God damn. Terrifying. I didn't even care if this stuff was real or not, I kept looking behind me because this book arose the feeling of being watched. Listened to this in one sitting.

An interesting enough stupid read, although not very well-written. Clearly a work of fiction.

When I read this book as a teenager, we all still thought it was a true story. I was so scared that i couldn't keep it in my room with me at night. :)

Man O man, is this book something. Do I believe a word of this book? No. Is this book well written? No. Was it kind of fun to read? Ehhhh, yea it was kind of fun to read.

absolutely so funny

I did enjoy it, but I think that’s largely due to witnessing all the modern haunted house tropes it begat. The story is certainly fast paced and I felt bad for the kids, but there’s a lot of reasons not to be too sympathetic towards the Lutzes.

Let’s be honest here, the book is at least nearly all fake. The Lutzes themselves said the author made up a lot of details, their lawyer said it was 100% fabricated, and one of the kids said some supernatural stuff happened but it was all due to George Lutz being obsessed by the occult and causing it himself. Plus, there are more than a few inconsistencies. Stuff like, “Something was preventing her from leaving the house… but they needed groceries so she left the house.” Next time you have an upset stomach, MAYBE demons aren’t the most likely cause.

It all depends is the haunted house genre your cup of tea at all - personally I find that Shirley Jackson created such a masterpiece with her "The Haunting of Hill House" that its really hard (impossible?) to even attempt competing with such brilliant, multi-faceted and multi-layered, ambiguous creation that has power to thrill even today, 59 years after it was first published. Than there is a matter of certain limitations of haunted house genre, after all, so far we were dealing with very much the same frame: somebody (gullible family) moves in a space that is full of demons, ghosts and malevolent poltergeists and starting from there, chapter in, chapter out, we follow how the characters gets spooked and freaked out until a) they run, b) priest comes and sprinkles holy water, c) someone else talks to ghosts and explains there is a grave under the kitchen floor. It was all extremely exciting when I was a teenager but it eventually became an old hat, I mean, we have seen cliché after cliché in every single movie and book so many times that we started to wonder is there any other way the story could be poked,without using same old plot.

"The Amityville Horror" is a guilty pleasure.
I had to admit that in my naivety (and absolute lack of any preconception of what am I getting into) I actually took all of this very seriously, reading it long into the night and getting all very excited about things that go bump into the night. Than I read the supposed background of the story and apparently universal public dismissal of the even possibility that George and Kathy Lutz actually lived trough all of this, kind of cooled my excitement, which, looking back in retrospective now I think it was wrong of me - I should just enjoy it as a work of fiction and not bothering to know other people's opinions. It's fairly gripping story (except that somewhere halfway trough I started noticing that it could have been better edited) and since apparently I kept the lifelong fascination with the subject, this is exactly kind of novel that keeps me awake in the night. Perhaps instead of criticizing it, readers should just enjoy it for what it is - escapism, fun, thrill of it - after all, we are not looking into haunted house novel to find out some deep, meaningful ideas or truths.