Ghostly Talk, Night 2

(March 6, 2005)

Hosts: Doug and Will

[The first half of the show did not feature George Lutz, and was not transcribed.]

DOUG: So let's bring on George Lutz.

GEORGE LUTZ: Hi.

DOUG: George, welcome back to Ghostly Talk.

GEORGE LUTZ: How are you, Doug?

DOUG: So far, so good. And I, and you do sound much clearer, so that jet lag must have cleared up pretty much.

GEORGE LUTZ: I'm on my second round of antibiotics, and it seems to be starting to really make a difference.

DOUG: Oh, that's awesome. I mean, not awesome that it had to be done in the first place, but awesome that its taking care of it, because that's what I like to hear.

GEORGE LUTZ: Its working, slowly but surely.

DOUG: Excellent. And one of the things that I was talking about – you know, you heard the little intro that I just did – was that the listeners have wanted to know about, like, things, like, about the phenomena in the house. They want to know about the – well, they wanna know about a whole bunch of stuff, and we can get into that – but there is one question – one overriding question – that I got the most of in my emails this past week.

GEORGE LUTZ: Okay.

DOUG: And I wanna tell you what that was, and I want your reaction, because this is – actually I chuckled, but I didn't know how to react, actually. What happened is, a couple of years ago – and nobody could point me to the source, nobody could point me to the source, because I emailed back and I said, "Hey, what's your source, because I can't find anything about it on the Internet; what's your source?" Right? Nobody did that, probably because we ran out of time – like maybe they haven't checked their email since I sent, you know, the question. Or maybe they really don't have a source. But they had said something to the effect of – four different people said this – a couple of years ago, they understood that you recanted the events at the Amityville house. And I had not heard that rumor, or that thing. I've not heard that. I didn't know that.

WILL: I had. [unintelligible]

DOUG: Oh you had? Okay. 'Cause I had not ever heard that. I had always thought of the Amityville horror house as just truly amazingly haunted, and perhaps Hollywood-ized up, you know, but at the same time, I thought, "Wow," you know, "That was quite a paranormal event, series of events going on. Brought in all these people, you know, these amazing high-profile people to investigate it..." That's how it was to me forever until I read my emails – my email questions.

What – and there's a fellow in the chat room, Sean B, as a matter of fact, ah, he had heard the recanting story as a matter of fact. Did you, a couple of years ago, go out and say, "Oh yeah, that was all made up," or whatever.

GEORGE LUTZ: [laughs] No.

DOUG: I didn't think so. I hoped not, anyway.

GEORGE LUTZ: Its an, I believe its an Internet rumor that was started by a few people that really don't deserve even to be named.

DOUG: Ah. Okay. But nobody else knows the source, though – at least that I could gather in a week.

GEORGE LUTZ: Oh I'd love to see the source anytime.

DOUG: You don't need to. We don't need to give them any credence, you know. But I have to say – oh, I mean, unless you want to, or course.

GEORGE LUTZ: Well no member of the family has ever done that. That's just not... If it wasn't such a serious thing, I would probably be chuckling a bit more, but no, that's never happened, its not going to happen.

DOUG: Well as you know, I'm sort of a third party observer, right, who just happens to be lucky enough to be able to talk to you on the radio. And as a third party observer, when I first saw that, I chuckled. I did. I thought, I had never heard any of this, you know. Why would you go on, you know, it didn't make sense to me, like why would you say, "Oh yeah, I'll go on Ghostly Talk and talk about The Amityville Horror even though two years ago I said "No." I mean it doesn't, it didn't jibe with what I felt the situation would have been. So...

GEORGE LUTZ: Well it wouldn't jibe with, one really good example, I think, would be the History's Mysteries. History Channel did a two hour, two segment – so it was an hour each segment – documentary on The Amityville Horror. And Kathy and I sat side by side for, I think it was more than 8 hours – 82 hours – of continual questions that were thrown at us. We answered on-camera, and we did this together for that show. You don't see the eight hours, but they...

DOUG: Where they edit that.

GEORGE LUTZ: Sure. Of course. And because there were so many different people on that, on those two shows, but no. That's just never – that's not – no, that's never happened.

DOUG: I had never heard of it until I read my emails. [laughs] I had to chuckle.

GEORGE LUTZ: So I'd have to wonder why even somebody would say a couple of years ago when that was – that's the most recent, longest thing. The, umm, other than that probably the ABC Primetime interview that I did two years ago would also be the same thing. That was a full hour, or whatever it was. That, there's just no – no, there's... No one's ever recanted. Its not gonna happen.

DOUG: Right. Because this stuff did happen. And that's the other thing people were asking about. What kind of, the most interesting stuff – like, you know, obviously we're a bunch, a lot of us are ghost hunters, and we're looking for paranormal activity to study, take measurements of, record on film, you know, record on digital, record every which way we can possibly record it, to try and understand this stuff. Its just what we do, right? And its our hobby, its our passion. For a couple of us – well not us here, because we're not employed doing that, but there are a couple of people that we've talked to, that that's what they do, even for a living.

Um, and, but what happens is they're interested in the activity. Like the physical phenomena is what we would call it – that would happen. Smells, which of course were, you'd attempt to portray a smell, right, in the movie...

GEORGE LUTZ: Actually there were two, yeah, there were two different smells. One was the, umm, what was described at the time as kinda cheap perfume that came and went, and was pretty noticeable around Kathy from time to time. And the other was the, I guess you'd describe them as "sewer smells" in the basement coming from in and around the, what became known as the red room. That was the closet of sorts hidden behind a bookcase.

DOUG: Wow.

GEORGE LUTZ: Those were the two smells that come to mind today.

DOUG: Now the one about the perfume...

GEORGE LUTZ: Yes.

DOUG: Now perfume is generally a female kind of thing – associated with females – at least in our society. Ah, of course cologne would, you know, a stronger, male scent would be, you know, considered a male scent. I'm wondering, that if I smell perfume on a, in a haunted place, I don't tend to think of it as anything evil, or thinking that that's a threatening kind of thing. I think that maybe a way, and I've smelled things – I've smelled actually church incense where it did not need to, or there was no opportunity for church incense to be. And it was an overwhelming pungent smell, like they were just walking right next to you with these church incenses burning. And it didn't, it wasn't a threatening thing.

So were there, in your house, were there like some, perhaps some goodness to offset all this like horrible, or, you know, like just onslaught of bizarre things...

GEORGE LUTZ: The first time that Kathy described this when it happened to her was that she smelled this, and it came up, she felt, behind her. And for quite a few moments she felt embraced by something behind her. And she felt it was a woman. And it was more of a comforting gesture than one to terrify. It was very confusing for her, it was very – it was the kind of thing that she had difficulty explaining – or trying to even tell me about. She was quite serious about this, and it happened more than once to her. The odor, she described as – forgive the expression – "an old lady's perfume."

