Amityville Horror Re-remake

[UFAlien]

You read that right. According to Bloody Disgusting, Dimension and Weinstein are in talks with a director to do ANOTHER remake of The Amityville Horror.

The original 1979 film, based on a book which in turn was based on allegedly true events, was a smash hit and spawned seven sequels. The previous remake was produced by Platinum Dunes and released by MGM in 2005 and starred Ryan Reynolds as George Lutz, the man who moved into a haunted house with his family and fled 28 days later. This remake was also a financial hit, despite huge departures from the original film, book, or any claims made by the real Lutz family.

The original story has never been proven true or false and is a source of much controversy to this day. It is, however, a ghost tale firmly imprinted on American society and carries great name recognition, which the distressed Weinsteins could use right about now.

Interestingly enough, this is their second recently announced re-remake, as they also have plans to release a remake of Children of the Corn despite the SyFy Channel's own remake that premiered this summer.

Original Article: http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/18207/?pg=2

[fatediesel]

Originally Posted by UFAlien

The original story has never been proven true or false and is a source of much controversy to this day. It is, however, a ghost tale firmly imprinted on American society and carries great name recognition, which the distressed Weinsteins could use right about now.

It has pretty much been proven that the events were fake and were a ruse by George Lutz who could not afford the home and whose business faltered. William Weber, who was the lawyer of Ronald Defeo, who killed his family in the home, admitted he conspired with the Lutzes to make up the story in an effort to get Defeo a new trial. In addition, most of Lutzes claims have been proven impossible due to factual errors and inconsistencies.

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/ghosts/amityville.asp

[UFAlien]

Originally Posted by fatediesel

It has pretty much been proven that the events were fake and were a ruse by George Lutz who could not afford the home and whose business faltered. William Weber, who was the lawyer of Ronald Defeo, who killed his family in the home, admitted he conspired with the Lutzes to make up the story in an effort to get Defeo a new trial. In addition, most of Lutzes claims have been proven impossible due to factual errors and inconsistencies.

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/ghosts/amityville.asp

Unfortunately, the snopes.com article is based largely on the writings of Rick Moran and Steven Kaplan, neither of whom are particularly trustworthy individuals. (For example, Rick Moran is pretty much the king of contradicting himself and disregarding police evidence, not to mention his "list of inconsistencies" was never published and "lost in a fire", and his eyewitnesses are all either dead or nameless. As for the priest, he gave an on-camera interview where he said things DID happen in the house.)

Furthermore, the fact the Willaim Weber said it was fake is pointless. He's lying either way - he's the one who wanted the Lutzes to take a lie detector test (which they eventually did, and passed) and later hired Hans Holzer to investigate the house for paranormal activity on his behalf.

As for the money object and the statement that they could not afford the house, George Lutz continued making mortgage payments on the house for six months after he left the property behind.

Most of the "factual errors" (like dates not matching up with weather records) were in fact errors made by Jay Anson's book (which the Lutzes had no final say on the content of, and Anson admitted to embellishing) rather than the actual claims made by the Lutz family.

http://www.amityvillefaq.com/
http://www.amityvillefiles.com/2009/...dead-source/1/
http://www.amityvillefiles.com/2009/...or-conspiracy/

I love Snopes too, but it's far from the be-all end-all

[Clark Kent]

The most compelling analysis of the Amityville case I have seen concludes it was all a trumped up hoax to sell books and make a little money. The Smithsonian Network ran a pretty good special on the case recently (which looked great in HD).

Another remake is a joke. The one from 2005 just was not that good, straying very far from any relationship to the original book or movie.

[UFAlien]

I don't think that makes any sense whatsoever personally, especially since the deal Weber wanted to give the Lutzes was a single chapter in a book mostly about Ronnie DeFeo's murders. Besides, why lose $80,000+ on the off chance that one book would somehow sell millions of copies, especially since that book was being published by a textbook company?

I agree on the remake thing, though. The Ryan Reynolds version was already pretty bad; I'm morbidly curious about how terrible this could be.

[Gamma_Winstead]

I thought the remake was good. been a LONG time though... 4 years since I have seen it. My taste in film has varied since then. And I have never seen the original.

[GORT]

Originally Posted by UFAlien

Unfortunately, the snopes.com article is based largely on the writings of Rick Moran and Steven Kaplan, neither of whom are particularly trustworthy individuals. (For example, Rick Moran is pretty much the king of contradicting himself and disregarding police evidence, not to mention his "list of inconsistencies" was never published and "lost in a fire", and his eyewitnesses are all either dead or nameless. As for the priest, he gave an on-camera interview where he said things DID happen in the house.)

Furthermore, the fact the Willaim Weber said it was fake is pointless. He's lying either way - he's the one who wanted the Lutzes to take a lie detector test (which they eventually did, and passed) and later hired Hans Holzer to investigate the house for paranormal activity on his behalf.

As for the money object and the statement that they could not afford the house, George Lutz continued making mortgage payments on the house for six months after he left the property behind.

Most of the "factual errors" (like dates not matching up with weather records) were in fact errors made by Jay Anson's book (which the Lutzes had no final say on the content of, and Anson admitted to embellishing) rather than the actual claims made by the Lutz family.

http://www.amityvillefaq.com/
http://www.amityvillefiles.com/2009/...dead-source/1/
http://www.amityvillefiles.com/2009/...or-conspiracy/

I love Snopes too, but it's far from the be-all end-all

and neither is a lie detector test

[UFAlien]

Originally Posted by GORT

and neither is a lie detector test

Indeed, it's not. I never said that it was proven true - just that it wasn't proven false. I was merely demonstrating that the hoax theories are themselves full of holes and inconsistencies.