Works based on the Amityville haunting

Lore & Background

The first film inspired by the Amityville haunting, *The Amityville Horror* (1979), chronicles the events of Jay Anson's novel, in which the Lutz family finds their new home haunted after a mass murder by Ronald DeFeo Jr. in 1974. The sequel *Amityville II: The Possession* is a prequel based on Hans Holzer's book *Murder in Amityville*, depicting supernatural events leading to the murders. *Amityville 3-D* (1983) is set after the first film and was released in 3D. Later films include made-for-television entries like *Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes* (1989), which features a haunted floor lamp, and *The Amityville Curse* (1990), set in a different house. Throughout the 1990s, films such as *Amityville: It's About Time* (1992), *Amityville: A New Generation* (1993), and *Amityville Dollhouse* (1996) used haunted objects as plot devices. A remake of the original film was released in 2005. In 2017, *Amityville: The Awakening* received a limited theatrical release, depicting a family tormented by ghosts seeking to possess an ill son. Numerous direct-to-video films followed from 2011 onward, including found footage, asylum, and exorcism themes.

Reader's Guide

The works based on the Amityville haunting hold significance as a prolific and commercially successful franchise that spans over four decades. The 1979 film became one of the most commercially successful independent films of all time, spawning a series of sequels and a 2005 remake. Because the underlying events are historical and the town of Amityville is real, no proprietary restrictions have limited film producers, resulting in a fragmented continuity where most films share no direct connection and were produced by different companies. This has allowed for widely varying stories, from prequels and sequels to object-based hauntings and found footage. The franchise's legacy includes a 2012 documentary focusing on Daniel Lutz's account, a 2026 podcast, and a 1984 spoof film. The works continue to be released, with low-budget independent films appearing regularly since 2011.

Did You Know?

• The 1979 film *The Amityville Horror* was one of the most commercially successful independent films of all time.
• Only the first two films share some continuity, though they contain contradictions.
• In *Amityville: The Awakening* (2017), characters watch and discuss the 1979 movie, making it a different continuity.
• A 2012 documentary titled *My Amityville Horror* focuses on Daniel Lutz's account of the haunting.

The True Crime and the Lutz Family's Twenty-Eight Days

The entire Amityville mythology rests on a single act of domestic violence that shook the south shore of Long Island. On November 13, 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. opened fire inside the family home at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, killing six relatives. A year later, in November 1975, a court convicted him of second-degree murder. That conviction cleared the way for the next chapter: in December 1975, George and Kathy Lutz brought their three young children into the same house. They lasted exactly twenty-eight days before fleeing, insisting that supernatural forces had tormented them throughout their brief tenancy. The Lutzes' account attracted a wave of scrutiny from journalists, professional skeptics, and paranormal investigators alike, with the well-known duo Ed and Lorraine Warren among those who examined the property. None of these events could be copyrighted or owned by any single party, because they are matters of public historical record in a real, named town. That legal reality would prove decisive for every book and film that followed.

A Proliferating Literary Universe

Jay Anson's 1977 novel The Amityville Horror crystallized the Lutz family's twenty-eight-day ordeal into a narrative that immediately spawned an entire shelf of companion books. Hans Holzer contributed a 1979 prequel, Murder in Amityville, which attempted to explain the supernatural conditions that supposedly drove DeFeo to his fatal shooting. John G. Jones followed in 1982 with Amityville: The Horror Returns, a direct sequel continuing the Lutz storyline. The literary ecosystem expanded further with titles such as High Hopes: The Amityville Murders, The Amityville Curse, Amityville: The Final Chapter, Amityville: The Evil Escapes, and Amityville: The Nightmare Continues, each approaching the house and its history from a different angle. Decades later, Micky Sexton published Amityville: My Sister's Keeper in 2016, demonstrating that the source material still generated new fiction well into the twenty-first century. Because the underlying events are historical fact in a real municipality, no single author or publisher could claim exclusive rights to the Amityville story, and the books multiplied accordingly.

From Indie Blockbuster to Perpetual Franchise

The 1979 screen adaptation of Anson's novel became a phenomenon that reshaped independent cinema. Released in the summer of that year, The Amityville Horror went on to rank among the most commercially successful independent films ever made, a feat that no one in the production camp likely anticipated. The box-office windfall triggered a long string of sequels stretching through the 1980s and into the 1990s, distributed by a patchwork of studios and released either theatrically or straight to video depending on the title. A full re-imagining of the original story hit theaters in 2005. After a brief lull, a wave of low-budget, direct-to-video independent productions began appearing from 2011 onward, each loosely tethered to the Amityville name. The franchise's next theatrical milestone arrived in 2017, when The Weinstein Company and Dimension Films released Amityville: The Awakening, a film shot in 2014 that premiered in Ukraine on July 27 and reached U.S. audiences on October 28, marking the first big-screen Amityville entry since the 2005 remake.

No Continuity, No Owner: The Franchise's Fragmented Identity

Because Amityville is an actual town and the DeFeo and Lutz stories are matters of public history, no individual, studio, or publisher holds proprietary rights over the core elements of the haunting. This legal openness means that any producer can build a film around the name and the house without seeking permission or maintaining narrative consistency with prior entries. As a result, the vast majority of Amityville movies share no continuity whatsoever; they are produced by different companies and tell widely divergent stories. Only the first two entries—the 1979 original and Amityville II: The Possession—share a loose connection, with the second functioning as a prequel that renames the DeFeo family the Montellis. Even that pairing contains contradictions. Amityville 3-D, despite its poster billing, pivots to the perspective of a paranormal investigator based on Stephen Kaplan, renamed John Baxter, who set out to debunk the Lutz account. Legal disputes with the actual Lutz family further restricted how directly earlier events could be referenced, pushing later films toward haunted objects, alternate houses, and entirely new settings.

Gallery