DOUG: And I've heard that in several different hauntings. So that's the kind of thing that does happen. I mean, its reported by, you know, other people as well.

GEORGE LUTZ: It was a strong odor. There were times you could get a whiff of it, but it was more of an event "pointed at Kathy," I think is the best way to put that. It wasn't something that I experienced myself, that was something strictly pointed – it was towards Kathy. And I think it was – my way of looking at it then, and even now, is that it was one mother trying to communicate to another.

DOUG: I wonder if then, umm, because obviously it was mayhem, right? It was chaos.

GEORGE LUTZ: At times, yes. Absolutely. At times.

DOUG: And all these just bizarre unexplainable things because, uh... And I've had bizarre, unexplainable things happen to me. I was fortunate enough to be able to spend a week at the Holly Hotel. Not at night, because its not a hotel, its a dining establishment now. But we were there for a week, what, two Octobers ago?

WILL: Yeah.

DOUG: Yeah. And some bizarre things happened, but not in an onslaught, you know. It wasn't like–

GEORGE LUTZ: Where? Where was this?

DOUG: That would be in – it would be in Holly, Michigan. It is in Holly, Michigan. Its called the Holly Hotel. It was a hotel for a long, long time – right on the train tracks. It was a popular and, you know, busy place at one time. Now, of course, you know the train is of less importance, and so its a restaurant now. And we had, we went down – they have a comedy club down in the basement. That's where we were hanging around during this week-long event. And it was, there was at least seven identifiable, unexplainable things that happened to me. But it was so spread out throughout the week. It wasn't like all at once, you know...

[off-topic talk excised – Doug tells a story of people hearing phantom sounds at the Holly Hotel]

GEORGE LUTZ: What I heard there, in the house, was – and I was the only one that heard this – was the, what I call the marching band kind of tuning-up. It wasn't real music – it was the noise of "a band trying to get it together," [that's] maybe one way to put it. Our dog Harry was by the front door asleep, and I went down the stairs – I though a clock radio or something had gone off – and by the time I got down there he's still asleep, but the noise went away. And it sounded at one point, my recollection of it today is that like they had rolled up the rug and were moving around as well. It wasn't just the noise. But there was nothing there.

DOUG: Wow. Yeah, that's a lot of activity. That takes a lot of energy. Another thing we look at is the energy involved in these kinds of things. To make noises, to make smells, to make things move, to make apparitions – to make any of the stuff happen it takes energy. And energy is usually hard for them to get a hold of. But evidently there's something there, or there was something there that was helping feed all this stuff. And that's another thing, another question I have come up with is where do you suppose the energy came from. I don't think we're gonna be able to answer that. That's the thing, you know. Psychic energy is something that we still don't know that much about.

When you heard – what's interesting is you said "a marching band tuning-up."

GEORGE LUTZ: Yes. And I'm looking at what we answered in the polygraph test. This isn't stuff that I look at very often. On amitvyillehorror.com there is a section called "documents," and in there is the, on page 2 is the section that deals with being asked about the sound, and there's question five: "At the Amityville house did you hear what sounded like a marching band tuning-up in the middle of the night?" And I answered "yes." This was the polygraph given by Chris Gugas in 1979, I think it was. You can go back and see that.

DOUG: That's... So even technology has proven that you had, when you say that–

GEORGE LUTZ: It was June 21, 1979 that this was given by Professional Security Consultants. They were a polygraph and security specialists on Vine Street, North Vine Street in Hollywood, California. Chris Googas – we put some information about his book in there, also. He taught the FBI how to use the polygraph.

DOUG: An expert, then. Yeah.

GEORGE LUTZ: Oh, he was considered the number two man in the world at the time.

DOUG: And what's amazing is that they use polygraphs even now in paranormal research, and we can see that on things like, on shows like "Proof Positive."

WILL: Right.

GEORGE LUTZ: I wasn't aware of that.

DOUG: And they've come out with, yeah, they've had these cases and – none of the cases today are as upsetting as The Amityville Horror case, right? Because, I mean, there's a lot of, you know, pretty bad cases, and on one hand I feel sorry for the entities that are causing this havoc and don't even know that they're causing havoc in our realm – I don't know. But I feel sorry for that. But people that are going through this, how can they prove it, right? So "Proof Positive," which is a show on Sci-Fi Channel, when they take on a case, if its only witness testimony that they can use to verify this, they actually do undergo polygraphs. And sometimes, sometimes it comes out where, "Oh absolutely, flat-out, everything you answered was true," and sometimes it comes out where, you know, "Mmm, it was kind of iffy, you know, we can't, we can't do it..."

GEORGE LUTZ: Oh, I understand. You said something very interesting. You said you feel sorry for the entities causing this in some way?

DOUG: Nowadays. Now with your particular case – what you went through – I don't think like that was somebody trapped, you know, not knowing what's going on, ah you know. I have a feeling that a lot of things that at least I've run across personally is, you know, people, entities that don't know that they're causing such mayhem, or they're trying to communicate with us but its not obviously an easy thing to do, so what they – 'cause we're out there seeking this – we're seeking people on the other side to try and communicate with – and through EVC's, through recordings, through digital, through analog technology, we're using technology to try and...

[off-topic talk excised – Doug tells a story of ghost in the men's room of the Holly Hotel – supposedly a psychic said its the ghost of a woman who "just wants to say hello," and can't understand why her presence scares everyone away]

DOUG: (cont'd) You know, we're trying to communicate with them, and they're trying to communicate with us, but there's just something in-between that's causing at sometimes, at least, at least in that one case, to be misconstrued, very very much, you know – completely opposite of what the entity intended.

GEORGE LUTZ: There's another possibility also there, though. One of the things that I've learned over time is that you can have – and I do believe we had at the time – many more than just one entity. We had a smorgasbord of, in one sense, of types of energies and different forms of intelligence focused in different ways.

DOUG: And that's why I'm thinking The Amityville Horror case is of course much much different than what I've ever been on.

GEORGE LUTZ: My belief has always been that whatever was been causing the worst stuff, the worst things, was – it couldn't care less about the effects. It had absolutely no moral values like we do. It would not care at all, except to be effective. It's goal would be to control, and it would do that in a number of different ways; but it wouldn't – it would never think that it had something to answer for someplace else.

What you have just told me is a story about a men's room where grown men are running out of there absolutely frightened. And really believing they were in the presence of evil. And being subjected to severe cold, and a darkening of the room, which are indicators of a less-than-positive force.

DOUG: Oh definitely.

