Fresh from dragging audiences through the jump-scare gauntlet of Until Dawn of Until Dawn and conjuring up demons with Annabelle: Creation and Lights Out, David F. Sandberg has now signed on to give horror’s most notorious fixer-upper, The Amityville Horror, a new lick of blood-red paint. The project is currently in development at Amazon MGM Studios, with The Conjuring: Last Rites scribes Ian Goldberg and Richard Naing set to pen the script. Plot details are locked away tighter than the red room in the Amityville basement, but the word is this will be a “reimagining” rather than another paint-by-numbers retread.
The Amityville story first terrified audiences back in 1979, when Stuart Rosenberg adapted Jay Anson’s 1977 bestseller. With James Brolin, Margot Kidder and Rod Steiger leading the cast, the film dramatized the infamous true crime origins – the 1974 DeFeo family murders – before following George and Kathy Lutz and their children as they attempted to start afresh in the blood-soaked Long Island property. What they found instead was a month of alleged demonic phenomena that has fueled sequels, spin-offs, and endless late-night “based on a true story” debates ever since.
And what a history that franchise has had. From official sequels like Amityville II: The Possession and Amityville 3-D in the ’80s, through to 2005’s glossy Platinum Dunes remake with Ryan Reynolds, the saga has been resurrected more times than Jason Voorhees. But the returns have been diminishing – the Blumhouse-backed Amityville: The Awakening (2017) mustered only $8 million worldwide despite a cast boasting Bella Thorne, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Cameron Monaghan and Mckenna Grace. Last year’s Amityville: Where the Echo Lives barely caused a ripple, going straight to streaming with a cast of virtual unknowns.
In many ways, Sandberg is the natural choice to breathe new life into the Amityville saga. He’s already mastered the balance of popcorn thrills and atmospheric dread — from the breakneck energy of Shazam! to the $300 million box office success of Annabelle: Creation. With horror roots firmly planted in Lights Out (still one of the decade’s most striking debuts) and a recent venture into interactive scares with Until Dawn, few filmmakers feel better equipped to mine terror across so many fronts.
The project is being produced by Peter Safran and his team at The Safran Company, including John Rickard and Natalia Safran, with Sandberg’s frequent collaborator Lotta Losten as executive producer. It’s the same team behind The Conjuring franchise, which, with the release of Last Rites this past weekend, has already earned $187 million worldwide and continues to perform strongly.
So, while it’s still too early to know whether Sandberg’s Amityville will play things straight, go meta, or push into entirely new territory, horror fans can at least take comfort in the fact that the notorious house is in capable hands. After decades of straight-to-DVD oddities and streaming throwaways, maybe this is the long-overdue return to form that 112 Ocean Avenue deserves.
