There are more than 30 horror movies with Amityville in the name, but fans could use a guide to which ones form the official franchise canon. The entire cinematic property dates back to an actual piece of property, the infamous house located at 112 Ocean Avenue in the town of Amityville, New York, on Long Island. Equipped with top floor windows that look like eyes, the Amityville house is one of the most well-known haunted places in history. That is provided that one believes the story of what supposedly happened there.
What is 100 percent indisputable fact is that in November 1974, at that address, a young man named Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr. brutally murdered his entire family with a shotgun. He later claimed he was told to do this by sinister voices. For those crimes, he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. What has been repeatedly called into question over the years is the purportedly true story of the Lutz family, who moved into the DeFeo home in December 1975, only to flee not long after. The Lutz family said they left due to terrifying paranormal encounters inside.
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Jay Anson’s book chronicling the Lutz tale was adapted into 1979’s The Amityville Horror, a movie regarded by many as a horror classic. It was a big success, and led to multiple sequels, most of which bore only small connections to each other from a narrative standpoint. A remake of the original also came in 2005, starring Ryan Reynolds as George Lutz. Beginning in 2011, the floodgates suddenly opened on so-called Amityville movies, with low-budget effort after low-budget effort being pumped out. Here’s why that happened along with a breakdown of which Amityville movies are the canon entries that are actually worth watching.
Why There Are Over 30 Amityville Horror Movies
There’s a rather simple reason behind the latter day explosion in the number of Amityville sequels, and considering the circumstances, it’s a pretty morbid one. Unlike most movie properties, where one writer, director, producer, or studio owns the rights to the story and its characters, the fact that The Amityville Horror drew on real-life events — the DeFeo murders and the account of the Lutz family’s stay — means that those elements are in the public domain and can be used or referenced by anyone, to an extent. Amityville is also the real name of a Long Island community, and thus, that name is also in the public domain.
Sadly, this public domain status has enabled dozens of Hollywood wannabes to whip up a horror movie with the word Amityville for as little time and money as possible, likely in the hopes that fans of the more legitimate Amityville movies get confused and rent it. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with independent horror filmmakers, arguably the lifeblood of the genre itself, the people who make things like Amityville Vibrator, Amityville in the Hood, and the upcoming Amityville in Space seemingly do it for no other reason than to try and turn a quick buck. This is evidenced by their shoddy production values, poor acting, and haphazard writing. These films have no real artistic merit and have helped make the Amityville name a laughing stock to horror fans.
Which Movies Form The Official Amityville Franchise
While there is some amount of debate concerning which Amityville movies are part of the “official” franchise canon, there’s a general measure of consensus that 11 titles are fit to be included in this group. The first is, of course, 1979’s The Amityville Horror, signed off on by George and Kathy Lutz, as well as book writer Jay Anson. The 1982 prequel Amityville 2: The Possession dramatizes the events leading up to the DeFeo murders, albeit with a change to the names. It is partially based on the book Murder in Amityville by parapsychologist Hans Holzer, who investigated the Lutz haunting, as did Ed and Lorraine Warren. The 1983 installment Amityville 3-D sees a new family move into the house, and references the Lutz incident.
Related: The Amityville Horror: Every Unlikely Possessed Object In The Movie Franchise
The 1989 TV movie Amityville: The Evil Escapes sees a lamp from the house get sold off, only to be possessed by evil. It was based on an officially sanctioned Amityville novel, Amityville: The Horror Returns. Then there’s 1990’s The Amityville Curse, a Canadian production based on an Amityville novel by Hans Holzer. The next three direct to video entries, Amityville 1992: It’s About Time, Amityville: A New Generation, and Amityville Dollhouse all follow on from The Evil Escapes, with a possessed clock, mirror, and dollhouse from 112 Ocean Avenue featuring in each. Fast forward to 2005, and MGM released the aforementioned Amityville Horror remake. Then there’s 2017’s Amityville: The Awakening, a meta sequel made by Blumhouse that says all the prior movies were in fact just movies in its universe. Finally, 2018’s The Amityville Murders once again retells the DeFeo killings, this time with names intact and again drawing from books like Murder in Amityville.
Which Movies Are Unofficial, Including Amityville In Space
With there being an astonishing 35 horror movies with Amityville in the title now, including a few that are set to release in 2022, and 11 of them being the closest thing to an official franchise canon, that leaves a whopping 24 films that are best left avoided. Even by horror fans who enjoy bad movies, as the unofficial Amityville titles tend to be more boring and slow than enjoyably dumb. B-movie gems these aren’t, even if the trailers manage to convince they might be, such as with the case of the preposterous Amityville in Space. That movie finally enters Amityville into the realm of horror franchises that lazily went to space.
The movies so far included on the list of “unofficial” Amityville horror movies are: The Amityville Haunting, The Amityville Asylum, The Amityville Playhouse, Amityville Death House, Amityville: Vanishing Point, The Amityville Legacy, The Amityville Terror, Amityville: No Escape, Amityville: Evil Never Dies, Amityville Exorcism, Amityville Prison, Amityville: Mt. Misery Road, Amityville Island, Amityville Vibrator, Witches of Amityville Academy, The Amityville Harvest, The Amityville Poltergeist, The Amityville Moon, Amityville Cult, Amityville in the Hood, Amityville Vampire, Amityville Scarecrow, Amityville Uprising, and Amityville in Space.
As one might imagine, given their meager budgets, many of these movies are found footage, since that sub-genre lends itself to cheap, guerrilla filmmaking tactics. In some ways, it’s fitting that this explosion of forgettable Amityville dreck was kicked off by The Amityville Haunting, a production of The Asylum, the company behind infamous mockbusters like Snakes on a Train and Transmorphers.
More: Why The Conjuring Franchise Should Rescue Amityville