GEORGE LUTZ: When you went to communicate with this, you used a woman. This phenomena was directed at men. And the answers you got were from a, from one woman to another. So it may very well be that you only partially found out what was really going on there.

DOUG: And that – that's another, that's yet another, you know, wall that's very difficult to get over in this particular field that we've chosen to be our hobby and our passion, is that communication is not ever guaranteed – and when it is there, its not guaranteed to be accurate. You know. So... But it was – it did cause me – that the thing about – the moral of that story for me, anyway...

GEORGE LUTZ: And I don't mean to correct you. Please don't take it that way. Its the way I kind of look at this stuff, is that...

DOUG: No. And I completely understand.

GEORGE LUTZ: The absence of God's presence is truly confusion. The absence of some kind of positive force, some kind of positive intent is confusion. And confusion is created a lot of different ways. Those men were not confused when they left. They absolutely wanted out of there. They knew that they needed to leave.

DOUG: To the embarrassment of their, you know, wives and people–

GEORGE LUTZ: They couldn't care less about their reactions or anything or their family or the public. They were gone.

DOUG: Right. That's exactly...

GEORGE LUTZ: And that's not a – that to me doesn't strike me as an discarnate entity that formally had a body that is focused here now trying to communicate. That's not the same kind of phenomena that I've experienced or seen from that perspective. And I do understand what you mean when you say we misinterpret, because it is so easy to. We have such a definite, limited understanding of this stuff. We have such definite ideas of "I know for myself, that this stuff doesn't exist. Just, it can't. I've never seen it, so how can it?"

And we have these attitudes and that confusion really wreaks havoc with us, because when the confusion is created – when we were experiencing this as a family in the Amityville house, and we'd find ourselves, when we look back at it, we'd find ourselves experiencing so much time there separately – off doing our own things as individuals – not sitting down and sharing what's going on. We don't understand a lot of it, and a lot of it isn't "in your face" stuff. So what happens individually – Kathy's at home alone when she's embraced from behind by what she perceives to be a woman. I hear the marching band, for example. Or the cold spots that we talked about last month, or the odors – the odors in the basement that come and go from a place where there are no sewer pipes. The flies in the sewing room window that just – you'd kill them and they'd come back, in the middle of the winter, which made no sense. The priest testifying, years later, that he heard a voice tell him to get out – a discarnate voice – the priest that came to bless the house – and the problems that he had in the rectory afterwards, and that some of us experienced for years after that. I mean, the list kinda goes on and on and on, but it doesn't mean that all of that came from one source or one thing.

And we are so quick to – and I did this for years, please don't think that I'm immune to this – we looked for quick, easy answers. We looked for a way to understand and deal with this stuff. And I do believe its a lifetime of interest and study – if you care about it or if you really have a need to know for some reason – to begin to get some perspectives about how some of this works.

DOUG: Well it would take that, because especially in The Amityville Horror, what you went through, it has so many different facets to it, that I have to agree that its gotta be from more than one source. More than one paranormal source. Because there's like too many things that they go through, just even in the original movie and in the book, in the histories, in amityvillehorror.com, its just like too many identifiable, like, "Wow, that's paranormal, and that's paranormal, and that's paranormal." Its too much to be all from one thing.

GEORGE LUTZ: After we left the house and we moved into Kathy's mom's house (and we left all our stuff in the house and we moved over there), Kathy and I, one morning, levitated. We were actually floating around the room talking to each other, asking each other if we believed that this was going on. And it was pleasant. It was certainly not normal. And we were asked about this in the polygraph test years later. This was a completely different phenomenon than we had experienced in the house. And what do you attribute this to? What do you, you know – I can come up with all kinds of reasons such a thing might occur today, but at the time I had no basis to even begin to form an opinion other than "blame it on the house," which is...

DOUG: And of course you're like so "anti-that-house" at this point, because it's basically evicted you, you know. It like evicted you and you got out, and now more stuff is happening. So that even had to add confusion.

GEORGE LUTZ: Well you need to understand that I still considered the, that we were going to move back in the house. That was my house – that's where our stuff was – there was just no way we were giving it up. We just wanted to get it fixed. So we immediately put together people that could deal with that and do something about that. And that's a process of learning and unlearning. Unlearning all the things that you think you know and understand or believe are proper, or... You start to learn how unpowerful you really are as an individual and how much help you need.

DOUG: Do you think the right team was put together. That's a question actually that I had from when we were talking last week, because I had mentioned there was a bit of synchronicity that Hans Holzer couldn't be there, and it was the, you know, umm, it was Ed and Lorraine. So there's a bit of synchronicity, I think, that was at work there. Do you think it was the right team, at the right time?

GEORGE LUTZ: That's the first time anybody has ever asked me that question. Good question.

DOUG: [laughs] Uh oh... [unintelligible]

GEORGE LUTZ: I guess I've thought about this from philosophical point of view in that, you know, all things happen for a reason, and this came together the way it did for whatever reasons. It was the best we could do.

DOUG: Right.

GEORGE LUTZ: I don't know, even thinking back on it now, what we could have done different to put together a more qualified team in terms of people with credentials – or what we thought were real credentials.

DOUG: Yeah, and even today we talk about that in the first half hour of the segment. Experts are just all over the Internet... [laughs]

GEORGE LUTZ: Aren't they ever...

DOUG: About the paranormal. But today–

GEORGE LUTZ: Everybody's an expert about The Amityville Horror, you know. All kinds of people later, and all kinds of people that weren't there, that didn't experience things, themselves, personally. That they're experts, you know. And that's always an interesting thing.

DOUG: Yeah, and that happens. That happens to everybody, in almost every case. But what I'm wondering is, I think that the people that you put together, the people that – and of course you were probably in a frantic state, like, "There's gotta be someone on the planet who can come here and fix this," right? Someone's gotta fix this. And how do you get them? Who is it? Because its not like you look it up in the yellow pages. So what happens is, it just seemed to me, when we were talking last week, that it had to be some kind of synchronicity thing that I would have to think the right people came to you at that right time. Nowadays, and this is one thing I mentioned...

GEORGE LUTZ: Oh I think that team was put together by the grace of God.

DOUG: Yeah. That's what I'm thinking of.

GEORGE LUTZ: Just the... For example, there a photograph taken the day of the investigation in March of 1976 of a very strong, real likeness of Saint Pio, who at the time was Padre Pio. He was a Capuchin priest that had all five wounds of Christ and openly bled for 50 years and 3 days, and he – actually a cup of blood is what he bled every day for 50 years and 3 days. And his likeness is there, and it shows up in a photograph that at the time Lorraine Warren was praying to him, asking him to come there.

