The Amityville Horror
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50 free The Amityville Horror trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Few haunted-house stories have had a longer afterlife than Amityville. A real crime in a quiet waterside village, a family who moved in a year later and left within a month, and a bestselling book sold as a true story: together they launched one of the most argued-over legends in modern horror. This quiz covers the whole saga: the 1974 case and its trial, the family's claims and the people who challenged them, the 1979 film and how it was made, the sequels, the 2005 remake and the franchise's strange later life. It is written for horror fans, true-crime readers and anyone who has wondered how much of the story holds up. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you leave knowing which details are documented and which are still disputed.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which actor, later the husband of Barbra Streisand, played George Lutz in the 1979 film The Amityville Horror?
James Brolin
James Brolin agreed to star after reading the book late at night: a pair of trousers he had hung up fell to the floor during a tense chapter and he leapt from his chair.
Q 02Which future Deadpool star played stepfather George Lutz in the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror?
Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds led the remake to a number-one opening weekend in the US, and it went on to earn over $100 million worldwide on a $19 million budget.
Q 03In the 1979 film The Amityville Horror, which insects swarm the priest who comes to bless the house?
Flies
Flies were real on set: the actor playing the priest was doused in sugar water and beer so that the insects would crawl all over him.
Q 04In the 1979 film The Amityville Horror, Amy's imaginary friend Jody appears as which glowing-eyed animal?
A pig
A pig is the shape Jody takes at a window on the family's last night; Kathy had earlier glimpsed its eyes outside Amy's bedroom.
Q 05What gives the house in the Amityville Horror films its famous jack-o'-lantern face?
Its attic windows
Its attic windows, two quarter-round panes, are often lit in the films to look like menacing eyes; the real house has since had them removed.
Q 06Which 1990 film ended the 1979 Amityville Horror's run as the highest-grossing independent film of all time?
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles took the record after eleven years; the haunted-house film had earned $86.4 million in North America.
Q 07Which self-described demonologists investigated the Amityville house with a TV crew on a night in March 1976?
Ed and Lorraine Warren
Ed and Lorraine Warren's visit produced the famous infrared photograph said to show a ghostly boy with glowing eyes at the foot of the stairs.
Q 08Which horror novelist argued in Danse Macabre that the 1979 film The Amityville Horror is really about money worries?
Stephen King
Stephen King had panned the film in Rolling Stone, then recanted, reading it as a parable of recession-era fears about buying a home you can't afford.
Q 09Lawyer William Weber claimed he and the Lutzes invented the Amityville haunting over many bottles of what?
Wine
Wine was the fuel, Weber told People magazine in 1979, calling the book a hoax; George Lutz kept insisting the events were mostly true.
Q 10Before confessing in 1974, whom did the Amityville killer first blame for shooting his parents and four siblings?
A Mafia hitman
A Mafia hitman was his first story, and he even named one, but the man had an alibi placing him out of state and the confession came a day later.
Q 11Which actress went from Lois Lane in Superman to Kathy Lutz in the 1979 film The Amityville Horror?
Margot Kidder
Margot Kidder took the part a year after Superman and later admitted she laughed her way through the shoot, never believing the haunting was real.
Q 12Which Oscar winner for In the Heat of the Night played Father Delaney in the 1979 film The Amityville Horror?
Rod Steiger
Rod Steiger took the part to show Hollywood he was fit again, after open-heart surgery had made studios wary of the cost of insuring him.
Q 13Which author turned the Lutz family's taped memories into the 1977 bestseller The Amityville Horror?
Jay Anson
Q 21Which Mission: Impossible theme composer earned an Oscar nomination for scoring the 1979 film The Amityville Horror?
Lalo Schifrin
Lalo Schifrin was also nominated for a Golden Globe for the score, and he returned to write the music for the prequel, Amityville II: The Possession.
Q 22The main theme of the 1979 film The Amityville Horror is a distorted version of what kind of song?
A lullaby
A lullaby for three children's voices came to the composer because three kids were moving into the house, unaware of its past.
Q 23What is the name of the Lutz family's dog, which fled the Amityville house with them in January 1976?
Harry
Harry was a Malamute-Labrador cross, and in the 1979 film it is his scratching at a basement wall that leads to the hidden room.
Jay Anson never worked with the couple directly: he built the book from about 45 hours of recordings they sent him.
Q 14Who was convicted of murdering six members of his own family inside the Amityville house in November 1974?
Ronald DeFeo Jr.
Ronald DeFeo Jr., 23 and known as Butch, received six sentences of 25 years to life and died in custody in 2021.
Q 15The real Amityville Horror house stands beside a canal on the south shore of where in New York?
Long Island
Long Island's Amityville is a real village, and its historical society website makes no mention of the murders or the haunting.
Q 16Which 2016 horror sequel directed by James Wan opens with a séance inside the Amityville house?
The Conjuring 2
The Conjuring 2 uses Amityville only as a prologue, then follows its ghost hunters to London for the Enfield poltergeist case.
Q 17In the 1979 film The Amityville Horror, a possessed George Lutz turns which weapon on the children at the climax?
An axe
An axe was only put in the lead actor's hands after a local axe thrower in New Jersey had trained him to handle it safely on set.
Q 18Which future Kick-Ass star had one of her first roles as daughter Chelsea Lutz in the 2005 Amityville Horror remake?
Chloë Grace Moretz
Chloë Grace Moretz was still a small child when she played Chelsea, five years before her breakthrough as Hit-Girl.
Q 19How did the real George Lutz respond to the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror, which he called drivel?
Sued the filmmakers
George Lutz sued the filmmakers for libel, objecting to scenes such as his character killing the family dog; the case was unresolved when he died in 2006.
Q 20The composer of the 1979 Amityville Horror score denies recycling music rejected by which 1973 horror classic?
The Exorcist
The Exorcist rumor is persistent, but the composer says he began the Amityville theme from the image of the house shown under the opening credits.
Q 24In the 1979 film The Amityville Horror, what color are the walls of the hidden room behind the basement brickwork?
Red
Red walls gave the secret room its name, but later owners said the real one was just a small basement closet that had never been hidden.
Q 25The Amityville Horror house, with its distinctive gambrel roof, is built in which architectural style?
Dutch Colonial
Dutch Colonial was also the style of the New Jersey house chosen for the 1979 film, which was dressed up to double for the real one.
Q 26Refused permission to shoot in Amityville, the 1979 Amityville Horror crew filmed in which New Jersey town?
Toms River
Toms River locals answered newspaper ads to lease their homes to the production, and the town's volunteer fire company supplied the film's rain.
Q 27Which Transformers director produced the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror through his company Platinum Dunes?
Michael Bay
Michael Bay co-founded Platinum Dunes in 2001, and the company became known for horror remakes including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th.
Q 28Which future Sleepless in Seattle star had an early role as teenager Lisa in the 1983 film Amityville 3-D?
Meg Ryan
Meg Ryan plays a friend of the hero's daughter; the film was the only Orion Pictures release ever shot in 3D.
Q 29In Amityville 3-D, which object warns Susan Baxter and her friends at the house that she is in danger?
A Ouija board
A Ouija board delivers the warning, and it comes true soon after when Susan falls from her father's motorboat and drowns.
Q 30In June 1979, George and Kathy Lutz backed their Amityville haunting story by submitting to what?
A polygraph
A polygraph run by two leading examiners found no sign of lying, though skeptics counter that such tests are notoriously unreliable.