North Hollywood - An audience gathered at North Hollywood's Whitmore-Lindley Theatre on October 30, 2007 to investigate things that go "bump in the night." Or, rather, in this case, things that go "bang" in the night.

In celebration of Halloween, producers Ryan Katzenbach and Diana Maiocco of Katco brought "The Amityville Murders" to the stage. The staged-reading of a screenplay penned by Katzenbach and Ric Osuna drew an audience of VIP's and Hollywood entertainment industry execs. The screenplay, co-directed by Katzenbach and Osuna, examined the 1974 mass-murder of the Ronald DeFeo family which ultimately served as the genesis for the elaborate "Amityville Horror" haunted house hoax. A reception proceeded the reading with drinks and a spread of Hors d'Oeuvres while a party-like atmosphere played on for quite a while after the reading concluded.

Though Ryan Katzenbach is pleased with the attendance of industry execs, he is most satisfied, he says, with the attendance of some special VIP guests. "Right there in the audience were personal friends of the DeFeos. They knew them very, very well before the murders, and I am so pleased that they travelled the distance to attend this reading," says Katzenbach. "There is a lot of pressure when you're telling a true story and participants of that story are sitting right there in the 5th row. There's some development folks in the audience, managers, and some agents among us, but I am most nervous about the DeFeo's friends. Will THEY like the project...will we pass snuff with them?"

With the reading underway at 7:30 p.m., a few minutes before it began, Ric Osuna and Ryan Katzenbach were backstage with the actors. "Ric and I gave them the pep-talk that you always give...and we thanked them for their efforts to tell the story, and then we said 'we don't mean to put you guys under any pressure, BUT the DeFeos friends are in the house..,' I just remember a collective gasp from the cast at that point," says Katzenbach.

The screenplay, penned by Ric and Ryan, recounts the events leading up to the murders. Via the reading, theatregoers got an opportunity to see how dysfunctional the DeFeo family was. The reading took viewers through the domestic violence and mob-related events that transpired with the reading taking a 10-minute intermission just short of the murders.

"I stood up from the front row when the lights came up for intermission and I turned around to see the DeFeos friends. I remember I said 'so how are we doing so far?' Our gal just says to us 'this is amazing. Where did you find this cast? Watching Big Ronnie is like watching the REAL Big Ronnie DeFeo....he looks like him, he sounds like him....I swear, it IS him.' I knew, right then, based on the feedback, we were on the money and that felt terrific," says Katzenbach.

The reading, graphically, recounted the murders as Ric Osuna and Ryan Katzenbach have concluded that they transpired based on years of research.

In November 1974, the DeFeo family was gunned down in their home in Amityville, New York. Six members of the family---father, mother, and four of their children---were shot execution style, allegedly, as they slept. New evidence, recently uncovered, clearly supports the Osuna/Katzenbach position that not everyone was shot in their beds and that their were accomplices involved.

The DeFeo's eldest son, Ronald, then-23, was convicted in November 1975 of the murders and we remains incarcerated today for his crime.

The DeFeo murders spawned the "Amityville Horror" series of books and movies. Both Ryan Katzenbach and Ric Osuna feel that the story was an elaborate fraud that turned, by chance, into a runaway pop-culture phenomenon.

As for their screenplay, says Katzenbach, the reading heightened interest in the piece. "More than anything, I think we were just having fun, and the biggest goal we wanted to accomplish was getting all of our actors for our documentary on their feet and, basically, rehearsing the material. This is just a warm up for the documentary."

Katzenbach and Osuna are currently, in addition to their feature, filming the documentary "Shattered Hopes: The True Story of the Amityville Murders."