“I Just Wanted Someone to Believe Me.”
Daniel Lutz was 10 years old during the events depicted in Jay Anson’s haunted house bestseller (and the subsequent 1979 film starring Margot Kidder and James Brolin). The effects of that experience have trailed after, shaping a guarded, angry individual wounded not only by the trauma of his time spent on 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, NY, but by 35 subsequent years of doubt and skepticism directed toward him by others.
Rather than focusing on what might have happened within that infamous abode, documentarian Eric Walter turns his eye to what unequivocally did happen: a young boy’s life was forever altered, a shadow eternally cast over his identity. This examination of what occurs when an event obscures an individual, when Lutz became “the Amityville boy” instead of “Danny,” is as compelling as any poltergeist or red-eyed pig creature. The result is an extraordinary work of investigative vision and grounded restraint, with Walter casting an unflinching yet empathetic gaze upon the most sensational American haunting of the 20th century, all through a lens of humanity that elevates it above its ghost-chasing brethren.
