All language subtitles for 03. The Big Time.English

Mary Pascarella
was the lead psychic

who investigated the house.

Mary is a professional psychic,

a time walker who picked up on
some truly terrifying things.

She said it was the first time

she had ever
encountered something

she could only describe
as pure evil.

People say this is a hoax.

It's done for money.

But let me tell you,
you never sign

a contract with the devil.

This house chooses victims.

We just wanted
to get the house fixed

so we could move back in.

I began to say my prayers.

And I was saying
the Our Father.

And as I was saying
the Our Father,

I looked out at the door,

and I had the impression
of a young person.

I hope this is as close to hell
as I'll ever get.

George and Kathy,

whatever happened
to them in the house,

they got the kids,

they left all
their furnishings,

all their clothing,
everything in the house

and just ran.

They went to a motel
for that first night.

After Kathy
and I left the house,

we came to the conclusion
that Ronald DeFeo,

physically,
he did the murders,

but spiritually,
emotionally, no,

I don't believe that he's,
in a pure sense, responsible.

There's no doubt in my mind
that he was influenced

by that house
and that he was controlled,

at least for a point.

It would further the tragedy
sitting in jail

for six consecutive
life terms.

I didn't like William Weber.

He was writing a book
about the DeFeo murder.

Through friends of ours,
we met William Weber,

sat down and spoke with him.

He wanted George and
Kathy to put their story

along with his story

so that it seemed
like Ronald DeFeo

was into devil worship,
or there was something

in the house that caused him
to kill his whole family.

In the 1970s,
the thought that the devil

could possess somebody
became a very big deal.

In December of '75,
Ronnie DeFeo

had just been convicted,

just two, three years
after The Exorcist.

Mr. Weber says, listen,
these people named

the Lutzes bought your house.

And we can use them
and make money.

I said,
what are you talking about?

He tells me, look,
we got The Godfather

and The Exorcist
all in one hand, Ronnie.

We're gonna make big,
big money.

The devil
knocks off the mafia.

The old box office champ,
The Godfather,

is being flattened
by that movie

about diabolical possession,
The Exorcist.

Could you give us your
reaction to the movie, please?

Could you give us
your reaction to the movie?

It's something else.

- All glory to God.
- Great.

Disgusting.

It was disgusting
in what way?

It was just morbid.

Just all the gory,
the blood and all.

It was
a traumatic experience.

Didn't you like it?

It was--yeah,
it was very interesting.

- Why?
- Because it might be real.

You know, I get to thinking
that, you know,

something like that
might transpire,

you know, around here.

I don't know.

People who were agnostic,

people who were atheists

went into that movie
and came out

and were sleeping
with the lights on

and wearing crucifixes,

whether or not
they were religious or not.

Everybody went to see this.

So here's William Weber,
a defense attorney,

coaching the Lutzes
on what they could say and do

to play up this haunted thing.

But when the Lutzes
gave a press conference

in William Weber's office,
it was more notable,

that press conference, for
everything they didn't say.

The Lutzes did not claim
that they saw, heard, or felt

the ghosts of the dead DeFeos.

They didn't say
it was something demonic.

In fact,
the Lutzes were very ambiguous

about what happened.

So the reporters were left
with more questions

than answers, which might
be a smart marketing strategy.

Leave them wanting more,

and people will leap
to fill the void.

He tries to
communicate by psychic force

with the plant world.

The plant in question

is a rather wan
split philodendron,

which Vogel has hooked up
to a polygraph machine.

Here, Peter Hurkos,

a psychic investigator,
is attempting to help

a metropolitan police department

by looking into the past.

He does this by receiving
images from the murder weapon,

hoping to reconstruct
the crime.

He was hired to help find
the Boston Strangler,

did police work
on the Charles Manson murders.

Like a suitcase.

She was stabbed
to death five times.

What you have
just seen is part

of an astounding collection
of psychic phenomena,

demonstrations of the powers of the mind.

At the time
that the Lutzes held

the joint press conference
with William Weber,

I had been assigned
to produce a series

on the supernatural
and paranormal at Channel 5

by the news director.

So I'm seeing this story

when it was reported in
the Long Island Press Newsday.

