The Amityville Horror has turned from a real suburban American tragedy into a horrific myth. It has become the source of bestselling novels and the subject of several movies. These are some of the facts as they are known. On November 13, 1974, in the house at 112 Ocean Ave., Amityville, 24-year-old Ronald DeFeo murdered his family. DeFeo used a high-powered rifle, shot to death his father, mother, two brothers and two sisters. All six members of Ronald DeFeo’s family were killed as they slept
memories of this experience. If people’s minds are preset on merely thinking that memories are the general idea of their experiences, memories become very superficial and people will miss out on what matters most in life. Therefore, in “The Amityville Horror”, Jay Anson deliberately includes small details that are unnecessary in the story to prove that only memory can give meaning to life. In this story, there are many small details. Anson includes a lot of small details in character descriptions
The Amityville Horror, written by Jay Anson was without doubt a great piece of American literature. It has inspired many to write bestselling books, and others to create many excellent movies. Perhaps the most surprising thing about The Amityville Horror is its staying power. There are many possible explanations as to why The Amityville Horror was so popular during the 1970’s and it is no surprise that it is still in print today. The most shocking part of this books history is that it was based
Amongst the beaches, boats and the water affluent families live the American Dream. Often well educated with good careers, money was no object and the finer things in life were within easy reach. Beautiful homes line the canals in the village of Amityville, NY, but the DeFeo’s lived anything but that picturesque life. On the surface, all was serene, but underneath were very turbulent waters that culminated in the mass murder of six people. Ronald and Louise DeFeo lived at 112 Ocean Avenue with their
The Amityville Horror On the date of November 13, 1974, the house at 112 Ocean Avenue had been the scene of a mass murder. Twenty-three year old Robert DeFeo, Jr. shot his parents, two brothers, and two sister to death in the middle of the night. Thirteen months later a young couple by the name of George and Kathleen Lutz, along with their three children, moved into the abandoned house. The family lived in the house for only 28 days. On January 14, 1976 the Lutz family fled from the house, claiming
The Shining is a 1980 horror film directed by Stanley Kubrick. The Shining starts with the Torrance family moving from their apartment in Boulder, Colorado, to the Overlook Hotel, located in the isolated Southern Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Jack Torrance, the father has accepted a position as the winter caretaker of the hotel in its off-season. His wife, Wendy Torrance and son, Danny Torrance move into the hotel with him. As the film unfolds the hotel becomes a place of tension and menace. It is
been passed down from generation to generation. From the Bermuda Triangle mysteries, phantoms of the ocean, ships, and glowing ghosts of little boys, to the curse of James' Deans' car, The Little Bastard and the Amityville Horror. A little background history of this bone-chilling horror may help one decide whether or not to believe in the existence of the beyond. "Everywhere on earth and all through history, people have believed that there is more to the world than meets the eye. Behind the outward
The Amityville Horror The Amityville Horror House located at 112 Ocean Ave looks like an ordinary house, but on the inside lies the horrible events that took place early in the morning of November 13th, 1974, when Ronald DeFeo Jr shot and killed his entire family. DeFeo claims that voices in the house were telling him to kill his family. People in the town say that he was insane and had mental issues, which is their reasoning for why he killed his family. He was found guilty of six counts of second-degree
The Horrors of Animal Euthanasia Due to the domestication of cats and dogs their populations have skyrocketed. This is due in part to the lack of pet owners acting in a responsible manner. These responsibilities include the spaying and neutering of pets. These numbers of homeless animals in communities have caused humane societies to euthanize too many animals. This, I feel is a violation to animal rights and is a cruel way for these animals to have to leave this world. I disagree with the
Horrors of Slavery Unmasked in Beloved In the Novel Beloved, by Toni Morrison unmasks the horrors of slavery, and depicts its aftermath on African Americans. The story is perfect for all who did not experience nor could imagine how it was to be an African American in America circa the 1860's. Beloved lends a gateway to understanding the trials and tribulations of the modern African American. The Novel has many things that occur that are very striking, most of which have to deal with the treatment
