The Amityville Horror, a horror movie based on the infamous real-life story, has become a franchise and an influence on modern horror greats (and not-so-greats). But it has left a strange legacy.
Considering there have been plenty of sequels to Stuart Rosenberg’s 1979 movie, you might wonder why it’s not as big a deal as Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, or Friday the 13th. Well, while the fact that it’s a very underwhelming franchise hasn’t helped, there’s no denying the influence of the original is clearly felt to this day.
Its basis comes from reality. In November of 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. shot and killed six family members in Amityville, Long Island, at a Dutch Colonial house. He was convicted of all six murders and died in prison in 2021.
However, the story of the movie and the book it was based on comes after that initial horrifying event. Over a year after the murders, George and Kathy Lutz moved into the house on Ocean Avenue with their three children and pet dog.
They fled the home after just 28 days. The family claimed they had been subject to paranormal activity during their time there, and felt terrorized by it. Author Jay Anson published a book on this in 1977, and the movie version would come two years later. It starred James Brolin and Margot Kidderas the Lutz’s.
The accounts of this grim history in the house have been disputed, reinterpreted, and essentially demeaned in the decades since. So it’s quite fitting that the cinematic legacy of The Amityville Horror has done the same in a sense. Over 30 films have been connected to Amityville, from continuations of the story and remakes to dubiously linked cash grabs.
Losing the will in Amityville
The first few official sequels do at least keep it centered on the house, albeit with completely fictional stories continuing the idea the house is haunted/cursed. Later, sequels would move away from the house itself and find connective tissue. Sometimes with modest success (Amityville 1992: It’s About Time) and often with failure (The Amityville Curse). By 1996’s The Amityville Dollhouse, the franchise had reached DTV doldrums and there was to be no brand new entry for over 20 years.
In the interim, a 2005 remake starring Ryan Reynolds didn’t exactly kickstart the franchise. In fact, it brought its own issues after depicting George Lutz as a possessed brutal monster.
A 2017 reboot of sorts titled Amityville: The Awakening had a cast that now looks decent on paper (Bella Thorne, McKenna Grace, Kurtwood Smith, Cameron Monaghan, and Jennifer Jason Leigh), but it too floundered. Not that Amityville was dead as a name in horror.
This ended up being rather unfortunate. In the past few years, the Amityville moniker has been taken so far from the original story that it’s basically a parody. Low-rent horror movies that imply slap the name in front of anything at all. ”Highlights” include Amityville: Shark House, Amityville Vibrator, and Amityville Bigfoot. While they are far from being prominent enough to really sully the name of an already beleaguered franchise, it doesn’t help the perception of it.
Getting away from the house
However, that particular true-life horror story has had a wider influence on the horror genre. The hunger for true-life horror has never gone away, and in the most notable modern example, James Wan certainly made the most of that with the super-successful Conjuring universe. That followed real-life hauntings with Ed & Lorraine Warren and even touched upon Amityville. Before that, you had other cursed home movies such as Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist and the 80s House series. Stephen King’s haunted hotel novel The Shining was released the same year as The Amityville Horror book, and subsequently was adapted into a feature film that released in 1980.
The Amityville Horror is far from the first haunted house tale, but its real-life connections made it a distinct one at the time. The blurred lines between fact and fiction in horror have long been a selling point in the genre, and given its place in the timeline of horror cinema, you can still feel its grip in any number of movies since, horror or otherwise.
