Ain't It Cool News (AICN) is an entertainment news website founded by Harry Knowles and run by his sister Dannie Knowles since September 2017, dedicated to news, rumors, and reviews of upcoming and current films, television, and comic book projects, with an emphasis on science fiction, superhero, fantasy, horror, and action genres.
The Amityville Horror is a book by American author Jay Anson, published in September 1977. It is also the basis of a series of films released from 1979 onward. The book is based on the claims of paranormal experiences by the Lutz family, but has led to controversy and lawsuits over its truthfulness.
Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens are a New York Times-bestselling husband-and-wife writing/producing team. In June, 2013, at the Constellation Awards ceremony in Toronto, the writing couple were honored with the Constellation Award for "Outstanding Canadian Contribution to Science Fiction Film or Television" for their role in creating the series, Primeval: New World.
The Amityville haunting is a modern folk story based on the true crimes of Ronald DeFeo Jr. On November 13, 1974, DeFeo shot and killed six members of his family at 112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville, on the south shore of Long Island. He was convicted of second-degree murder in November 1975. In December 1975, George and Kathy Lutz and their three children moved into the house. After 28 days, the Lutzes left the house, claiming to have been terrorized by paranormal phenomena while living there. The house became the subject of numerous investigations by paranormal researchers, journalists, and skeptics, including Ed and Lorraine Warren. These events served as the historical basis for Jay Anson's 1977 novel The Amityville Horror, which was followed by a number of sequels and was adapted into a film of the same name in 1979. Since then, many films have been produced that draw explicitly, to a greater or lesser extent, from these historical and literary sources. As Amityville is a real town and the stories of DeFeo and the Lutzes are historical, there can be no proprietary relationship to the underlying story elements associated with the Amityville haunting. As a result of this, there has been no restriction on the exploitation of the story by film producers, which is the reason that most of these films share no continuity, were produced by different companies, and tell widely varying stories.
The Hearse is a 1980 American supernatural horror film directed by George Bowers and starring Trish Van Devere and Joseph Cotten. It follows a schoolteacher from San Francisco who relocates to a small town in northern California to spend the summer in a house she inherited from her deceased aunt, only to uncover her aunt's past as a devil worshipper, which seems to trigger a series of supernatural occurrences.
The Conjuring is a 2013 American supernatural horror film directed by James Wan and written by Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes. It is the inaugural film in The Conjuring Universe franchise. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga star as Ed and Lorraine Warren, paranormal investigators and authors associated with prominent cases of haunting. Their purportedly real-life reports inspired The Amityville Horror story and the associated film franchise. The Warrens come to the assistance of the Perron family, who experienced increasingly disturbing events in their newly occupied farmhouse in Rhode Island in 1971.
Evil Head is a 2012 American pornographic horror comedy film written and directed by Doug Sakmann, and co-written by Joanna Angel. It is based on the 1981 horror film The Evil Dead by Sam Raimi.
The Amityville Asylum is a 2013 British horror film written and directed by Andrew Jones. It is the eleventh film to be inspired by Jay Anson's 1977 novel The Amityville Horror. Sophia Del Pizzo stars as Lisa Templeton, a young woman who is hired to work as a custodian at High Hopes Psychiatric Hospital, an asylum that was built on the site of a haunted house in Amityville, New York.
Lord of Tears, also known as The Owlman, is a 2013 Scottish low-budget horror film directed by Lawrie Brewster and was his horror film directorial debut. The film first released on 25 October 2013 in Whitby at the Bram Stoker International Film Festival, where it won two awards. The film follows a Scottish schoolteacher that begins to see visions of the Owl Man, a strange figure that he was obsessed with as a child. The film was followed by The Unkindness of Ravens and The Black Gloves, both directed by Lawrie Brewster.
The Woman Eater is a low budget 1958 British horror film directed by Charles Saunders and starring George Coulouris and Vera Day. Produced by Guido Coen, the film recounts the story of a crazed scientist who feeds women to a flesh-eating tree in return for a serum that can bring the dead back to life. The film was released in the UK in 1958 by Eros Films on a double bill with the Swedish crime drama Blonde in Bondage (1957).
