Fact or fiction or somewhere in between, the box-office smash The Amityville Horror and the Jay Anson best-seller from which it came are responsible for our nation’s collective consciousness surrounding the multiple murders in one Long Island home on Nov. 13, 1974, and the lingering phenomena reported to haunt it ever since. Among that “ever since” phase, the most famous is the focus of the 1979 movie: the short-term residence in 1975 of George and Kathy Lutz, and their three children.

In the documentary My Amityville Horror, eldest child Daniel Lutz recounts — to the sympathetic ears of psychologist Susan Bartell, to the camera of newbie filmmaker Eric Walter and to the curiosity of you, dear viewer — what the family went through in their 28 days at 112 Ocean Ave. Now a middle-aged father himself and a near-doppelgänger for actor Michael Chiklis (TV’s The Shield), Lutz is only just beginning to articulate what he still doesn’t understand, even with 35 years of hindsight.

Not everything that comes from his mouth can be filed under “complete sense,” but one thing is crystal-clear: He believes and buys in to his mother and stepfather’s story that ignited a cultural phenomenon for nearly four decades now (and more recently debunked as fraud in the name of greed). He also drops bombshells not included in Anson’s 1977 quasi-novel or its two screen adaptations (the blockbuster original or the less-successful 2005 remake): that Daniel found himself possessed, that he was physically abused by a priest, that he witnessed George demonstrating powers of telekinesis.

Experts hailing from both sides of the issue — hoax and truth — contribute their opinions as well, including parapsychologist Lorraine Warren (played by Vera Farmiga in The Conjuring franchise with more credibility than is deserved), who is interviewed while her identical twin roosters cock-a-doodle-doo in the background. Ultimately, My Amityville Horror offers no definitive answers — hell, how could it? — but the questions it raises, both old and new, undeniably hold interest. Draw your own conclusions; you’re apt to loan Walter’s documentary your attention regardless whether you believe a word of it or not. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

After the acclaimed 2009 documentary Cropsey, what does filmmaker Joshua Zeman do for a follow-up? More of the same, with emphasis on “more.” See, rather than spend an hour and a half investigating the truth behind another urban legend, Killer Legends sees Zeman investigating four of them. The film’s style continues in that Cropsey vein, meaning I was glad I wasn’t watching this at night or alone.

Again acting as narrator and on-camera interviewer, writer/director Zeman gains a co-conspirator in researcher Rachel Mills. Together, they form a true-life Mulder and Scully, as they travel across the United States to dig into each case, in hopes of separating the myth from the mystery. Only the occasional and obviously staged bit of setup or transition strikes a false note; it’s no coincidence that both times they venture into pitch-black wooded areas, Mills manages to frighten herself.

As for their subjects, the Killer quartet entails the Texarkana Phantom, as depicted in 1976’s The Town That Dreaded Sundown; tampered Halloween candy; killer clowns; and the terrorized babysitter, popularized by 1979’s When a Stranger Calls. Clips of these films, their remakes and related movies — from Campfire Tales to The House of the Devil — give the doc added production value, but Legends manages to elicit enough chills on its own. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.