And Father Ray – the priest that came to bless the house for us – helped us so much for so long afterwards. He had, in his prayers, mentioned our "plight," if you will, to Padre Pio. So synchronicity is a very interesting thing. Its one of those things that you don't really understand who all is involved or gets involved or looks in on different things at different times just because you ask them to.

And that was just one little – I mean that's just one picture taken there – and its just one of literally hundreds of pictures taken that day.

DOUG: So even – and what's interesting is even though all this was going on, everything was just absolutely chaotic and mayhem and how do you want to clean this house of whatever's going on, and then get back there, you know, get back in it – it really required that, I think, that team, and that, you know, that situation. Had it happened today, you know, if that kind of thing were happening today, for example, in modern times – and we touched on this last time – there would be no end of people that you could call on. You just put a post on a bulletin board on the Internet, and suddenly you'd have 300 people at your door, "We wanna help." Whereas then I imagine you were just calling everywhere, "Is there anything you can do for us? Is there anything you can do for us?"

GEORGE LUTZ: The problem with that is exploitation. There are so many people looking to make a name off of a case, and so willing to pump up their own credentials that don't exist, in some manner or another, and associate themselves into something and make a name for themselves that way – that you really are besieged with charlatans. And its a very, very difficult process to find the people who are interested in helping you, personally; that are interested in your well-being, and not in their own game in some manner.

That's a very difficult task to cull through that when everything else is going on as well. There is no clearing house for this stuff. There is no national testing for it, or licenses issued, or anything like that, and you really have to trust your gut, and you have to trust the people that you do trust to give you good advice. In our case we were so fortunate to have Father Ray's influence in helping us decide who should and should not be invited to that investigation.

Ed Warren is a demonologist. Lorraine Warren is a light transmedium. Mary Downey is a renowned time-walker who had her own school for psychics and her own radio show at the time. These three people, individually, particularly, had such strong Catholic faith that was synergistic with Father Ray. I was not a Catholic, but I could see that their faith got them through this in different ways, that was so important to surviving this.

DOUG: Did you ever get to study other things that the Warrens had done, for example? Because I imagine–

GEORGE LUTZ: I have spent time with the Warrens. I've been in their house a number of times. I've slept there. I've spent time in their museum. Ed walked off and left me there for quite a while one day – just, I think, to see my reaction to being left alone in his dark little museum with all his terrible things.

DOUG: But you didn't know any of that stuff even existed prior to seeking out their...

GEORGE LUTZ: Their work? Their body of work prior to that? No. No, I had no idea of who these people were or what they did.

DOUG: Yeah, again, I have to say something intervened and, you know, and got Hans Holzer on to some other case, and got them involved in your case. That's all I can think. That's all I can think. And I have to say, I think that they were the right people. But all the – Father Ray – I think everybody was the right person for you at the time.

GEORGE LUTZ: We didn't have a parish priest, he was an ecclesiastical judge for the diocese. This wasn't a parish priest that we know – this was someone who spoke nine languages. This was the equivalent – had the equivalent of a law degree from Oxford. After his name was the initials STO, which is a doctorate of cannon law. And he was a judge for that diocese.

I had met him because of being invited to the diocese as a witness for the proceedings involving an annulment for my first marriage which lasted about six months. And she had – my first wife – had gone and applied for an annulment, and part of the rules is you invite the ex-spouse. I didn't understand that at all, but he and I became – "friendly" isn't close enough, too accurate – we became friends, even in that short afternoon. And I certainly was willing to spend more time with him before going to the diocese that day, I, you know, could have cared less about spending time with a priest. He was an extraordinary man; and yes, he was the right man to be involved in this.

DOUG: Yeah. Again, I think the makeup of that team is just phenomenal. And the way it all sort of fell together – I just... Even that seems like things were working for you behind the scenes. Like there's nothing – again, it's gotta be frustrating, you know, you're in this house, you love this house, you're paying for this house, it cost a lot of money, and you're – and you want to stay in this house, and all these whacked-out things are happening. So you're basically evicted from this house, and you need help to get, you know, clean it up and get back in there.

And yet – and you feel, like you had said earlier, powerless, because we're just humans.

[George sneezes]

DOUG: Bless you.

GEORGE LUTZ: Excuse me, I still got some cough left.

DOUG: Mmm hmm. 'Cause we're just humans. So what can we do? Its not like we can wander through and we don't have like they have on Sci-Fi Channel where you can hold out the palms of your hands and blast any entities away with a light beam. It doesn't happen. It happens on TV, but it doesn't happen in real life. And so we can only do what, you know, we can only work through the powers that can work for us. And I think that team that was just – I think it was put together not by, you know, pure chance, let's just say.

GEORGE LUTZ: I do agree.

DOUG: Yes. The interesting, ah, I wanna get back onto the upcoming movie, because I know a lot of people are talking about that – but you know what, let's take–

GEORGE LUTZ: There's a movie coming out?

DOUG: [laughs] I heard. Let's take a break. Let's take a quick break.

WILL: Just one?

DOUG: Yeah, just a very fast one, Will. Whatever the shortest one is you have. We're gonna take that, and then we're gonna come back and talk about that. 'Cause I know there were a lot of questions raised, and it just blew me away what was happening to you legally now. I mean its, oh, George its just so complicated. So let's try and get through that, and we'll get 40 minutes or so – or 35 or 40 minutes – of that, because I wanna try and understand this, and find out why. I wanna discern. And I have a feeling none of us will know. You know, its just like this is just what happens in business. But we'll find out more from your point of view and I'll let you know what kinds of things I've received in my email. We'll do that after this break, so hang on to–

GEORGE LUTZ: How long is the break?

DOUG: It'll be like 3 minutes. Is that cool, or?

GEORGE LUTZ: Okay.

[off-topic talk excised]

DOUG: I'm going to imdb.org and I'm typing in "Amityville Horror."

WILL: Well while you're doing that, I know we talked about this during the break, George, but there was a question from all the people in the chat room asking if you knew if Father Ray was still alive or not.

GEORGE LUTZ: Oh, okay Will. I personally don't know. I am not sure that what's being said isn't – when people are being told that he is, that he has passed away – I'm not sure that isn't to protect his privacy in some manner if he still is alive. I really don't know.

WILL: How old was he then? Back when you guys were doing this – back in the late 70s?

GEORGE LUTZ: I believe he was in his mid-40s.

WILL: Oh, so he's getting pretty up there, then.

DOUG: Well my best friend, Craig, his grandmother passed away. She was 92. So she – so people have unpredictable life spans.

WILL: Yeah. He was, he'd probably be in his mid-70s by now.

GEORGE LUTZ: My grandad was 94 and he died right after we moved out of the house.

WILL: Oh wow.

DOUG: Oh man, that's a long-lived family. My great aunt was 98.

