Super Lame

One of the lamest horror series of the 1980's was the Amityville Horror franchise. The original, which claimed to be a true story but subsequently ignored the true horror of the story (a man killed six of his family members in the house in 1974) and instead focused on the bullshit (a family of sleaze balls moved into the house and claim the had to flee it in 1976 because of paranormal activity. The film, of course, treats their claims as fact.) It was soon followed by a prequel, Amityville II: The Possession, which had nothing to do with the real case; despite claiming to be about the family that lived there before the people depicted in the original film. A year later, a 3D sequel followed and then the franchise hibernated for six years before returning as a made-for-TV movie which then led to a string of straight-to-video sequels in the 1990's that were only connected by the house with the iconic windows.

These sequels got so desperate that many of the plots centered around "cursed" items from the original house spreading evil. The last one, titled Amityville Dollhouse, is, like the title suggests, about a dollhouse version of the Amityville house that is, of course, haunted and evil. Under the stewardship of schlockmeister Michael Bay, the franchise got re-booted in 2005 with a flick starring Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George and while the movie was mediocre at best, it did over $100 million at the box-office. Bloody-Disgusting.com, a solid source for all things horror, is reporting that the Weinstien Company - who seem increasingly desperate these days while they spending most of their time pissing on their legacy while they churn out shit - are planning to remake the film yet again. So, to be clear, there have been nine movies - all of them based on a bullshit account of a haunted house with zero evidence that anything supernatural ever occurred there - and all but one of them have been utter shit. So of course it's time to make another one. Just like the old expression - tenth times the charm.

A new Amityville film based on the actual truth of the story - a son in his early twenties awakens in the middle of the night and systematically slaughters his enitre family with a rifle while they lie sleeping in their beds for seemingly no reason - might be interesting. But I think we all know why the Weinstein's are suddenly interested in reviving this franchise yet again, and that is the massive box office success of the haunted house flick Paranormal Activity. News like this makes me really sad about the state of Hollywood. It's bad enough that remakes are so common place in the industry now, but now we're remaking remakes of movies that weren't even that good in the first place. And to make matters worse, this remake is just five years after the last lame attempt to cash in on this property. We need another Amityville Horror film like we need a hole in the head.

And I'll pass on the hole.