be the case.
George was very domineering and very controlling of the story and I can guarantee that if we were doing this and he was still alive... I would have tried to interview him and get his take on it but he would have been all over us for sure.
I just wonder whether it was the right time for Danny personally because there was no longer that hold there.
AA: Also maybe he had just come to terms with the fact that he wanted to talk about it.
EW: Yes, that is very true.
AA: It is a big deal to come out and speak about something that you could go on forever and not talk about.
He decided to and maybe it has just taken a long time to figure out that that was what he wanted to do. Then he had to decide how he wanted to do it and who he wanted to do it with.
EW: Another good thing to mention is that the told me, and he says in the film, that he wanted to do this for his children. He wanted to give them an explanation - they are young adults now.
They have lived their entire lives knowing that there father is the Amityville guy and they don't know that means as he had hit from it.
I keep telling people that it is a reluctance but willingness to speak and there is this internal debate within himself. He has finally come to terms with the fact that he is willing to do this publicly but he doesn't really want to but he has to. He says in the film that he wishes that he had done this when it first happened...
AA: Or been given the opportunity to do it.
EW: His biggest regret was that he was silenced by the parents. So that was why I was excited by George's removal from the picture, in terms of being there to stop him, and it is an interesting parallel.
- He is very intense and he clearly harbours a lot of anger - at least that was my perspective on it - so how did you find your time with him? And were there any things that you were reluctant to talk to him about?
EW: Yes, but I had to do it anyway to show the audience that this was the kind of person that we were dealing with.
He is a very intense personality and he is also quite witty and charming at times - which comes across in the film I think. I really like him and I would say that he is a friend of mine but, at times, we have a contentious relationship in the sense that he knows I made a film about him.
One of the very first things he said to me was 'why are you so interested in my family?' And I was like 'your family happened to tell some fascinating stories and that is what I am interested in'.
AA: As a producer it was interesting to watch the dynamic between Eric and Danny because my place isn't necessarily to interact with Danny so it became about making sure that everything else is taken care of so they can do that.
But I do think that Eric and Danny have a familiar relationship but Danny is standoffish because he does recognise that Eric is here because of this reason.
But Danny is also the person who reached out to him and so it is a very interesting back and forth because they respect each other but aren't always on the same page.
- There is over ten hours of audio so how did you go about bringing it all together? Was it a difficult edit?
AA: Understatement.
EW: Yes it was very difficult. I think that any documentarian can relate to that because they are close to the story and they are passionate about it but they have to make it for someone who isn't going to be an interested and passionate as you are.
So with that in mind having to take out things and remove things... there are so many things on the film that I wish were still there for people like myself who are Amityville horror diehards.
But at the end of the day it is not needed and so maybe the DVD and Blu-Ray extras can take care of that.
AA: Ultimately this was a project that was giving his voice. We went through a couple of different cuts and I felt that was a constant debate within the production team of what was necessary to the story vs. what was not vs. what we are putting in because it was to good to leave out.
So it was a difficult process - more so for Eric than anyone else - but in the end it did all work out.
- How did what you found out during filming challenge the ideas of beliefs that you had about this story before you went on this journey?
AA: As I said earlier I didn't necessarily have the background on all of the different storylines as Eric did and so it wasn't as challenging my beliefs as it was informing and educating.
I did not know that the niche audience who were so adamant that Amityville was a hoax of Amityville is true - people are very passionate about this one particular event in American history.
And so it was fascinating to me to see that and then almost to become a part of it. I had seen the films and everything but before this I didn't really think about it too much and I didn't believe it to be true.
But having worked on the project and met Danny and seen all of the things I would say now that I have changed many of my viewpoints and while I don't necessarily believe that everything that is said is true I definitely something happened to the family - what that is I don't know.
EW: I believe that they were genuinely frightened and something drove them from the house and forced them to leave everything that they owned there.
People want to say that it was a hoax and a device to make money and they moved into the house with the intention of creating something - but that is not the case from everyone that I have talked to and the people that were there.
It is unfortunate that it has snowballed into something - even this film is a continuation of that snowball - but that is by Danny's own choice.
That is why I think it was such a big decision for him personally to take that gamble in putting yourself out there publicly.
- How have you found the response to the movie so far?
AA: We are very happy because we were initially worried because whenever you create something with Amityville there is...
EW: There are preconceptions and opinions right away.
AA: Exactly
EW: I am very amused by it because there are various people on these forums and things and you see people saying 'I don't believe any of this' or 'this is BS' or 'Danny is another one of the Lutz's trying to make money from this'.
But that is not the case. When people see the film you will see our approach to it has been sceptical and objective.
AA: Not only that but you see that we are not trying to convince people what happened or what didn't happen we are just presenting Danny's story. I think for those who take the time to be a careful viewer of the film they recognise that and so the response has been positive.
I was pleasantly surprised because I have a tendency to think that people don't want to think that hard anymore when they go to the cinema and so I was happy to see that people understood what we were going for with the film and took the time to look beyond the connotations that are associated with Amityville. It is nuanced with several different areas in and above the genres of Amityville.
EW: Some people haven't approved because they wanted a horror movie but it is a documentary and I think that this is the first documentary feature that has been done on Amityville at all.
AA: Not to mention that it is the first film to portray any of the three children's side of the story; what they said, what they think, what they believe.
EW: So it is covering a lot of bases - obviously the first thing for me was that Danny was speaking for the first time and so it was a major exclusive and awesome opportunity.
But it was a chance for us to... that thread that came out and the psychological impact that I witnessed when I got there. That effect was just on display 24/7 and so beyond Amityville this guy's personal life, the way that he acts and communicates is almost more interesting than some of the stuff that he is saying.
And so I got really interested in this person and that was the main focus of the film - at its heart it is a character study.
- Finally what is next for you?
EW: I am working on several projects. I am actually writing a narrative feature and working on expanding the many lessons that I learnt from this project; the idea of how people in a mass situation are affected by an unexplained paranormal occurrence and how it snowballs.
And so I am really interested in by those things and threads that were never really finished or talked about in our documentary. I guess there are bits and pieces left over that I think can make a really compelling narrative.
AA: I have a couple of different things that I am working on - some of them are in the realm of features and some aren't.
Eric and I have to talk and discuss and what we want to collaborate on next. We are still in the Amityville world because the festival circuit is pretty new and we have sales agents attached and working with us to ensure distribution for the film.
So we are starting to work on other things but there are still a few things that we need to finish on this project.
EW: I have been spending my weekends away from work and away from Amityville reading a lot of books and going back over my sketchbooks and pulling out notes from over the years - I am basically re-reading my writings because I know there are things filed away that I really want to do.
I basically have a bucket list of topics that I want to cover - I have Amityville checked off and now I am going down the list.
BFI London Film Festival runs 10 - 21 October
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw