The Amityville haunting is a modern folk story based on the true crimes of Ronald DeFeo Jr. On November 13, 1974, DeFeo shot and killed six members of his family at 112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville, on the south shore of Long Island. He was convicted of second-degree murder in November 1975. In December 1975, George and Kathy Lutz and their three children moved into the house. After 28 days, the Lutzes left the house, claiming to have been terrorized by paranormal phenomena while living there. The house became the subject of numerous investigations by paranormal researchers, journalists, and skeptics, including Ed and Lorraine Warren. These events served as the historical basis for Jay Anson's 1977 novel The Amityville Horror, which was followed by a number of sequels and was adapted into a film of the same name in 1979. Since then, many films have been produced that draw explicitly, to a greater or lesser extent, from these historical and literary sources. As Amityville is a real town and the stories of DeFeo and the Lutzes are historical, there can be no proprietary relationship to the underlying story elements associated with the Amityville haunting. As a result of this, there has been no restriction on the exploitation of the story by film producers, which is the reason that most of these films share no continuity, were produced by different companies, and tell widely varying stories.

The Amityville Horror film, released in the summer of 1979, was a major box office success, and went on to become one of the most commercially successful independent films of all time.[1] A series of sequels were released throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s through various distributors; some of the films received theatrical distribution, while others were direct-to-video releases. In 2005, a re-imagining of the first film was released.

Beginning in 2011, there was a resurgence of low-budget direct-to-video independent films based on or loosely inspired by the Amityville events.

In 2017, The Weinstein Company and Dimension Films distributed the first theatrical Amityville film since the 2005 re-imagining. Amityville: The Awakening, which was filmed in 2014, was released theatrically in Ukraine on July 27, 2017, and in the United States on October 28, 2017.[2]

Literature

Films

Film U.S. release date Director Screenwriter(s) Producer(s) Notes
Original series
The Amityville Horror July 27, 1979 Stuart Rosenberg Sandor Stern Elliot Geisinger and Ronald Saland based on the book of the same title
Amityville II: The Possession September 24, 1982 Damiano Damiani Tommy Lee Wallace

Dardano Sacchetti (uncredited)