WILL: I got to see my great grandparents, and they were all in their 90s, on my father's side.

DOUG: So its completely unpredictable. Hopefully Father Ray is still enjoying his privacy for a change.

GEORGE LUTZ: Wherever he is, I'm sure he's fine.

DOUG: Yes. Now what I did, was I went to – I did something anybody on the planet can do, anybody on the planet with Internet – they can go to imdb.org, which is the Internet Movie Database, now owned by Amazon – and I typed-in "Amityville Horror" in the little search, and I clicked-on "go." And here's what I find. "The Amityville Horror" 1979. Okay? Now that particular movie, George, I don't know what you think of it yet, exactly – I don't have a grasp on it – but I do know that that particular movie is one of the few that changed my life. At the time I was, what, I was 12-years old, 13 years old.

WILL: I was born that year.

DOUG: You were born that year?

WILL: Yeah.

DOUG: I was 12 or 13, so of course the only – my chance to see it was not at the movies – I would have seen that particular movie, you know, later in, you know, like within a year, probably, but it usually, like a sleepover kinda thing, where you're trying to get scared and stuff like that. And so what happens is, this particular movie, though, totally changed my life, because I was already leaning toward being into paranormal stuff. And then there was this movie with just absolutely everything going on in it. Of course, we took it as Hollywood, you know.

When that movie came out, how, what did you think, George? Because you were the one who was the subject of it.

GEORGE LUTZ: I felt a lot of different things. I was, personally I was quite resentful that we hadn't been consulted with about the content and making of it. I did go out and do publicity for it under an agreement that I made that they would delete certain things that they had put in, that hopefully will never be seen. That was kind of a negotiation thing.

As a work, it is considered a classic, and compared to the remake that's being done now, I guess I would have to term it quite accurate, compared to the movie that they've just done.

DOUG: Well as a matter of fact, that's number two. Number two–

GEORGE LUTZ: And its not accurate. And don't misunderstand, the original is not accurate compared to the book. The book is much more accurate.

DOUG: Now you worked with the book, you know, the author of the book, right?

GEORGE LUTZ: Yes, we gave him cassette tapes that Kathy and I had done for self-help. A series of about 24, 26 of them. And he had to work from them. Kathy wasn't going to sit down and be interviewed about this at the time. And so this was a process. And it was a very difficult task for them to unravel what had been done just for ourselves, and put it into some kind of timeline and make sense of it. And fortunately he did have access to Father Ray, and he did have access to the Warrens, and he was able to put together what he did.

DOUG: The, umm – and that was Jay?

GEORGE LUTZ: Yes, Jay Anson.

DOUG: And what happens is, I just clicked on the one for 2005 – The Amityville Horror, 2005. I clicked on that one. Directed by Andrew Douglas. That's what they say. They say Jay Anson–

GEORGE LUTZ: Who I'm sure is a very nice man.

DOUG: Mmm Hmm. They say Jay Anson did the novel. Sandor Stern did an earlier screenplay?

GEORGE LUTZ: Yes, he was a dentist in California. Anson did the first screenplay for the first movie. They rejected it and turned to Sandor Stern to do that screenplay.

DOUG: And then they also list Scott Kosar as a screenplay writer.

GEORGE LUTZ: He evidently is listed as a writer on the current remake.

DOUG: Right. They say that Ryan Reynolds is portraying George Lutz.

GEORGE LUTZ: Well, if they want to say that they have a depiction of George Lutz, that's a really loose statement. From what I've learned of the content of this movie, saying that it bears some resemblance to us, then I guess, you know, you can say that it takes place in a house, and that there's phenomena that takes place, and that there are three kids, and newlyweds, and its on the water, and these people have a boat and a telephone – but other than that, that's a real stretch to say it has any relationship to my family or what we experienced.

DOUG: Well I don't know, George, because I read on and it says Melissa George is the actress portraying Kathy Lutz.

GEORGE LUTZ: Right.

DOUG: And then Philip Baker Hall is portraying Father McNamara. We've got Jimmy Bennett portraying Michael Lutz. We have Jesse James portraying Billy Lutz, and we have Chloe Moretz as Chelsea Lutz.

GEORGE LUTZ: Okay.

DOUG: It sounds like your family. They didn't make it up. I'm appalled, is what I am. I'm appalled at this, because I'm talking with George Lutz on the phone now.

GEORGE LUTZ: Well you have to look on this as an assault on a true story. This is an assault on my family – this movie. On the true story of it; and of thirty years of answering questions about it. Thirty years of never wavering from the truth about this, and...

DOUG: The polygraph tests. The History's Mysteries.

GEORGE LUTZ: Hundreds of interviews.

DOUG: The ABC – yeah.

GEORGE LUTZ: And not involving us. And these people went out and created a script that is so far and away from any relation to the original book, any relation to the original movie. They have created a whole new story. And it is a complete work of fiction.

DOUG: How can Ryan Reynolds, Melissa George, Jimmy Bennett, Jesse James, Chloe Moretz – how can they portray these very real – well, the names of these people they're portraying are very real. How can they portray these real people without having studied with you?

GEORGE LUTZ: What's more interesting is the statements these people make. Andrew Douglas, the director, and Melissa George and Ryan Reynolds have made statements about how accurate this movie is. How its going to be so much more accurate than the original. That the original needed to be remade. That this is going to be very accurate. They've gone "back to the book," they say at times. Umm, I'd like to know what book they've read. They have got me trying to kill the children and Kathy 3 or 4 times in this movie.

DOUG: [laughs] Oh my God...

GEORGE LUTZ: They have me shooting a shotgun at them, and hitting a blender. They have me trying to drown Kathy in the boathouse – trying to kill her with an outboard motor prop.

WILL: That takes talent.

GEORGE LUTZ: Running an outboard motor. They have one of the kids up on the roof of the house. They have the kids and Kathy escaping from the house – escaping from me – in a rainstorm, onto the roof. They have one of the kids trying to hit me with a TV antenna pipe. [laughs] They, I mean this just gets, this gets... I don't know how to begin to describe to you how far they strayed, and how often and how much, and with complete disregard for the truth of the story, or the effect that this is going to have on the truth, on my family. This is going to create so much confusion, and so much damage to what has been so hard-fought, and so much a source of misery, at times, for so long. This is done with complete disregard for the effect. And then...

DOUG: Let me add to that.

GEORGE LUTZ: I'm sorry, I interrupted you.

DOUG: No, no – go ahead. I agree with you. I can't believe that they're doing this. But I want to ask you, though...

