Amityville Murders Getting New Documentary Series From EPIX

One of the most famous haunted house stories of all time is The Amityville Horror, which was first a book before being adapted into a feature film series, with what makes the story so unsettling is knowing that it's based on real-life occurrences. The films focus on supernatural events that unfold in a Long Island home in the years after Ronald DeFeo Jr. killed his family in the house, with he himself claiming he was influenced by otherworldly forces. EPIX has confirmed that it is developing the new four-part documentary series The Making of a Haunting: The Amityville Murders, which aims to explore the crimes that ignited the series' legacy.

EPIX describes the series, "This four-part docuseries is based on the world's most famous scary story: The Amityville Horror. Today it is quite literally the first result if you Google 'haunted house.' And yet, what the public knows about this case is merely what the books and films have told them. What they don't know is that there's a real murder behind the haunting story and then there's the supernatural tale of unexplained horrors that haunted visitors to that property for years to come. Executive producers attached include: Lesley Chilcott (Helter Skelter, An Inconvenient Truth), Blaine Duncan, Brooklyn Hudson and Amanda Raymond, Rhett Bachner, and Brien Meagher. B17 Entertainment is attached as the production company. "

On November 13, 1974, police say that DeFeo killed all six of his family members with a .35-caliber rifle. DeFeo's attorney William Weber attempted to mount an insanity plea, with DeFeo claiming that he was hearing voices plotting against him and these were merely acts of self-defense. Despite being a drug user, prosecutors say he was sane at the time of his crimes.

A year after these crimes, the Lutz family moved into the Long Island home at an affordable price. Shortly after moving in, the family began to experience a number of bizarre occurrences. On the more mundane side of reports, the family reported often waking up at 3:15 AM (the time at which DeFeo murdered his family), massive amounts of flies swarmed the house, cold spots, strange smells, and the discovery of a hidden room that did not appear on the blueprints that made their dog anxious. On the more extreme end of experiences, the five-year-old Missy Lutz claimed to have befriended a demonic pig monster, mother Kathy Lutz claimed to see demons in the fireplace, and Kathy also felt "embraced" by an unseen lover while she was asleep.

Stay tuned for details on the upcoming The Making of a Haunting: The Amityville Murders on EPIX.

Are you looking forward to the series? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!