 Ira N. Smith, Stephen R. Greenwald and José López Rodero based on the book Murder in Amityville; Mexican-American co-production
Amityville 3-D November 18, 1983 Richard Fleischer William Wales Stephen F. Kesten and Antonio Rubio aka Amityville III: The Demon; American-Mexican co-production
Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes May 12, 1989 Sandor Stern Steve White, Barry Bernardi and Kenneth Atchity aka Amityville Horror: The Evil Escapes and Amityville: The Evil Escapes; based on the book Amityville: The Evil Escapes
The Amityville Curse May 7, 1990 Tom Berry Michael Krueger, Doug Olson, and Norvell Rose Franco Battista based on the book of the same title; Canadian production
Amityville: It's About Time July 16, 1992 Tony Randel Christopher DeFaria and Antonio Toro Steve White, Barry Bernardi and Christopher DeFaria aka Amityville 1992: It's About Time; based on the book Amityville: The Evil Escapes
Amityville: A New Generation September 29, 1993 John Murlowski n/a
Amityville Dollhouse February 18, 1997 Steve White Joshua Michael Stern Steve White, David Newlon, Zane W. Levitt and Mark Yellen
Remake
The Amityville Horror April 15, 2005 Andrew Douglas Scott Kosar Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller Remake of The Amityville Horror (1979)
Based on the Amityville haunting
The Amityville Haunting December 13, 2011 Geoff Meed David Michael Latt n/a
The Amityville Asylum June 3, 2013 Andrew Jones
Amityville Death House February 24, 2015 Mark Polonia John Oak Dalton Mark Polonia
The Amityville Playhouse April 13, 2015 John R. Walker John R. Walker and Steve Hardy John R. Walker aka The Amityville Theater
Amityville: Vanishing Point April 1, 2016 Dylan Greenberg Dylan Greenberg, Selena Mars, and Jurgen Azazel Munster Jurgen Azazel Munster n/a
The Amityville Legacy June 7, 2016 Dustin Ferguson and Michael Johnson Dustin Ferguson, Matthew DiGirolamo and Jake Bockoven re-released in 2020 as Amityville Toybox
The Amityville Terror August 2, 2016 Michael Angelo Justin Jones, Philip J Day and Zeus Zamani n/a
Amityville: No Escape August 5, 2016 Henrique Couto Eric Widing
Amityville Exorcism January 3, 2017 Mark Polonia Billy D'Amato Mark Polonia
Amityville: Evil Never Dies June 2017 Dustin Ferguson Matthew DiGirolamo, Jason Harlow and Jason Bracht sequel to The Amityville Legacy; re-released in 2020 as Amityville Clownhouse
Against the Night September 15, 2017 Brian Cavallaro Arielle Brachfeld and Brian Cavallaro aka Amityville Prison
Amityville: The Awakening October 28, 2017 Franck Khalfoun Daniel Farrands, Jason Blum and Casey La Scala n/a
Amityville: Mt. Misery Road May 31, 2018 Chuck Morrongiello and Karolina Morrongiello Chuck Morrongiello Chuck Morrongiello and Karolina Morrongiello
The Amityville Murders February 8, 2019 Daniel Farrands Daniel Farrands, Eric Brenner, Jim Jacobsen and Lucas Jarach aka The Amityville Murders: A Haunting on Long Island. Loosely based on the books Murder in Amityville and High Hopes: The Amityville Murders
Amityville Island March 17, 2020 Mark Polonia John Oak Dalton Rob Hauschild n/a
Amityville Vibrator June 6, 2020 Nathan Rumler
Witches of Amityville Academy October 2, 2020 Rebecca Matthews Tom Jolliffe Nicole Holland, Kira Reed Lorsch, Donna Spangler and Brittan Taylor aka Amityville Witches
The Amityville Harvest October 20, 2020 Thomas J. Churchill Thomas J. Churchill, Steven Louis Goldenberg and Phillip B. Goldfine n/a
An Amityville Poltergeist May 18, 2021 Calvin Morie McCarthy John Ashley Hall and Calvin Morie McCarthy Josh Dietrich, Airisa Durand and Calvin Morie McCarthy
The Amityville Moon October 5, 2021 Thomas J. Churchill Thomas J. Churchill, Steven Louis Goldenberg and Phillip B. Goldfine sequel to The Amityville Harvest
Amityville Cult December 7, 2021 Trey Murphy Chance Gibbs, Trey Murphy and Micha Marie Stevens n/a
Amityville Vampire December 14, 2021 Tim Vigil Carlos Perez,
Tim Vigil		 Ted Chalmers, David S. Sterling and Gustave Whinnery
Amityville Scarecrow January 4, 2022 Peter Jack Mundy Shannon Holiday Scott Jeffrey
Amityville Uprising January 11, 2022 Thomas J. Churchill Thomas J. Churchill and Phillip B. Goldfine sequel to The Amityville Moon
Amityville Gas Chamber April 1, 2022 Michael Stone n/a Parody to all the very low budget mass productions, especially those which just use the title for marketing reasons.
Amityville in Space July 19, 2022 Mark Polonia Rob Hauschild n/a
Amityville Hex August 9, 2022 Tony Newton Tony Newton,
Shawn C. Phillips		 Michael Bilinski, David Cartledge and Sam Mason-Bell
Amityville In The Hood August 23, 2022 Dustin Ferguson Jerimiah Douglas,
Dustin Ferguson		 Dustin Ferguson (as Dark Infinity), Rob Hauschild and Saul Mejia
Amityville Karen September 13, 2022 Shawn C. Phillips Julie Anne Prescott Shawn C. Phillips, Will Collazo, Ron Bonk, Avery Crumley
Amityville Christmas Vacation September 19, 2022 Steve Rudzinski Winner of the 2023 Fangoria Chainsaw Award for "Best Amityville."[3]
Amityville Thanksgiving November 8, 2022 Will Collazo, Julie Anne Prescott Shawn C. Phillips, Will Collazo, Avery Crumley, Julie Anne Prescott n/a
Ghosts of Amityville November 22, 2022 Jt Kris Danny Langston
Amityville Death Toilet March 17, 2023 Evan Jacobs Evan Jacobs Ron Bonk
Amityville Elevator April 20, 2023 Nick Box Nick Box, Matt Mcnew
Amityville Emanuelle May 8, 2023 Louis DeStefano Geno McGahee Geno McGahee, Gregory Hatanaka, Linda S. Wong
The Amityville Curse May 28, 2023 Éric Tessier Dennis Heaton Graham Ludlow and Kaleigh Kavanagh Based on the 1981 novel of the same name, though not a remake of the 1990 adaptation.[4][5]

