Taglines: Every house has a history. This one has a legend.
Teenager Belle Walker moves to 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, Long Island with her mother Joan, little sister Juliet, brain-dead twin brother, James, as well as her dog, Larry. The family’s impetus for moving there was to be closer to Dr. Milton, a neurologist hoping to treat James, who suffered an accident that has left him on life support. Upon moving in, Juliet tells Belle that James has been talking to her lately, “using a lot of curse words.” One night, James flatlines, but is mysteriously revived and opens his eyes.
At school, Belle is taunted by her peers over moving into the home, which she learns was the site of a mass murder by Ronald DeFeo Jr. in 1974. In her bedroom on the third floor, she discovers blood stains from the murder concealed under the wallpaper. One night, Belle invites acquaintances Terrence—an enthusiast on the Amityville haunting—and Marissa, over to watch The Amityville Horror (1979) at the house. At 3:15am in the middle of the film, the power goes out, and the three go into the basement to locate the fuse box, where they are confronted by Joan, who thinks they are intruders.
Dr. Milton, who suspects James may have locked-in syndrome, performs tests on James that show increased function; during the test, he witnesses an apparition of flies filling the room and attacking him, and leaves the house, shaken. James quickly gains the ability to communicate with the family via an AAC computer system that allows him to type by looking at the letters on a screen. Terrence suggests to Belle that James’s sudden revival may be a result of possession stemming from the house; he and Belle suspect that a ring on the ground surrounding the house may represent a magic circle.
Belle asks James if someone else is inhabiting his body, and he replies “yes” and “help” via the computer. He asks her to kill him, and she begins to unplug the machine, but he suddenly attacks her. Joan enters the room, and finds that James is now breathing on his own. After finding the red room in the basement, which she believes to be the source of the power, Belle confronts her mother with the theory that the house is possessing James. Joan reveals to her that, having lost her faith in God after the death of her husband and James’s subsequent accident, she moved the family to the home hoping to harness the demonic energy there in order to bring James back to life.
That night, as Belle prepares to leave, Joan knocks her unconscious. Belle awakens at 3:15am, just as her aunt Candice arrives at the house. James rises from his bed, and harnesses energy from the red room, which revitalizes his body. Belle makes her way downstairs as Candice enters the house, but James shoots Candice with a shotgun. Belle retrieves Juliet from her room, but is unable to open the front door.
Joan is confronted by James in her bedroom; knowing she is facing death, she retrieves her crucifix, and holds it toward James, but he is unaffected; he reminds her that with the loss of her faith in God, He is not able to save her. He shoots Joan in the chest before throwing her on her bed and shooting her in the head. James is able to lure Juliet to the third floor, where he attempts to kill her, but is stopped by Belle, who tackles him, resulting in them both falling from the window. She drags James outside the circle, after which his body withers, and he dies just after telling her “thank you.”
Amityville: The Awakening is an American supernatural horror film and the seventeenth installment in the Amityville saga. It will be directed by Franck Khalfoun from a screenplay he wrote. The film was produced by Daniel Farrands, Casey La Scala and Jason Blum through his Blumhouse Productions banner. It stars Bella Thorne, Cameron Monaghan, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Thomas Mann, Jennifer Morrison and Kurtwood Smith. The film is scheduled to be released on June 30, 2017 by Dimension Films, a division of The Weinstein Company.
The original plan for this film was a completely different film titled Amityville: The Lost Tapes. Dimension Films and Miramax were to produce together, while It was co-written by Casey La Scala and Daniel Farrands while using the “found footage” angle; the plot involved “an ambitious female television news intern, on the verge of breaking the most famous haunted house case in the world, who leads a team of journalists, clergymen and paranormal researchers into an investigation of the bizarre events that will come to be known as The Amityville Horror, only to unwittingly open a door to the unreal that she may never be able to close.”
Franck Khalfoun was set to direct, and filming was to begin in the summer and be released by January 27 2012. While at a press release, Bob Weinstein stated, “We are thrilled to return to the mythology of the Amityville Horror with a new and terrifying vision that will satisfy our existing fans and also introduce an entirely new audience to this popular haunting phenomenon.” Yet after a couple of delays, the film’s concept was scrapped. Casey La Scala and Daniel Farrands were to rewrite a completely different Amityville film. In March 2014, the rewritten film was retitled Amityville.
Also in March 2014, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Bella Thorne signed on to star. In April, Thomas Mann, Taylor Spreitler and Cameron Monaghan signed on to the film. On August 22, 2014, a trailer was released and was re-titled Amityville: The Awakening. On September 19, 2014, the film was removed from Dimension Films’s release schedule.
Amityville: The Awakening (2017)
Directed by: Franck Khalfoun
Starring: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Bella Thorne, Cameron Monaghan, Thomas Mann, Taylor Spreitler, Mckenna Grace, Hunter Goligoski
Screenplay by: Franck Khalfoun
Production Design by: David Lazan
Cinematography by: Steven Poster
Film Editing by: Patrick McMahon
Costume Design by: Mairi Chisholm
Set Decoration by: Regina O’Brien
MPAA Rating: R for strong horror violence and for language.
Studio: The Weinstein Company
Release Date: October 28, 2017