GEORGE LUTZ: Well they bring the priest in not, for example – Father Ray came the day that we moved-in to the house to bless the house. They bring the priest into this in the middle of the story – the middle of the movie. And he is the priest that... He doesn't come to bless the house. What he comes is – he ends up looking in an air duct. He comes out as a visit to the children, because according to this movie, their father, their birth father, their real father, died, and Kathy's a widow. Absolutely untrue. I mean just "make it up as you go" stuff. They can't even decide what to call him. They call him, at first they call him Father Callaway and then they call him Father McNamara.

DOUG: Wow. Well they did – let me ask you that just a little bit, because I think the first part of this might be actually accurate. Its the second part that's going a little crazy. "On November 14, 1974, police received a frantic phone call that led them to the DeFeo residence, where they made a grizzly discovery – six bodies. The entire DeFeo family all slaughtered with a .35 caliber as they slept calmly in their beds. Ronald DeFeo confessed to methodically murdering his parents and four siblings and claimed it was the voices that told him to do it."

Now that part sounds like what we all can agree on, right? I mean that sounds normal. Well, its not a normal thing, its scary, but... "Then one year later on December 18, 1975, George and Kathy Lutz, along with their three children, moved into the house, thinking it was going to be their dream home. Especially if their dreams were nightmares." Here's where we get into the – that sounds like market-speak to me. "The Lutz family only lasted 28 days in their home after they were terrorized by a demonic force that drove them away. Based on the true story of George and Kathy Lutz, The Amityville Horror remains one of the most horrifying," excuse me, "one of the most horrifying haunted house stories ever told because it actually happened." That was their...

GEORGE LUTZ: And this is what they're saying about the new movie?

DOUG: Right, that's in the new movie.

WILL: That's the summary that was written.

DOUG: Its the summary on imdb, which is supposed to be – you know imdb has always been, since its inception and before, well when it was conceived – and that was way before Amazon.com bought it – imdb was supposed to remain neutral in all cases.

GEORGE LUTZ: Sure.

DOUG: And I think it does, to the most part. And they do allow comments.

GEORGE LUTZ: Well that's, what you're talking about is press release stuff.

DOUG: Yeah, that's very "press release."

GEORGE LUTZ: This movie starts off with is the – that Kathy and I and the children living in a small house in Deer Park, New York. The correct way to have said this is that we each had a house. We sold those homes for more than we bought this house for. That the home we were living in was mine, because we sold Kathy's house first. It was a five bedroom, three, you know, basement and a two story house. It wasn't a small house, it was just we were looking for something on the water so we didn't have to travel to our boat – and that we didn't have to have it in a yard of some kind, or some marina. And when we added it up just financially, monthly, by selling the two homes and taking the boat out of the marina and putting it in our own boathouse (which the Amityville house had) – we were actually ahead money-wise.

DOUG: Oh yeah, that would save a lot of money, because marinas are – we're in Great Lakes–

GEORGE LUTZ: We were in great shape moving in there.

DOUG: I'm here in Michigan. Great Lakes state. A lot of people I know are boat owners, and it costs a lot to have it in a marina.

GEORGE LUTZ: But you won't get any of that kind of information from this movie.

DOUG: [laughs] No, of course.

GEORGE LUTZ: Instead, what you'll see is that, you'll see a scene in the basement where I have been – "George Lutz" in that movie – has been constructing coffins for Kathy and the children.

DOUG: What?!? Oh my – there's no way!

GEORGE LUTZ: And loading a shotgun. You'll see a scene where I'm screaming at Kathy to kill me.

DOUG: Yeah, you now have me speechless. The only thing I can think of is that I'm speechless because none of this resembles anything in the book.

GEORGE LUTZ: No it does not.

DOUG: And it doesn't resemble anything I've seen a lot of specials, you know, the History special and interviews with you. I've heard interviews with you on Lou Gentile. None of that ever – where did they come up with this?

GEORGE LUTZ: Well we now know, you know, from this content, and from what we know now, we now know why they did not want to involve me or my family in the remake. This is what they intended to do. They could not have – in my opinion, and I'm sure so many people will agree with us when they see this – that they could not have worked harder at destroying a true story about real people and real events. They couldn't have worked harder to do that.

DOUG: Let me play Devil's Advocate real quick. For me, I'm just a, you know, I'm actually sort of an average person, and I have a job and I enjoy sometimes seeing movies. I don't see very many. I'm not like a movie hound, and I don't collect DVDs or VCR tapes. I just enjoy Hollywood to an extent. I love seeing Sci-Fi, is my particular thing. But of course I'm also interested in the paranormal. I usually don't go see horror movies. Of course, though, The Amityville Horror is a classic. So that one I saw a long time ago, and every so often get to see again.

But I would see this movie coming out, and I would think, "Wow, you know, they're gonna redo it, they're gonna put in all kinds of cool special effects, its gonna be, you know, its gonna be an interesting story – its a remake of an absolute classic." I would be interested in going to see this movie. And just based on press releases and watching people on Jay Leno, or wherever they're going to send the cast to – you know, that kind of thing – and whatever press junkets they do, I'll hear about it and I'll get excited about it. I would like to see this movie – The Amityville Horror remake. I would love this movie, as just a movie-goer, as an average guy.

Now, of course, I might not completely fit that characteristic because I'm talking to the guy who went through the events that comprised that story, and I'm hearing a different story. But as a movie-goer, I would be excited about this remake. So, you know, as – when I'm at work...

GEORGE LUTZ: Are you going to get excited that they have me murdering our family dog, and that they've turned the family dog into a sheepdog rather than the black lab that he was?

DOUG: I can't be excited about that, no.

GEORGE LUTZ: Okay.

DOUG: No, that I would say, "Oh, they totally ruined..." When I left the movie, I would say, "They totally ruined it," you know. But I would go see it.

GEORGE LUTZ: You need to understand that Orion Pictures are the only people that could have done this remake properly. And they have, from what I understand, from what I have learned about this, that has not happened. And this story could have been told accurately, and it could have been told properly, and no one cared to do that, that I can figure out.

DOUG: Well unfortunately, I'd have to say, I would be very, I, you know, as a person who hasn't, you know, before I talked with you on the phone – I would have been excited – and I still was until I talked with you – very excited about this movie. This is – Amityville Horror is a classic. I would love to go see this movie. The only thing is, now that I know what's actually happening, I can't say that this movie is going to be any good. I think its going to be a huge letdown, just exactly like "White Noise" was. "White Noise" was a huge letdown.

GEORGE LUTZ: This will create huge problems. Ongoing problems for years. This is not something you just undo overnight and say, you know, "Well here's a list of what's not right with it." That just doesn't fix it. Millions of people will see this.

DOUG: And of course, being by a huge media conglomerate, its going to be run worldwide probably in...