It was fairly local.

Oh, wow,
a real-life haunted house

that we could actually visit?

There was no way
that this was not going

to be a big ratings grabber.

So at that point, nobody knew
how to reach the Lutzes.

They were not living
at Ocean Avenue anymore.

After they left the house,

the Lutzes moved permanently
into Kathy's mother's house.

If I hadn't been sitting there
and seeing how different

George was, I would have
been a little skeptical

about what was going on.

He wasn't the same happy,
carefree person

that he was before.

He seemed really broken,
totally broken.

Seeing the way he was,
I knew something happened,

something had had
to have happened to him

for him to change like that.

The way they got it
out of their system was,

they made audiotapes
of each day of what happened,

every little detail.

They didn't want
to retell it again and again.

If they retold it,
it was like reliving it,

and they didn't want
that to happen.

They just got everything out
by putting it on the audiotapes.

We just sat down
and did a series

of about 26 cassette tapes,

just talking
about what happened

while we were in the house.

On those tapes,
nothing was chronological.

We skipped all around.

Our language certainly
wasn't the best.

We were drinking at times
when we were doing

those recordings.

By the time I left the house,
I was drinking pretty heavily,

without a doubt.

Nobody could find George,

so I called
George's surveying company.

And I said,
"Hi, my name is Laura DiDio,

"and I work
for Channel 5 News,

"and I have worked

"with reputable
paranormal investigators

like Hans Holzer,
Ed and Lorraine Warren."

And I said, "I'd really like
to help them."

George wanted
the parapsychologists

to have seances in the house
to validate

what happened in the house,

that there really
were spirits there,

that there really
was evil there.

The Warrens
have devoted 37 years

to study of the supernatural.

The School of Demonology
behind their Connecticut home

houses a collection of what
Ed Warren calls unholy things

of historic value.

Laura DiDio convinced
the Warrens to come down

and go through the house.

Our special guests tonight

are Ed and Lorraine Warren,

who, in their 32 years
as ghost hunters,

have investigated over 3,000
cases of haunted houses

and demonic possession
and have been involved

in numerous exorcisms.

Now obviously,
you believe in ghosts.

I don't think
it's a case of belief.

I think it's a case
of the evidence.

So I called them up.

We set the date for March 6th

to go into the house
and investigate.

They were giving Channel 5
and myself the exclusive.

George had asked me
to go to the airport

and pick up
the parapsychologists

that were flying in from Duke

and take them
to the Amityville house.

There was a noted psychic
with the team.

I felt while we were driving
that this psychic

was trying to find out
from me mentally

what had happened
in the house.

It was
a very strange experience.

I'm sitting riding in a car.

There's this man sitting
here not talking to me,

wanting me to think
about the Lutzes.

Finally, I got so fed up
with the whole feeling

that, in my head,
I said, "Stop it."

Like, I shouted it in my head.

Right after that, this psychic
turned to me and said,

"I'm sorry," out loud.

And then I was convinced
that it was him.

He was probing.

He was trying to find out
what I knew about it,

which he wasn't supposed
to know.

When we went into the house,
it was jarring.

So it looked like a nice
middle-class house,

just that the people
were out for the day.

Kathy had made--
and I'll never forget this--

she had made
a gingerbread house

for the kids for Christmas.

And that was still
on the dining room table.

All of the food was spoiling.

Laura DiDio
and the crew and I,

we arrived around midnight.

Parapsychologists from
Duke University were there.

They had cameras set up
and different equipment

to sense any paranormal
activity in the house.

There was a crucifix
and a blessed candle

to provoke whatever beings
were in that house.

Looks like a--

a black shadow
that forms a hood.

And it moves.

And as it moves, it kind of--

it says, "I feel
personally threatened."

It's--I think it's--
whatever's here.

Whatever is here is--

Is it trying
to harm them?

Yes. And it's something
that comes at you

and makes your heart speed up,
that kind of thing.

Then Lorraine Warren
said, "Come on, Marvin.

"We're going upstairs
to the sewing room,"

which was the area which had

the strongest
paranormal sense."

Lorraine said to me,
"Marvin, this is the deepest,

the closest to hell
I ever want to get."