Overview

The first film to be inspired by the story of the Amityville haunting, The Amityville Horror (1979) chronicles the events of Jay Anson's novel, in which the Lutz family finds their new home in Amityville, New York, to be haunted; the house had been the site of a mass murder by Ronald DeFeo Jr. in 1974. The following film, Amityville II: The Possession, is a prequel based on the book Murder in Amityville by Hans Holzer, and depicts the purported supernatural events in the home that led DeFeo to murder his family. The third installment, Amityville 3-D, is set after the events of the first film, and was released in 3D.[6]

In 1989, the fourth installment, Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes, was released as a made-for-television film, and documents hauntings stemming from a floor lamp that was in the home at the time of the DeFeo murders. The Amityville Curse, released in 1990, follows a group of teenagers who spend the night in a former rectory in Amityville where a priest committed suicide; this installment was set in an entirely different house.[7] Amityville: It's About Time, released in 1992, focuses on a haunted clock that a family from Los Angeles, California takes into their home from an estate sale in New York.[6] The seventh film in the series, Amityville: A New Generation, also utilizes a haunted object as a plot device. This time, a man purchases a mirror possessed by the spirit of his father, who, like DeFeo, also murdered his family in the Amityville house with a shotgun.[6] Amityville Dollhouse (1996) follows a family haunted by spirits unleashed from a doll house replica of the Amityville home.

In 2005, a remake of the 1979 original film was released theatrically. In 2017’s Amityville: The Awakening, which received a limited theatrical release, a family with an ill son moves into the home and find themselves tormented by ghosts who seek to possess the son's body.

Further films would follow, each released direct-to-video or with limited theatrical releases: The Amityville Haunting (2011; a found footage film that presents supposed home movies that corroborate the family's haunting); The Amityville Asylum (2013, set in a haunted Amityville psychiatric hospital); Amityville Death House (2015, featured yet another explanation for the hauntings); Amityville Playhouse (2016, focuses on a haunted theater in Amityville); Amityville: Vanishing Point (2016, focused on a haunted boarding house in Amityville); The Amityville Legacy (2016, features a haunted toy monkey from the original house), The Amityville Terror (2016, a family moves to Amityville and are tormented both by an evil spirit and the townsfolk who want to keep them trapped there); Amityville: No Escape (2016, college students encounter evil in the forest around Amityville); and Amityville Exorcism (2017, evil spirits possess the daughter of a family that moves to Amityville).

Continuity between films

The first three films released, share some continuity, although they also contain contradictions. Amityville II is a prequel to the original 1979 movie, and tells the story of the murder of the DeFeo family (renamed the Montelli family in the film). Amityville 3-D is a sequel to the first movie, and is based on the accounts of paranormal investigator Stephen Kaplan (renamed John Baxter for the film), who was trying to prove that the Lutz family's story was a hoax. Due to legal disputes with the actual Lutz family, the events of the first movie could not be directly referenced, nor could the Lutz family themselves be referenced by name. Amityville 3-D also refers to the massacre in Amityville II as the "DeFeo murders", despite the renaming of the family to Montelli for that film.

Of the later films, Amityville: The Awakening (2017) is explicitly a different continuity from all of the previous movies, which are depicted as films within the film; the characters watch and discuss the 1979 movie, and one of them brings DVDs of the sequels and remake to the protagonist's house. The Amityville Curse (2023) is loosely based on the 1981 book of the same name, but is not a remake of its 1990 adaptation.

Release

Producers and distributors

The films have at various times been owned by several different production and distribution companies internationally and in the United States. American International Pictures produced and released the original film, before Orion Pictures bought the rights to the film, as well as II and 3-D. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) now owns films one through 3-D, and released them in a DVD box set in 2005. While 4 was a TV film broadcast on NBC, it has been released multiple times by independent distribution companies in recent years (one of which was Vidmark, who also released Curse (1990); Vidmark is now owned by Lionsgate). Multicom Entertainment Group owns distribution rights to Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes, It's About Time, A New Generation and Dollhouse.