GEORGE LUTZ: Well it went so far in that my daughter Missy had a, umm, I don't know how to word this, a "friend" there. Jodie. Someone who told her that she was going to live there forever, and actually followed us out to California. We had a really, very hard time getting Jodie to go away. And the only way to do that was having Missy demand that it happen, and that was a very difficult event.

Jodie was a little boy. There's a picture of him appearing in the house the day of the investigation. Now they've turned Jodie into a girl.

DOUG: Probably because Jodie is, I mean with Jodie Foster is so famous – she's a girl, you know. You probably, when you're sitting in...

GEORGE LUTZ: [laughs] Any excuse will do.

DOUG: When you're locked-in, when you're locked into a room and you're writing this, what we now know is fiction – I don't know. They say its based on a true case. They say its based on what really happened to you guys, but it doesn't sound like...

GEORGE LUTZ: Saying it doesn't make it so.

DOUG: They use your names in the movie.

GEORGE LUTZ: No way around that. Orion Pictures has the right to do that. We take issue with the fact that MGM, as far as we're concerned, does not have the right to do this.

DOUG: The actors and actresses who portray your family, or the family who is remarkably similar to you, but obviously cannot be you, but use your name – they didn't talk to you.

GEORGE LUTZ: Oh it gets better. They have us escaping, they have us escaping from this in the end in the boat.

DOUG: Oh! Well that's different even from the first movie.

GEORGE LUTZ: Oh, well yeah, that's... You wanna talk about writers locking themselves in a room, you know...

DOUG: Do they not have a copy of the book?

GEORGE LUTZ: That's a really good question, isn't it?

DOUG: Oh my gosh, they could have gone to the library and gotten a copy of your book. They could have downloaded it probably off of the Internet. Oh my gosh. Okay.

GEORGE LUTZ: On amityvillehorror.com there is a section there called "the remake." And it's just some things that we put up. And we put up that section that I talked about last week about the – what our agreement with the definition is of a remake – of the remake about this. And basically what it says is "which shall depict the same characters participating in the same or substantially the same events as shall have been depicted in either the first theatrical motion picture or the first made-for-television feature motion picture as the case may be." That has not happened here. I personally consider this an assault on my family and a real intentional breach of our agreement with these people. As you understand the contract is passed down to different hands, but the contract still lives – it doesn't go away. They had a right to make a remake when we originally did the agreement with American International Pictures. They had no sequel rights – we retained the sequel rights – but the remake was defined as the same characters participating in the same or substantially same events.

DOUG: Why do they think they can do this with your story? Who owns the story of – your story of The Amityville Horror? You own...

GEORGE LUTZ: Who owns the story?

DOUG: Yeah, I mean Jay or you or somebody – because like for example when...

GEORGE LUTZ: You mean for the copyright for the original book?

DOUG: Right, that would be...

GEORGE LUTZ: That's Kathy and myself and Jay Anson.

DOUG: How come Jay is listed on the credits and you're not?

GEORGE LUTZ: He's the author. We are the copyright holders together – all three of us.

DOUG: Ah, okay, so he's just the name on the cover.

GEORGE LUTZ: Yes.

DOUG: So he's the one that gets listed in the credits.

GEORGE LUTZ: Right.

DOUG: Did they ask him...

GEORGE LUTZ: He died in 1980.

DOUG: Did they ask his family? Do you know his family?

GEORGE LUTZ: No I don't. That wouldn't make – you need to understand – that wouldn't make any difference asking him if they could make these changes. He had no control over that.

DOUG: Well, oh that's true. Who...

GEORGE LUTZ: His family would have no control over that.

DOUG: Who got money? Who got money to do this remake?

GEORGE LUTZ: Michael Bay's production company. MGM, I think, is expecting to participate in that. Miramax Films.

DOUG: Now when private Lynch had that experience in the war just last, you know, she'd been captured and tortured or whatever and then rescued, and then come back here to the United States to great celebration and stuff. She had a story, right? A patriotic, wonderful, but horrific at the same time, story. And she's the owner of that story, and she contracted with a ghost writer to write the book, right? And she can contract with whomever for the movie rights and stuff like that.

GEORGE LUTZ: Sure.

DOUG: But it sounds like you have the movie rights for Amityville.

GEORGE LUTZ: No, I have the sequel – you have a difference here. I have the sequel rights. The original – the rights for the 28 days that are depicted in the book were sold to American International Pictures. When they sold their company to Filmways, and Filmways went bankrupt and sold their rights to Orion Pictures – the rights to tell the story were handed down to Orion Pictures. Orion Pictures at that point had the right to do a remake, but not any sequel.

DOUG: Why isn't Orion Pictures doing this movie?

GEORGE LUTZ: Well that's a really good question. That's, I guess, a legal question. They're a subsidiary of some kind of MGM's – they're affiliated with MGM – but they exist as a separate company. MGM bought the film library, and so the rights for the original movie – the right to sell the DVDs and the VHS stuff and all that – I believe that, from what I understand, is MGM's. But the remake rights remain the property of Orion because there has never been a transfer in writing of the copyright.

DOUG: I think, well, both companies are capable, and have a lot of resources, you know, Orion and MGM...

GEORGE LUTZ: Well they're affiliated.

DOUG: And they're even affiliated. Well, I imagine a lot of Hollywood is affiliated with each another at some point. But you've got to figure, though, I would think that – why wouldn't they just have Orion do the movie, then they could call you up and say, you know, "George, we wanna do this. We want to do it right. We want it to be spectacular. We want it to be something befitting the, umm..." Something that I would want to see. I'm Doug. I'm, you know, a little interested in the paranormal. I'm a lot, you know. But I'm Doug. I'm average Doug. I've got a job, I absolutely love the Amitvyille Horror – the original one. I would love to see this remake. I would absolutely love to see it. I'm a movie-goer, right? Why wouldn't they do it right? Because I would love to see...

GEORGE LUTZ: I don't have the dates in front of me. What they did was they called me last year and they said, "We want to bring you over. We want to get together with you. We want to talk about this. We're going to be doing the remake," and I said, "Great, when do you want to do that," and they said, "well we have a scheduling problem and we'll get back to ya."

DOUG: That was it.

GEORGE LUTZ: What they were telling, what they were telling people before that phone call was that they couldn't get a hold of me – so I called them. And then I called them back again, and "oh yeah, we still have a scheduling problem and we want to bring you over." And this went on for, I think, four months.

DOUG: Well they seem to be able to schedule all of these people to do all these things, because its marked here as being completed.

GEORGE LUTZ: Well you understand the expression "shined-on."

DOUG: Right.

GEORGE LUTZ: What was happening at that point was they were writing the script and they were supposedly waiting for that to get done before discussing this with me – and whatever – you know, any excuse will do.

