George & Kathy Lutz and Kathy’s 3 children are moving into an elegant Long Island home. What they don’t know is that 6 gruesome murders were committed there the year before - Ronald DeFeo Jr., the oldest son in the family, murdered his parents, his 2 brothers & 2 sisters by shooting them with a .35 caliber in November of 1974. No sooner are the Lutzes moved into the house than they begin seeing horrible things - the ghost of Jodie DeFeo, horribly disfigured bodies - and hearing ghostly voices throughout the house. George seems to notice it the most, and it isn’t long before he becomes a danger to those around him. When the local priest, called in to bless the house, comes charging out in horror after being swarmed by flies, he issues a dire warning to Kathy - ‘Leave that house’. But will they be able to escape before the house and its vengeful spirits take control of George - and make him into a deadly menace?
Leonard (Guy Pearce) is an insurance investigator whose memory has been damaged following a head injury he sustained after intervening on his wife’s murder. His quality of life has been severely hampered after this event, and he can now only live a comprehendable life by tattooing notes on himself and taking pictures of things with a Polaroid camera. The movie is told in forward flashes of events that are to come that compensate for his unreliable memory, during which he has liaisons with various complex characters. Leonard badly wants revenge for his wife’s murder, but, as numerous characters explain, there may be little point if he won’t remember it in order to provide closure for him. The movie veers between these future occurrences and a telephone conversation Leonard is having in his motel room in which he compares his current state to that of a client whose claim he once dealt with.