And she was quite serious

and seemed quite concerned
in that moment.

We went room to room.

But when we went upstairs
to the third floor...

...it was like
she walked into a wall.

And she stepped right back.

She said, "I can't go in here.
I can't go in here."

I just feel an overwhelming
sense of oppression, dread.

And that was Ronnie's bedroom.

Lorraine sat down,

and she had a headache
after that

that stayed with her.

There was a hush
that came over.

We had gotten to the point
where the house

had began to affect me.

And I had gotten up
on the stairs,

and I called down to Ed,
and I said,

"Ed, I'm as sick as a dog."

So I said to Ed,
"I'm gonna lay down

in the bed
for a little while."

And as I was saying
the Our Father,

I looked out of the door.

There was a group
of figures standing

outside of the door saying
the Our Father backward.

The energy
in that house remains.

It may take a hundred years
of our time,

but it will implode again.

That house is purely evil.

We went back to the station.

We cut the piece.
And it ran on the 10:00 news.

The response was overwhelming.

People just went wild
over this.

We had great ratings
that night.

Often, I'm asked
if I was scared

during that night in the house
at 112 Ocean Avenue.

No, I was not.

When the investigators
were asked to come in,

we hadn't told them
what we experienced.

But they had no intention
of ever going back

and investigating further.

Their only suggestion was
to have the house exorcised.

George lost a lot
of money with the house.

So I think financially, they
were not doing well at all.

Weber, the DeFeos'
attorney, had asked us

to sign a book contract
with him,

and we refused
because he was gonna

pay DeFeo 5% of proceeds
for murdering his family.

Plus, he was gonna get
to say what we did

with the rest of our lives
with regard to the story,

and it was just beyond belief.

Our story was ours,

and we were not gonna
do a contract with him,

and we didn't want anything
more to do with that.

We weren't interested
in dealing with him.

And that was it.

I told them
that it was their story,

and I felt that they shouldn't
have to go with William Weber,

that the whole haunting
or whatever happened

to them in the house was
not part of the murder story.

And I happened to find the name
of a publisher in a book

that I was reading
about supernatural

because then was
interested in it.

And I called up this publisher
in New York, Prentice Hall.

And because of the publicity
that was going on at the time,

they agreed
to talk with the Lutzes.

So to George,
this looked like a good way

of getting some money,
which I agreed with him.

If it was being publicized now,
just keep going with it.

If this is what happened,
you know the story.

Then, the publisher got
the writer, Jay Anson.

And they took the audiotapes.

And that's where
The Amityville Horror came from.

We met with Jay Anson.
We spoke with him.

We gave him
the research materials

we had done on the house
and some tapes

that Kathy and I had done
over the weeks

after we had left the house.

And said, "Look,
we're not gonna sit down

"to be interviewed about this.

"You can do what you can
from the tapes.

"But we're just not
gonna relive this.

"We've done it once,
and we're not doing it again.

We did it for the tapes."

Then I spoke to the priest,

and I heard his story.

I was able to put together
a chronology of the events

that took place within
that framework of 28 days.

I was convinced
there are things out there

that many people
cannot explain.

I sincerely believe
they took place.

George told me
that he felt that

by staying in Long Island,

they were too close
to Amityville,

and he felt
that the further away he went,

the evil,
it couldn't come with him.

So they moved as far away from
the East Coast as they could.

On Mother's Day of
1976, we landed in San Diego.

I sold my business.

We gave the house
back to the bank.

I couldn't stomach the idea of
selling it to another family.

I think I want my
family and my children

much more
than I want a structure.

And if you view it
in that perspective,

it's easy to walk away from.

The book known as
The Amityville Horror

sold millions in hardcover,

and it's doing likewise
in paperback.

When the book came out,
the whole family

was just living
off the proceeds of the book.

They were very happy about it.

George especially
was very happy about it

because this was--

helped financially for him,
which he needed it

to take care of his family.

Of course,
like a lot of people,

I went out
and bought the book.

I remember reading pigs
flying outside of windows

and swarms of flies coming in
and walls bleeding

and weird sounds coming
out of the ground

in the backyard and stuff.