Box office

Film Release date Budget Total Gross Ref.
The Amityville Horror July 27, 1979 $4,700,000 $86,432,000 [8][9]
Amityville II: The Possession September 24, 1982 $5,000,000 $12,534,817 [10]
Amityville 3-D November 18, 1983 $6,000,000 $6,333,135 [11]
The Amityville Horror April 15, 2005 $19,000,000 $108,047,131 [12]
Amityville: The Awakening October 28, 2017 — $8,481,997 [13]
The Amityville Murders February 8, 2019 — $77,206 [14]

Critical reception

Film Rating
Rotten Tomatoes Metacritic
The Amityville Horror (1979) 31% (45 reviews)[15] 32
Amityville II: The Possession 24% (21 reviews)[16] —
Amityville 3-D 18% (22 reviews)[17] —
Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes 40% (5 reviews)[18] —
The Amityville Curse (1990) 17% (7 reviews)[19] —
Amityville: It's About Time 40% (10 reviews)[20] —
Amityville: A New Generation — —
Amityville Dollhouse — —
The Amityville Horror (2005) 24% (163 reviews)[21] 33[22]
Amityville: The Awakening 29% (21 reviews)[23] 42[24]
The Amityville Murders 0% (16 reviews)[25] 35[26]
The Amityville Curse (2023) — —

Documentary

  • My Amityville Horror, a 2012 documentary focusing on Daniel Lutz's account of the haunting. At the time of the events, he was a child.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Miller, John M. "The Amityville Horror". Turner Classic Movies. In the Know. Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  2. ↑ Aronson, Alex. "'Amityville: The Awakening' Sees More Delays; The Internet Freaks Out". Movie Pilot. Archived from the original on 9 June 2017. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
  3. ↑ "Winners". FANGORIA Chainsaw Awards. Retrieved 2023-05-22.
  4. ↑ Armando Tinoco (September 13, 2022). "Tubi Confirms Adaptation Of 'The Amityville Curse' & Original Horror Pic 'Marry F*** Kill'". Deadline. Retrieved August 19, 2023.
  5. ↑ Morazzini, Jim (May 28, 2023). "The Amityville Curse (2023) Review". Voice from the Balcony. Retrieved August 19, 2023.
  6. 1 2 3 Young, R.G., ed. (2000). The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film: Ali Baba to Zombies. Hal Leonard Corporation. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-557-83269-6.
  7. ↑ "Canuxploitation Review: The Amityville Curse". Canuxploitation. Retrieved 19 July 2017.
  8. ↑ Arkoff & Turbo 1992, p. 228.
  9. ↑ Smith 2009, p. 13.
  10. ↑ "Amityville II: The Possession". Boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved September 7, 2015.
  11. ↑ "Amityville 3-D". Boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved September 7, 2015.
  12. ↑ "The Amityville Horror (2005)". Boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved September 7, 2015.
  13. ↑ "Amityville: The Awakening". Boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved September 7, 2015.
  14. ↑ "The Amityville Murders". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved August 31, 2023.
  15. ↑ "The Amityville Horror (1979)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved March 14, 2023.
  16. ↑ "Amityville II: The Possession (1982)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved January 5, 2023.
  17. ↑ "Amityville 3-D (1983)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved January 5, 2023.
  18. ↑ "Amityville: The Evil Escapes (1989)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved September 7, 2023.
  19. ↑ "The Amityville Curse (1990)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved September 7, 2023.
  20. ↑ "Amityville 1992: It's About Time (1992)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved September 7, 2023.
  21. ↑ "The Amityville Horror (2005)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved March 14, 2023.
  22. ↑ "The Amityville Horror". Metacritic. Retrieved January 5, 2023.
  23. ↑ "Amityville: The Awakening (2017)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved September 7, 2023.
  24. ↑ "Amityville: The Awakening". Metacritic. Retrieved January 5, 2023.
  25. ↑ "The Amityville Murders (2019)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved September 8, 2020.
  26. ↑ "The Amityville Murders". Metacritic. Retrieved January 5, 2023.

Works cited

  • Arkoff, Samuel Z.; Turbo, Richard (1992). Flying Through Hollywood By the Seat of My Pants. Birch Lane Press. ISBN 978-1-559-72107-3.
  • Smith, Gary A. (2009). The American International Pictures Video Guide. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-786-43309-4.
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