A woman’s life in Afghanistan is one of the most shocking and devastating truths. It wasn’t until September 11th 2001 that the world awoke to the relevance of women’s issues to international peace and security. However, it’s been two years since and the lives of Afghan women have improved only slightly. Harassment, violence, illiteracy, poverty and extreme repression continue to characterize reality for many afghan women. “Under the Taliban, ultraconservative Islamic ideas combined with misogynistic
The Horror of Dystopia Revealed by Neuromancer When William Gibson's futuristic novel Neuromancer was first published, it seemed farfetched that technology could reach the level of sophistication he described. Science fiction movies have since repeated and expanded upon this theme, portraying corporate anxieties and paranoid fears of people to be controlled by aliens, man-made machines and artificial intelligence. Neuromancer takes us into the subculture of cyberpunk, a dystopia of an amoral
Create Tension and Suspense The writers in 19th century stories create tension and suspense through the use of gothic horror. This style of writing is designed to frighten and panic and cause dread and alarm. It innovates our hidden worst fears often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience. Horrors effectively centre on the dark side of life, the forbidden, and the strange and alarming events. It deals with the audience’s
Is Beautiful', a Jewish man and his family are put into a concentration camp during the Holocaust. The movie gives an inside look at the horrors the Jews were faced with during the Holocaust. ?Life Is Beautiful? should be incorporated into a unit on the Holocaust in schools because it shows everything the Jews were faced with, it handles expressing the horrors of the Holocaust without being too graphic, and it would help students get a more personal feeling of what happened to the Jews. ?Life
Exploring the Horror of Heart of Darkness "The horror, the horror!" Kurtz exclaims prior to his last breath of life on earth. In those final moments, Kurtz was able to say something so true about the whole mess of human life. A life dominated by the fittest, perceived differently through each human eye, and full of judgement lacking understanding of all sides. The various ways the world is viewed causes many problems amongst its people. Whether they are about racism, wealth, or even common
about a factory which has poor working conditions. These conditions led to a fire which kills one hundred and forty-six people. A specific example of a man who tosses three girls out the window and then plunges to his own death serves to show us the horror of the situation. the poem then continues on to tell us of in humane conditions in Scotland. It ends by telling us about the slaves who picked and planted the cotton. The speaker seems to be telling us a story in order to inform us of what's going
jail, Breyten Breytenbach shows that his wife and his love for her had a tremendous influence on his survival under the physically and emotionally harsh conditions of prison. The thought of his wife allowed Breyten Breytenbach to escape from the horrors of his surroundings in prison and gave him psychological freedom; word from her let him escape into a world of space, peace and freedom created for him in her letters, memories of being together with his wife transported him psychologically to another
The Horror of Poverty Exposed in There Are No Children Here When one thinks of poverty often the mental picture that comes to mind is of single parent welfare, dependent, women and unemployed, drug-addicted, alcoholic lackadaisical men. The children are often forgotten. The impact of poverty, the destruction of crime and stigmatization of the violence on the children is more devastating and irreversible than the miseducation and illiteracy that most often companies poverty. The implication is
Hidden Horrors in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" presents conflict on more than one level. The most important conflict in the story is between the subject matter and the way the story is told. From the beginning Jackson takes great pains to present her short story as a folksy piece of Americana. Slowly it dawns on us, the terrible outcome of what she describes. From the first sentence of the story, The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny
The Horror of the Death Penalty The death penalty has existed for well over 4000 years. In 1728 BC the code of Hamurabe was passed to allow legal execution. For centuries capital punishment was a public spectacle: states used executions to demonstrate the ultimate consequence of attacking the state. During the 18th century in England executions attracted tens of thousands of people and in some cases there would be riots. Also in England the church was allowed to burn people