Ten years ago Ryan Katzenbach set out to make the definitive film about the Amityville case, or more specifically the DeFeo murders that spawned the entire phenomenon. The result is Shattered Hopes, a six-hour docudrama which has been conveniently split into 3 films; Part 1: From Horror To Homicide, Part 2: Mob, Mayhem, Murder, and Part 3: Fraud and Forensics which is due out in November just in time for the 40th anniversary of the crime that inspired it.
Eric Walter’s fantastic documentary My Amityville Horror is finally getting a DVD release on August 6th. There is no mention of a Blu-Ray at this point, but the features will include a full commentary and some sort of featurette. If you have any interest at all in the story I highly recommend checking out this film. You can learn more about it here.
The Amityville Horror is never going to go away. Whether you believe the Lutz’s story or you believe it was all a clever hoax the tale of the house on Long Island is forever a part of the horror lexicon. Those mysterious 28 days in late 1975/early 1976 will always be fascinating.
The movie series spawned from the blood-soaked, pig-infested seed of that house haven’t done much to clear up the facts about the case. Between possessed lamps and haunted doll houses there isn’t very much horror left in Amityville. The waters will be mudied even more when The Amityville Asylum starts production in early 2013. More on that mess in a moment.
One of the numerous Amityville projects slated for release in the near future is Shattered Hopes: The True Story Behind the Amityville Murders. The film is based on Ric Osuna’s book The Night the Defeo’s Died and has been in the making for over ten years now. The path this film has taken to release has been a rocky one and to be honest I never thought it would ever see the flicker of a movie screen.
AMITYVILLE REBORN 