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The Amityville haunting is a modern
folk story Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging fro ...
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 Amityville () is a village near the Town of Babylon in Suffolk County, on the South Shore of Long Island, in New York. The population was 9,523 at the 2010 census. History Huntington settlers first visited the Amityville area in 1653 due ...
, 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. These events served as the historical basis for
Jay Anson ''The Amityville Horror'' is a book by American author Jay Anson, published in September 1977. It is also the basis of a series of films released from 1979 onward. The book is based on the claims of paranormal experiences by the Lutz family, ...
's 1977 novel ''
The Amityville Horror ''The Amityville Horror'' is a book by American author Jay Anson, published in September 1977. It is also the basis of a series of films released from 1979 onward. The book is based on the claims of paranormal experiences by the Lutz family, b ...
'', 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'', 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. 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 A remake is a film, television series, video game, song or similar form of entertainment that is based upon and retells the story of an earlier production in the same medium—e.g., a "new version of an existing film". A remake tells the sam ...
of the first film was released. Beginning in 2011, there was a resurgence of
low-budget A low-budget film or low-budget movie is a motion picture shot with little to no funding from a major film studio or private investor. Many independent films are made on low budgets, but films made on the mainstream circuit with inexperienced or ...
direct-to-video Direct-to-video or straight-to-video refers to the release of a film, TV series, short or special to the public immediately on home video formats rather than an initial theatrical release or television premiere. This distribution strategy wa ...
independent films based on or loosely inspired by the Amityville events. In 2017,
The Weinstein Company The Weinstein Company (usually credited or abbreviated as TWC) was an American independent film studio, founded in New York City by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in March 2005. TWC was one of the largest mini-major film studios in North America pri ...
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. In 2018, ''The Amityville Murders'' is a direct prequel to the 1979 film and ignores the events of '' Amityville II: The Possession'' (1982).


Literature

* ''
The Amityville Horror ''The Amityville Horror'' is a book by American author Jay Anson, published in September 1977. It is also the basis of a series of films released from 1979 onward. The book is based on the claims of paranormal experiences by the Lutz family, b ...
'', a 1977 book by American author
Jay Anson ''The Amityville Horror'' is a book by American author Jay Anson, published in September 1977. It is also the basis of a series of films released from 1979 onward. The book is based on the claims of paranormal experiences by the Lutz family, ...
* '' Murder in Amityville'', a 1979 book by
Hans Holzer Hans Holzer (26 January 1920 – 26 April 2009) was an Austrian-American author and parapsychologist. He wrote more than 120 books on supernatural and occult subjects for the popular market as well as several plays, musicals, films, and doc ...
that serves as a prequel to ''The Amityville Horror'' * ''
The Amityville Horror Part II ''The Amityville Horror Part II'' is a book written by John G. Jones as the sequel to The Amityville Horror. The book was published in 1982 and recounts the aftermath of the original book and what happened to the Lutzes after they fled 112 Ocean ...
'', a 1982 book by John G. Jones that serves as a sequel to ''The Amityville Horror'' * '' Amityville: The Final Chapter'' * '' Amityville: The Evil Escapes'' * ''
The Amityville Curse ''The Amityville Curse'' (released in the Philippines as ''Amityville Horror 1993'') is a 1990 Canadian supernatural horror film directed by Tom Berry and starring Kim Coates, Cassandra Gava and Jan Rubeš. It is loosely based on the novel of the ...
'' * '' Amityville: The Horror Returns'' * '' Amityville: The Nightmare Continues'' * '' High Hopes: The Amityville Murders'' * ''Amityville: My Sister's Keeper''


Films


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 Hans Holzer (26 January 1920 – 26 April 2009) was an Austrian-American author and parapsychologist. He wrote more than 120 books on supernatural and occult subjects for the popular market as well as several plays, musicals, films, and doc ...
, 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. In 1989, the fourth installment, ''Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes'', was released as a
made-for-television A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made fo ...
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. ''Amityville: It's About Time'', released in 1992, focuses on a haunted clock that a family from
Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
takes into their home from an estate sale in New York. 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. ''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 Murders'' (2018) is a direct prequel to the 1979 film, and ignores the events of ''Amityville II''.


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 American International Pictures (AIP) is an American motion picture production label of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In its original operating period, AIP was an independent film production and distribution company known for producing and releasing fi ...
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 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 ...
(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 The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
, it has been released multiple times by independent distribution companies in recent years (one of which was Vidmark, who also released ''Curse''; Vidmark is now owned by
Lionsgate Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, doing business as Lionsgate, is a Canadian-American entertainment company. It was formed by Frank Giustra on July 10, 1997, domiciled in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is currently headquartered ...
). Multicom Entertainment Group owns distribution rights to ''Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes'', ''It's About Time'', ''A New Generation'' and ''Dollhouse''.


Box office


Critical reception


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

* ''
Bloodbath at the House of Death ''Bloodbath at the House of Death'' is a 1984 British comedy horror film directed by Ray Cameron and starring the comedian Kenny Everett and featuring Vincent Price. It is an over-the-top spoof loosely inspired by ''The Amityville Horror (1979 film ...
'', a 1984 spoof on the 1979 film ''The Amityville Horror''


References


Works cited

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Amityville Horror, The Film series introduced in 1979 American haunted house films American supernatural horror films Films based on horror novels Films about exorcism * Horror films by series Long Island in fiction Long Island-related lists