And I was like, this is so--
this is ridiculous.

After I read the book, I
never talked to George again.

I read it.
I put it down.

I couldn't finish it.

Oozing door locks,
levitation of his wife,

stuff that I never saw
or heard in that house.

Why did you come by tonight
to look at this house?

To see what that book
was all about

and everything about the house.

It's a joke.
It's a joke, a complete joke.

I mean, pigs flying around,
all these stupid stories.

Someone's trying
to cash in here.

I truly believe that
they believe all these things.

I was not there obviously.

They told me their story.
The priest told me his story.

And I put it together
in repertory style.

And I leave it up to you.

It was being sold
and promoted as a true story.

I saw nothing to substantiate
that word "true."

But it was a good story,
and it was a big moneymaker.

Get out!

Anson sold the movie rights.

Cut!

He didn't ask us

whether we wanted that
to happen or not.

He just went ahead and did it.

Then they came to us
and sent us contracts

and said,
"We're gonna do your movie."

The Amityville
Horror is one of the first

motion pictures filmed
almost entirely in New Jersey.

George went
to the set a lot.

I don't think they really
wanted him there on set.

But he just loved the fact
that there were notable actors

playing him and his wife.

He really enjoyed that.

It was like a big deal,

something totally
out of the ordinary

that ever happened to him.

Kathy, I felt at this time,

was just concerned
about George.

And if this was gonna
make him feel better--

because he was changing back.

He was becoming
more self-confident.

He was happy with the fame,
to be part of it.

So that's what he did.

Well, the first
thing I've got to ask you is,

do you believe
in demonic force?

Um, hmm, good question.

Uh...

Yeah--uh, no, yes.

I sat with George,

and I watched his eyes
as I talked to him

and asked him
a specific question,

looking for the liar
who would stare right at me,

look right at me,
and tell me a direct lie.

And as he'd answer a question,
I'd watch him think about it.

And as he'd tell me
about some of the things,

his voice would begin
to quaver a little.

Then he'd try
to regain composure.

And I walked away saying,
this man believes

that something went wrong
back there, you know.

Twenty-eight states
in America accept the results

of polygraph tests
as legal evidence,

and the polygraph is now used
as a matter of course

by the FBI and other
government agencies.

Basically,
it monitors three things:

cardiac activity,
breathing, and sweat.

The movie company
was getting ready

to release the movie,

and they wanted to give each
of us a polygraph test.

And these
are expensive tests.

They were willing
to pay for it.

And we said, "Get us the best
there is, and we'll do it.

"Otherwise, we're not
interested in doing it

with someone
that just got out of school."

We were so very pleased
to have Chris Gugas come along

and give us a polygraph test

in his office
with Michael Rice.

Chris Gugas, he was
considered number two man

in the world at the time.

He had taught
the use of the polygraph

throughout the world
for the armed forces

and for their
intelligence people.

He had been
instructed personally

by the head guy at the FBI.

Among other things, he was
accepted in California courts

as a witness.

It was a long process.

It's not like you walk in,
strap on the machine, and go.

You have to agree
to the questions.

He had five questions.
They have to be yes or no.

And, you know,
you get one shot

at doing this thing right.

One of the questions was,
did you levitate?

One of the questions was, did
Kathy turn into an old woman?

And you answered
them all and went sailing

past the polygraph.

Absolutely.
We passed the test.

Later, those findings
were published

in the National Star
of all things.

Well, George, you
know, people who are lying

usually don't agree
to a polygraph.

That's for damn sure.

Many of the people attending
this invitation-only showing

of The Amityville Horror
gave it rave reviews.

And you can judge
for yourself this weekend.

Last night, there was

a gala sneak preview showing.

This was
a private screening

of The Amityville Horror,

based on the best-selling
book by Jay Anson.

Anson attended
the screening accompanied

by the film's producer
and one of the stars

of the picture, James Brolin.

Twenty-eight days
after the Lutz family

moved into their dream house,

they were running
for their lives.

What happened to them
is an experience in terror

you will never forget.

The Amityville Horror,
rated R.

Is The Amityville
Horror for real?

