Amityville Boy _

Damn, that's creepy.

He just wants some cookies!

Normally I love these kinds of spooky pics, but that one looks like a regular kid with camera-eye distortion. Not particularly ghostly IMO.

Man... I don't even care about that boy. If I had a chance at a house like that I'd effing drop everything and take it. Boat house, lots of rooms, built-in bookcases, full sized attic... I am so there!

Ghostly kid? My daughter would tell him to *F* off. Giant pig? I got a king-sized crock pot and a whole mess o'cookbooks. P'shaw! That secret blood-red room would make a perfect closet to shelve my horror DVDs!

There's a giant pig in the Amityville films? Never watched any of them ... But giant pigs are cool. Is it man-eating?

Don't come crying to me when all your DVDs are transported to Hell.

I agree with you, but that's not what's creepy about the pic. The backstory is that weeks after the Lutz's fled the house, Ed and Lorraine Warren (along with other psychic investigators) conducted a seance in the house which was covered by a TV reporter and his crew. They set up a camera in the second floor hallway snapping off random photographs every couple of minutes while they were doing their shit downstairs.

While nothing unusual happened during the seance, they eventually developed the film and found that picture.

The boy in the photograph was never there.

He wasn't with any of the participants and none of them knew anyone that looked like him. When little Missy Lutz (Kathy Lutz's youngest) saw the photograph, she said it looked like the boy she used to talk to while she and her family lived in the house...her imaginary friend.

Creepy!

After decades of ignorance I'm slowly starting to get interested in this story. So ... should I watch the existing films or just wait for the remake?

One thing though. Why is it that whenever some spooky photo turns up it is

a.) black & white

and/or

b.) out of focus

At least this one is of good quality and you can see everything. But why b&w? If they were investigating this house why on earth would they use b&w film and not color? Surely not for "artistic reasons"?

Okay, now THAT'S creepy.

But how reputable is the story behind the photo? (i.e. have Snopes had a go at it yet... I trust everyone here knows the truth behind the "3 Men and a Baby ghost pic")

Problem is, the whole Amityville affair was a hoax. They added so much crap after the fact to drudge up interest that you coudl never tell when the lies and outright propaganda started or stopped. And then the Warrens went in and got this pic. After the hoax was openly revealed, the Warerens had serious egg on their face and refused to admit that ... just.... maybe.... the house was normal.

Very few things are as powerful as denial.

This is a great read.

Letter to the Warrens

Hoax, not a hoax...it's still a creepy picture.

Yup, I just shit on myself.

Ghost pics are always creepy.

It's cuz ghosts fuck with yer color saturation. Ectoplasm is hard to get out of a circuitboard, let me tell you. Don't you watch Ghostbusters?

I always use black and white when it comes to ghost hunting. Ghosts in color just aren't as creepy.

Actually, it's a one-sided hypocritical rant. He commits the same crimes he accuses of the Warrens, failing to back up hearsay, conjecture and lies of his own with any substantiation. I love the fact that he goes through this whole long manifesto and doesn't have the balls to sign his real name to it. "Sincerely, Scott X" my ass.

what difference does it make whether it's a hoax or not? Geez, it was a great story regardless. I was never able to find out much on the Lutz story but I did spend months in front of that wonderful ancient creation called the micro film machine researching the DeFeo murders during college, hell if I'd spent HALF as much time studying as I did doing that, I would have graduated with honors instead of flunking out. The murders happened so who's to say that the haunting didn't?

That was something that the town brought about. That fact remains that there was some bad things that went on in that house. And when bad things happen, ghost and ghost stories usually follow.

the light fixture on the ceiling in the pic



jah...the ugly one.....



we have one just lik it in our house



I will destroy it




anyh00.....who took the pic....how we know the child wasn't there??

I agree...if there is no Bigfoot, I don't care. If ghosts don't exist, I don't care. If Loch Ness is empty, just shut the fork up about it. Part of me would rather have a wonderfully frightening fiction than a boringly blah truth. And that part is very large.

But oh, what would Voltaire say if he could see me now?

If it's a hoax then that means it's just a pic of some kid with camera eye distortion. It wouldn't matter if it was a hoax or not if that was an innately creepy picture, but it's not. It's only creepy in the context of the kid's presence being unexplained.

You can't discount the setup, though. I remember as a very young teenager listening to my cousin tell me about a phone number you could dial to hear "the devil's heartbeat." There was a whole story to go along with it, campfire type stuff, and at the end of it my cousin dialed the number and let us all listen. It was some weird electronic sound, obviously just a phone company test line or something, but thinking about it still puts goosebumps on the ol' forearms for me.

Psycho's shower scene wouldn't be scary if you didn't see Mrs. Bates' shadow coming. It'd be a jump scare, that's all. The setup makes it something that sticks with you--in fact, that sticks with the entire cultural subconscious.

Wait a minute...where's that point I had?

I dunno....but I'll run with what you are talking about



I long for the days when Red Mary would scare me


jah....all in all.....a pretty creepy pic

I know the whole story of the room but it's still fun to buy into once in a while.

Not to pull rank but, first off, I grew up haunted as fuck. Everything about the Amityville case screamed hoax, then it was in fact revealed to be a hoax.

Second, do yourself a favor and dont ever use Ed and Lorraine Warren to back up an incident or story. I know the guy who wrote In A Dark Place (I think thats the proper title, I have a couple beers in me) about a case the Warrens worked on, that later became a TV movie. The one where it was the funeral home that became a regular house, the son slept in the basement etc. They are total scam artists, The writer I'm talking about spent weeks with the family in the book and drew some very OF THIS WORLD conclusions that were conveniently left out of the book/film. Alcoholism. Child abuse. And worse. All this was going on way before they moved into the "evil" house. When this was brought to the Warrens' attention they didn't give a rats ass about what was REALLY happening and told the author "You're a horror author so make something up, and make it scary..." And as for a TV crew coabborating the incident...well you do the math, hahahaha.

I have known a couple REAL psychic investigators in my life and I can assure you the Warrens are NOT the real deal. They are oppurtunists. Merdicine men selling spiritual snake oil.

That picture is a fucking fake. The Amityville case is a fake.

Now the case The Entity was based on, that's another story.

While I cannot speak for the validity of the Warrens (I was merely using the fact of their holding a presumed seance in the house at the time that picture was taken), I can speak of my own personal gauge having met Gerge Lutz on more than one occasion. The guy believes what he says. He passed a polygraph (as did his wife) proving as such. Whether anything happened or not, these folks believe that they did.

What I dig about the Amityville story is the controversy. Is there a juicy documentary available anywhere that lays out all the arguments (pro and con) detailed in Amityville lore. I'd love to see an unbiased attempt to set all records straight on this story. If not, I'm sure there will be one in 2004 when the dueling releases come out.

Actually, I don't. I heard some vague details about it being a hoax way back when, I even heard that Disney altered the scene to erase the "ghost", but I don't know any of the details behind the thing. The original scene sure is creepy, tho'. I especially like the detail of the drape passing thru the "ghost"'s image...

This Amityville pic, tho', hoax or not, is definitely creepy! May just be a kid with eyeshine, but it's a nice chilly shot none-the-less...

Ah I see. Okay. I believe the George Lutz stuff I guess.

But I can GUARENTEE you the Warren's are charlatans. Not only that, they blatantly disregard child abuse to further their "carreers" as charlatans.

That's right I said it...I stole my mamma's credit!

check it out:

http://snopes.com/movies/films/3menbaby.htm