jocal321 I just saw this documentary and it should have been named " Danny, Portrait of a Schizophrenic." Its obvious he came from a family that has mental illness. This disturbed man grew up in a sick family full of delusions and hallucinations which created all the "paranormal demonic activity." His reality was the sick parents' delusions and hallucinations. Add to that, the intense media coverage, movies, talk shows, church involvement, books,etc which further added false "proof" that all this happened to an already young vulnerable unwell mind. Unfortunately as the kids mental illness progressed, he lost all track of all reality,he became the kid's character in the infamous movie. What you see in this film is a broken mentally ill man, nothing more.

jdabbott51-318-439916 I'm giving this movie five stars. For the first forty five minutes of the film I was thinking it was more like a one star movie. My respect for the film grew as I continued to watch it. At one point in the film, Lorraine Warren said about George Lutz, that one needed "a lot of padding to deal with him." Funnily enough, I thought this was a great description of Daniel Lutz of whom is the main subject in this documentary. Throughout the film, Daniel Lutz, kind've dishes the goods on his now deceased stepfather. However, he also seems to embody all of the brooding, dark, narcissistic qualities he hated about his step father. More than anything, there's this sense of a damaged man. He's super macho, shifty, evasive and seems to be having this self pity party. He's clearly putting on a very cool guy image for the film. It's hard to connect with him let alone believe him. He flips out over being asked to take something as simple as a lie detector test. He's obviously exaggerating his experiences and he lays on this thick level of intensity in everything he says to the point that you fear for anyone that dare question him. He seems to be doing okay in his life, and yet he acts as if he's completely been screwed over.By the end of the movie, one kind've walks away to see that behind all of the sensationalism of one of the biggest mass media tales of the 1980's, there was a very real family tied up in it all. Tragically, all of the hoopla from the mass media frenzy even seems to have implanted this major confusion and identity crisis on the people who were involved. Throughout the film, you realize that Danny Lutz, is both trying to reveal himself to be a real person, and at the same time, almost acting out some anti-hero protagonist character in the very movies he proclaims to hate. You can't help but sense a real lack of authenticity from him. He doesn't want to be the Amityvill kid. But when you put the camera's on him, he's very much the amityville kid on hyper overdrive. They interview and tape discussions with all of these paranormal investigators, some of whom don't even seem to believe the events at Amityville occurred.Then there's all of these weird scenes with Danny dropping all of these crazy guitar solos. Did Danny agree to do this movie to launch his music career? Admittedly they're pretty good licks, but it's for a genre of metalhead music that hit it's peak in the early nineties and has declined ever since. This only furthers the understanding that this poor guy is doomed to always be stuck in the past.

tennisplaya3283 The documentary itself addressed some good points about the Lutz family. Is it possible they were experiencing financial trouble? Was George Lutz into sadistic occults? Danny Lutz was the main focus of the documentary, which was the mistake of the producers. The emotions seemed WAY too exaggerated and forced, which made me skeptical of his words. It wouldn't have been as bad if they would have taken bits and pieces of what he said to paint a picture of what happened, but don't let him keep talking in front of a camera. Towards the end, a producer/camera man asked if we was willing to take a lie detector test. Danny Lutz became very abrasive and defensive. It was to the point that the producer was defending himself over the question he asked, but it was mainly that Danny Lutz was avoiding an answer to the question. Simple as that.If the film's purpose was to make me even more of a skeptic, it worked.

alistairc_2000 I just saw this Dead by Dawn in Edinburgh, Scotland. Excellent insightful horror movie. You can watch it in two ways as a documentary about the events or as an out and out horror movie with the evil perpetrated against the minors in the Lutz family. Either way it is a superb watch. Esp the part with the Christian with the two cockerels.Sometimes real life is so much more harrowing than fiction. Forget the question of whether this happened or not and look at the subtext. This is a movie about a guy who has had to live a fictionalised life. It all happened in just one month in the 70s. This one month has had a huge impact on his life since then.As such it begs comparisons with people involved in similar traumas.