I don't know,
and I'm not planning to go

to Amityville and find out.

What I can say, though,
is that the movie

is not very much fun.

Maybe it wasn't meant to be.

Oozing slime is hardly
ever entertaining.

But the way the Lutzes
are relentlessly persecuted

by their haunted house
is finally just repetitive,

boring, gruesome,
more than a little depressing.

I was going to say, who
would want to see this movie?

But millions of people
already have gone to see it.

It's a big hit
at the box office.

Horror doesn't
have to be good.

Even horror
which is critically panned

can be really powerful.

The Amityville Horror
sticks in the mind.

And I think that's what's
given it its longevity,

not any kind of conception
of quality,

but its ability for moments
or ideas to kind of resonate

and stick with people
for decades.

The great moment where one
of the Lutzes' children

ends up with a hand smashed
by the sash window,

and they're desperately trying
to pull it back in,

but the two men
can't lift the window.

The glowing eyes
that appear outside the window

on the second floor.

Lots of people mention that
as something that they see,

watching the film
for the first time,

as being something that really
sort of stays with them,

and I think because it speaks
to a very deep-seated fear

of, like, you see something
out of the corner

of your eye at night.

The oozing staircase
and the bleeding wall,

where suddenly it seems
like the entire environment

is coming apart at the seams.

Green slime, what was that
on the wall in the movie?

George, did that happen?

As the movie did it,
not exactly, no.

- Do you believe them?
- Do I?

Yeah, when I'm sitting here
with them, yes, I do.

It's hard to deny
a lot of the facts.

Watching the Lutzes
on Good Morning America

really drives home
the importance of saying,

"This is based
on a true story."

Somebody tells you a scary
story about a haunted house,

you go, eh, that's fine.

That's just a scary story.

But someone tells you
about it on the morning news,

and the people are right there,
and the actor is right there,

you see this collapse
of the distinction

between the truth
and entertainment.

Rosemary's Baby,

The Exorcist and The Omen

are referred to
as the unholy trinity.

All three of these films
involving Satanism

and the supernatural
and the occult present

an attack
on the American family.

In Rosemary's Baby,
she's pregnant.

It's a nice, young couple.

They move
into a new apartment.

And then they realize
that she has no control

over the antichrist spawn

that she is now
bringing to bear.

And so this represents
the dread of what it means

to be a woman in society,
of the loss of control

over your own body
and what eventually becomes

of your child.

In The Exorcist, where it's
a single-parent household,

and it is an adolescent child,

an adolescent daughter,
Regan MacNeil,

going through puberty,

new experiences
happening with her body

that is going
to rebel against her mother.

At the same time,
The Omen that comes out in 1976

is about a young couple that,
due to pregnancy mishaps,

have to adopt a child.

Little do they know that it
is also the spawn of Satan.

Thus, not only do you need
the transcendental authority

of the church,
you need some male force,

represented
by Catholic patriarchy,

to come in and save the day.

Do you plan
to show the movie here?

No, we don't.

We've contemplated
every maneuver possible

in the event that things
get out of hand,

changing the name
of the street,

eliminating parking
along the hallway,

making the streets one-way.

We've come up with a plan
just to have extra police

down there
on a full-time basis

in unmarked cars
just to keep traffic moving.

It seems local
residents would retitle

The Amityville Horror
The Amityville Nuisance

because all it's done
is brought a lot

of unwelcome tourists, sightseers,

and a lot of extra traffic
to what used

to be a quiet
Long Island village.

Why did you come by tonight
to look at this house?

To see what it was like.

I guess, we just specifically
came from Chicago to see it.

It isn't a
house that we want to sell.

It's a house we feel
we're being forced to sell

because of
The Amityville Horror.

In the two years
the Cromarty family

has lived here,
they tell us they

have never noticed anything
strange or supernatural

taking place.

But we feel now
we have to give up.

We need a night's sleep.

That people have
nothing better

in the world to do

than to come and gape
or do stupid things.

When the film
first came out,

I was like ten or so.

We went to go see a movie
with the babysitter.

And in a different theater
down the hall,

The Amityville Horror
was showing.

I told the babysitter
I needed to go to the bathroom

and went out

and went
inside the other theater.

