I agree that this movie was undeserving of the dogpile of criticism it got. If the ending seems lacking to so many reviewers,I think that many people did not consider that the makers of the film may have had the intention of making a part two -- and possibly reconsidered after seeing such an overkill of bad press & ratings. If I were the studio that produced it OR the two men who made it, I'd have ignored the bad press and made the sequel; any film made for about 1 million dollars, that grossed well over one HUNDRED million dollars, should pay more attention to the profit margins, rather than the entire rating aspect. We live in a world where a person can invent a Facebook page, and then*pay* a company that will promise hundreds or THOUSANDS of real people who will post positive ratings or sales 'testimonials' on that page. Look it up if you doubt me, you'll see that 100% accurate fact. Since the 'companies' who sell these positive votes don't work for Facebook, Facebook can hardly stop them.
A certain person did a (truly awful) rambling, terrible documentary on Butch DeFeo, the creep who murdered his entire family in the infamous "Amityville" house, the year before the Lutz family moved in. First the "producer/writer/director/waterboy" who put this crap together gave multiple debut dates for theaters; then bragged it was a 9-hour documentary (or somesuch), then six then four hours ... all the while claiming that his 'masterpiece' would PROVE that: [1]Butch DeFeo did not murder all his family, and [2] that the Lutz hauntings were 100% fabrication.
The second point is moot, but for the record, the only person to claim that the Lutz' fabricated the entire haunting aspect was a certain shady lawyer who also swore that he was cheated out of mountains of money having to do with the publishing of the Lutz family experience. The only other person who spoke out in any way was Danny Lutz, and the falling-out he had with George Lutz, his former stepfather, is well supported. Otherwise, the rest of the Lutz family were literally fighting that it was a true haunting, but the book author Jay Anson added some elements that did not happen, and MGM went farther in adding elements. When Kathy, and then George passed away, George was quite literally still fighting these people in court, including MGM. The Lutz family never made the "millions" that the shady lawyer claimed, and the paltry sum that did come in went to lawyers.
In fact, to this day, no Lutz family member ever told ALL of what happened to them, especially the last night in the house when they fled the house, leaving in the night with nothing but the clothes on their back. They never went back to retrieve any of their belongings.
And Butch DeFeo has -- to date -- changed his story over 11 times, even though he led police to where he stashed the murder weapons ... AFTER he confessed. His latest story is that he only shot his father, and the sound woke up his sister Dawn, who immediately jumped out of bed and killed her parents, her two baby sisters, her two baby brothers ... and only after this did Butch wrestle the rifle from her, shooting her in the process. The coroner's report does not support a bit of his latest claims.
My point is this: the hack that wrote this "tell-all" "docudrama" created a Facebook page. For weeks it drew a handful of people. The hack swore that hundreds or thousands of people were "demanding" the release of the now 2-part documentary. Meanwhile the hack writer threatened the people who ran the website that George Lutz himself began, because this site literally has tons of court papers, testimonies, diagrams, and even photos dealing with the DeFeo murders, and the staff and members were kind enough to post where Mr. Hack was stuffing his docudrama with non-truths ... so he sent a wacked-out homemade 'court paper' stating he was suing the owner (of the server), the moderating staff, and "100 Does to be named at a later date." ("Does" = 'John Doe, Jane Doe'.)
This, because the staff and members were posting legitimate court papers clearly showing that the *star* of Hack's whole show had been held in contempt of court and repeatedly lying in court/perjury, so Hack blamed a relatively small message board for running off 'thousands' of fans, rather than admitting that delaying the release of the material cost him SOME people who were interested in seeing it.
Weeks later, suddenly, in one single night, Hack had exactly 500 people all mysteriously join his Facebook page at the same time. One week later, again, the number increased by exactly 500. Naturally, the Amityville board posted about these "strange coincidences." The next week another 500 joined in a day.
So by now, Hack didn't notice that one of the Amityville members joined too - to do a little research. As it turned out, all of the 1500 new members just happened to come from the very same province -- in EGYPT. Hack later swore he'd been advertising in Egypt -- which didn't explain why only one suburb of Cairo would be so feverish to see the show if the adverts were shown in the whole of Cairo. Needless to say, no one got sued either.
Feel free to check it out at http://www.amityvillefaq.com/ AKA "The Truth About The Amityville Horror." At the very bottom of this short page click on "Amityville Truth Forum," which will lead you to the DeFeo Section, where all the Hack's mess hit the fan(s).
I believe one of the posters also managed to post one of the companies that sells "guaranteed supporters!" for a Facebook page as well.
A little fact you may want to keep in mind during an election year ;)
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