The Forbidden Girl is a 2013 German horror film that was directed by Till Hastreiter. The film was released in Germany on 7 February 2013 and was released to video in the United States on 26 August 2014. It stars Peter Gadiot as a young man that finds himself fascinated by a woman who seems to be the mirror image of his former sweetheart, who was carted off by a demon six years ago.
Amityville Death House is a 2015 American horror film directed by Mark Polonia, written by John Oak Dalton, and starring Eric Roberts. It was released direct-to-video, and is the twelfth film to be inspired by Jay Anson's 1977 novel The Amityville Horror.
Amityville Playhouse is a 2015 horror film written and directed by John R. Walker, and co-written by Steve Hardy. It is the thirteenth film to be inspired by Jay Anson's 1977 novel The Amityville Horror. Monèle LeStrat stars as Fawn Harriman, a recently orphaned Dannemora high school student who inherits a mysterious abandoned theatre located in Amityville, New York.
Dylan Greenberg is an American film director and musician most notable for directing the 2015 film Dark Prism. She has directed content for Adult Swim as well as the feature films ReAgitator: Revenge of the Parody, Glamarus, Wakers, and Amityville: Vanishing Point. Greenberg has directed music videos for Michael C. Hall's band Princess Goes to the Butterfly Museum, Speedy OrtizJames Chance and the Contortions Finnish funk star Sam Huber Mac Gollehon Blondie keyboardist Matt Katz-Bohen's solo project with his wife Laurel, Pastel Confession and Suicide Squeeze Records band Death Valley Girls. Greenberg directed a horror parody of Re-Animator entitled Re-Agitator: Revenge of the Parody starring Aurelio Voltaire Hernandez and Alan Merrill.
The Amityville Legacy is a 2016 American horror film written and directed by Dustin Ferguson and Mike Johnson. It was released direct-to-video, and is the fifteenth film to be inspired by Jay Anson's 1977 novel The Amityville Horror. Mark Popejoy stars as Mark Janson, a father who begins murdering members of his own family after being gifted an evil cymbal-banging monkey toy that was taken from 112 Ocean Avenue, a haunted house in Amityville, New York.
The Amityville Terror is a 2016 American horror film directed by Michael Angelo, and written by Amanda Barton. It was released direct-to-video, and is the sixteenth film to be inspired by Jay Anson's 1977 novel The Amityville Horror. Nicole Tompkins stars as Hailey Jacobson, the daughter of a dysfunctional family that is terrorized by both evil spirits and malicious townspeople after moving into a haunted house in Amityville, New York.
The Afflicted is a 2011 American horror thriller film written and directed by Jason Stoddard. A limited theatrical release, it is based on the crimes of Theresa Knorr, an American woman who killed her husband in 1964, and torture-murdered two of her children during the 1980s. It stars Leslie Easterbrook as Maggie, a mentally disturbed mother of four who begins abusing her children based on her own twisted interpretations of the Bible. Kane Hodder co-stars as Maggie's husband, Hank.
Reagitator: Revenge of the Parody is a 2017 American horror comedy film directed by Dylan Greenberg about a mad doctor. It is based on H.P. Lovecraft's Herbert West--Reanimator.
Amityville: No Escape is a 2016 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Henrique Couto, and co-written by Ira Gansler. It is the seventeenth film to be inspired by Jay Anson's 1977 novel The Amityville Horror. A found footage film, it follows two storylines, one set in 1997 and the other in 2016, that both involve 112 Ocean Avenue, a haunted house in Amityville, New York.
Amityville Exorcism is a 2017 American horror film directed by Mark Polonia, and written by Billy D'Amato. It was released direct-to-video, and is the eighteenth film to be inspired by Jay Anson's 1977 novel The Amityville Horror. The film stars Jeff Kirkendall as Father Benna, a Catholic priest who, with the help of a troubled father played by James Carolus, performs exorcism on the man's daughter after the girl is possessed by a demon that originates from 112 Ocean Avenue, a haunted house in Amityville, New York. It was followed by two sequels, Amityville Island in 2020 and Amityville in Space in 2022.
