On the night of November 13, 1974, Ronald DeFeo, Jr. took a high-powered rifle and murdered his entire family as they slept. At his trial, DeFeo claimed that “voices” in the house commanded him to kill. This is their story.

I have to say that when I sat down to watch this I wasn’t expecting much.

You can’t blame me really, this franchise has milked a lot whilst giving fans rubbish. What actually happened was quite a surprise, I found myself completely engrossed in the film, something I was seriously not expecting at all. This time it felt like someone was taking the story seriously.

It felt like this time someone wanted to show us and remind us that at the centre of the DeFoe story was a real family, with real problems and that real people died. Now whether you believe in the supernatural aspects of the story is all down to you and what you choose to believe.

The casting of the film is really good and there are some really good performances, Paul Ben-Victor was a stand out as ‘Ronnie Defeo, Sr.’ plus it was great to see “Amityville” alumni Burt Young and Diane Franklin back on our screens but also back in the “Amityville” world.

Some may see this feature as being too slow but I felt it made for great story telling story and it helped to actually give us the story of this admittedly dysfunctional family and it also helped ramp up the suspense and intensity. Kudos to director and writer Daniel Farrands who did a great job.

“The Amityville Murders” in reality is a sad story and this film tells it well. Give this feature a try, it may surprise you like it did me.

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