Horror Fans Rejoice: Amityville Is Finally Going To Space, Whatever That Means
Hot damn, it's finally happened. After a mind-boggling 32 feature explorations and offshoots of the infamous American haunting, the Amityville murder house is going to space. Stuart Rosenberg's 1979 hit "The Amityville Horror," based on Jay Anson's 1977 book of the same name, purports the claims of the Lutz family, who assert that a supernatural presence drove them out of their Dutch colonial home after only one month of occupancy. The story's veracity has since been cast in doubt, but the grim true story behind the house itself is still a subject of fascination. Now, the deadly dwelling is taking its mayhem to the stars with the ultra low-budget "Amityville in Space," from director Mark Polonia (who helmed three previous films in the Amity-verse in the past seven years) and starring Titus Himmelberger, Cassandra Hayes, Tim Hatch, Ryan Dalton and Jeff Kirkendall. The curse goes galactic in July of 2022. Still, it only took Jason Voorhees 10 movies to get to the same place.
The synopsis, from Wild Eye Releasing:
The ultimate battle against the Amityville curse begins after the infamous murder house is exorcised from Earth and reappears in outer space.
A trailer has dropped for the new paranormal entry, and it simply must be seen to be believed.
For god's sake, get out (of orbit)!
The "Amityville in Space" news is as unsurprising as it gets for this, the most erratic of mainstream horror entities. Calling it a franchise is a stretch — because Amityville is a real location in Long Island, it's up for grabs when it comes to movies.
Lionsgate is the current rights holder to Jay Anson's 1977 book, but the Amityville haunting has inspired an incredible hodge-podge of re-imaginings and new chapters over the past 40-odd years. Highlights include the bonkers-in-Yonkers 1982 sequel "Amityville II: The Possession," which primed the pump for off-the-wall bastardizations of the original template with a sleazy incest subplot and a random Burt Young, but you ain't seen nothing yet. While the 1979 movie was a haunting and possession story, subsequent films in the same universe have incorporated magic clocks ("Amityville: It's About Time"), a sacrificial cult and haunted movie theater ("The Amityville Playhouse"), sharks ("Amityville Island"), werewolves, ("The Amityville Moon"), and, inexplicably, "Amityville Scarecrow" just released in January of this year. Perhaps the wildest member of the Amityville Cinema Club is "The Amityville Vibrator," which is about precisely what you think it's about. In his Quarantine Stream recommendation of 1992 film "Amityville: It's About Time," /Film's Chris Evangelista hits the nail on the head regarding the appeal of these movies: "Yes, it's very silly. Yes, the plot makes almost no sense. And yet..."
Which is exactly why this writer will watch every ill-advised Amityville entry she can get her hands on. If you can't handle me at my "Amityville Vibrator," you don't deserve me at my '05 "Amityville Horror" remake.