DOUG: Then they probably read the script and said, "Oh, my goodness"...

GEORGE LUTZ: Well what happened was our last conversation – my last conversation with them went something like, "I'm really sorry that you guys keep putting this off and that we don't seem to be getting anywhere with this – I have some issues that I had thought we could sit down and discuss, but I guess I'll have to take them to MGM, since they're the ones that announced that they're doing this.

And the reaction was, "You have issues?" and I said, "Yes, I've had them for quite a long time. I've written to you people – you just evidently don't read your mail or whatever, but you know, we'll do what we have to do." So we sent the letter out again, of inquiry about, you know, "How come you guys think you can do this? Where do the rights come from, that you can do what you're doing?" And so that was, by then that was May or so. In June of last year they sued me.

DOUG: Out of blue? That's insane.

GEORGE LUTZ: Well there was never a discussion. There was never anybody at MGM that picked up the phone and said, you know, "I guess we should talk with you guys."

DOUG: So I guess because you can go ahead and – anybody can sue anybody here in the United States for any reason. They thought, "Okay, we're just going to totally tie it up in court, and its gonna be an issue that's tied up in the legal system, and then we're just gonna continue on doing what we're doing because we don't have a restriction against doing it now."

GEORGE LUTZ: Well what I learned later was that by then they had formed a – at least "what I think I have learned," maybe I should word it that way, 'cause we'll find out more of this as time goes on. They formed a shell company to hide the copyright of the screenplay. And they filed this under something called Long Island Properties or something like that. And so they didn't even use a working title for the screenplay. They didn't call it Amityville Horror or Amityville Remake or anything like that – they just did everything they possibly could to secret this in the content of what they were doing. And I guess they thought they could get this done and make their money and, you know, let the chips fall where they may.

WILL: It sounds like they tried to sue you before you could sue them.

GEORGE LUTZ: I never wanted to sue them. I wanted to talk with these people and figure out a way to do this as accurately as possible.

WILL: Right. But in their mind, they were probably thinking, "Oh my God, George is gonna sue us – we better sue him first so, you know, it looks good in court for them.

DOUG: And that's happened. I mean that's happened in business before. Big, big business. And this sucks because its a movie George – and we only have three minutes left, I hate this – but its a movie that I would like to see made. A remake that I would like to...

GEORGE LUTZ: Well I'll give you three examples of what they've done with movies in Hollywood. And Hollywood is really capable of doing some great stuff, you know. They just did "Flight of the Phoenix" – a remake – and they did it incredibly accurately. Real true to the first one and to the original story, and it was a great movie. And if you enjoyed the first movie, going to see "Flight of the Phoenix" was like, kind of like an updated version, but it was a really great movie.

They did "Stepford Wives," which was a, you know, "Stepford Wives alternate universe" in the sense that it was completely different movie from the first. And "Forrest Gump," if you look, if you, have you ever read the original book "Forrest Gump"?

DOUG: No, I wish I had.

GEORGE LUTZ: Well "Forrest Gump," the original book is a wonderful book. Its incredible. And the movie is a completely different story, and the movie's wonderful all on its own. But its not "Forrest Gump, the book," its "Forrest Gump the movie." Its a completely different adaptation, real change of story and all that. Its like, you know, going to – if you just read the book and then went to see the movie, you'd say, "What am I looking at?" You know, its another great movie, but...

DOUG: Its completely different. Yeah.

GEORGE LUTZ: Yeah. So they do a number of different things. What they've done here is they did "Amityville Horror alternate universe" – somebody's drug dream. I have no idea what they did. I don't know how to accurately describe this. We can search all day for ways to talk about it, but its a shameful thing to do.

DOUG: What's your suggestion, then? You don't want to see people go see this movie and pay their 7 to 10 dollars, obviously.

GEORGE LUTZ: [laughs] People have to make up their own minds. All I can do is tell them – explain to you...

DOUG: That this is fancy, or flights of fancy.

GEORGE LUTZ: This is what's going on. Yeah. Exactly.

DOUG: Yeah. This has nothing to do with what actually happened. Kinda sad, because, George, I would love to see The Amityville Horror remade from the book and from your experiences, with your input, and done in modern, you know, modern, with modern technology. You know, done really well. Really "wow" me for that hour and a half to two hours – whatever it takes to tell the story – and I would love to see that. I would pay 7-10 bucks to go see that, because that's – its something that I would love to see. This, though, sounds like it might, umm, like it might be, not exactly what I expect, or would have expected. And that kinda sad – it saddens me a lot because I would have liked to have seen a, you know, modern remake of it, done really well. But I don't know. It's, it's kind of sad. I'm appalled that they're doing this to you. Uh, we have one minute left.

GEORGE LUTZ: They're not – you have to understand – they're not just doing it to me, they're doing it to everyone that has an interest in paranormal, that has an interest in learning, that's interested in the story, has been a follower of it for years. They're doing this to everyone. This is, you know – its everyone that gets hurt by this. Its not just me and my family.

DOUG: I agree. I'm appalled and shocked. And I can't – I'm sad that this happened to you, and that it had, you know, with, around The Amityville Horror, too, because that was, like I said earlier, one of the things that turned me on my ear. You know, I was young, impressionable, and that helped me, you know, guide the rest of my life, you know. Otherwise why would I be doing a show called "Ghostly Talk," right? It helped me get into the paranormal. And this is just pretty sad, actually.

It'll be interesting to see what really happens. Will you come on, like around the time that the movie starts?

GEORGE LUTZ: I'll be glad to. I think we were talking possibly around the 17th?

DOUG: I would love to do that, because that would be just after the premiere, right?

WILL: Right.

GEORGE LUTZ: Okay.

DOUG: So I think, you know, they would premiere like on Friday or whatever, and then we can talk about it on Sunday, if that works out for you. I would love to talk about it once its actually out, then we can – well we can either nitpick, or we can just talk about it in general – whichever comes, you know, becomes a, you know, what happens during the conversation. But I just think that, umm, I don't know. Its, its just scary, and I'm appalled. But I am so so incredibly grateful that it brought us together. Because I got to talk with George Lutz for this past hour and a half. Plus I got to talk with you last week as well and again coming up in April. So you know things work in mysterious ways, and I have to say I'm grateful that you came on Ghostly Talk.

WILL: Thank you.

DOUG: Thank you very much.

GEORGE LUTZ: Will and Doug, thank you both.

DOUG: Thank you. I so much appreciate it, George. And keep in touch. Keep in touch.

GEORGE LUTZ: I'll talk to you guys next month.

DOUG: And I'll talk with you next month. And that all, of course, can be set up through Scott L, 'cause he's the telephone master of the group. He wasn't here today because he had to go to the, uh, he had family business...

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