This is a movie
about my family,

and I was seeing
this reaction from a crowd

as they're watching
the Amityville movie.

And it was just,
like, surreal.

And it was like,
this is what the world

came to think was my story.

Here I was, a little kid
with a New York accent

in a California public school
with the same name

as in the movie.

It didn't take long for kids
to figure out who I was, so...

I tried to tell them
what happened if they asked.

And then it was like,
"Well, that's not what

was in the movie.
You're a liar."

I was like, what?

And then, at one point,
they went on a world tour

talking about it.

The next one is this.
This is really strange.

Now, if you look closely
at this photograph here,

now, that's--you can't
really see it too well here,

but that's a little boy.

And who is he supposed to be?

We don't know
who he is actually.

But Missy knows him,
our daughter.

When she saw the picture,
which was discovered

now two weeks ago, she said,
"That's the little boy

I used to always talk to."

They even had
put us into a Catholic school.

They dropped us
in The Orphanage.

That was a tough thing, man.

You know, the other kids
in The Orphanage were like,

"Your parents aren't
coming back for you,

just like they left us
here too."

You know, it was definitely...

a hard time.

I asked Kathy a couple
of times about the children,

and she told me
that she was trying

to shelter them
from everything

that was going on.

When I look back on it now,
I feel for the children.

I didn't think, at that point,
they were being sheltered.

It was just too public.

I'm Jackie Stone,

and this is supposedly
where it all happened.

The DeFeo, Lutz,
or Cromarty house--

depending
on how you look for it--

the site
of the Amityville Horror

or the Amityville Hoax.

Do you believe
it is a horror or hoax?

It's a hoax.

So you don't
believe it at all?

- Not at all.
- Definitely a hoax.

Why?

Well, I've been a longtime
resident of Amityville,

and there's never
any incident of this type

at any time in that home.

I think it was just
a moneymaking bracket

that somebody put together
with a lot of brains.

You know, they saw a good chance
to make a lot of money,

so they put a film together,

and now they're
making millions.

Do you believe
that all that

- really happened here?
- Yeah, I believe it.

I believe. I believe
in the devil.

As far as we're concerned,
the Amityville hoax

is the real horror.

Whether or not
it was a hoax or a horror,

you'll have to decide that
for yourself.

People were coming to think

that it was a hoax.

I knew that Mom
and George had, like,

given the recordings over
to Jay Anson

and that Anson wrote the book.

But I had never heard
the tapes.

All I know is that
this is what

he went around the world promoting

and thought it was fine.

Like, let me tell you a story
about that photo

taken during
the Warren investigation.

That photo has circulated
all around the world

and all over the internet now.

But here's the thing.

You'll notice that head
that's sticking out

of that doorway--
attached to that head,

it's a plaid shirt.

And it's consistent with the
same shirt as the photographer

that's taking these photos.

And so it's not some spirit.

It's the picture
of the photographer.

I never liked
that he felt that it was fine

to add fiction to it.

It really pissed me off.

Because there's enough
to the story

that anybody
that has a real sense

of what paranormal
activity is,

there's enough here.

There's no need to pepper it
with any bullshit.

Is this fact or fiction?

Fiction, absolutely.

So this story evolved
over dinner with the Lutzes

and a bottle of wine.

I think it was
about three bottles of wine.

Yes, about three bottles
of wine.

So the story grew
with each bottle of wine.

Each bottle
became a better story.

I told them
there were flies found

in the house where the body
of the older sister

was discovered.

From those flies, they created
a complete supernatural scene.

And there was
a greenish-black substance

around many of the doorknobs.

They were the result
of fingerprint powders.

So we took
real-life incidences,

and then we transposed them.

Green slime
was actually spaghetti

that had been splashed
on the wall at a time

when Mr. DeFeo supposedly had
hit his wife in the kitchen

while she was carrying
a plate of spaghetti.

There were times
when one of the DeFeo

or a neighbor's kitten
would jump on Dawn's window.

And just taking
that little incident,

we developed it into a pig
appearing at the window.

We could sit here
for three weeks.

And I'll keep telling you
each time, it's a fraud.