The Amityville Horror haunting is one of the most iconic and terrifying hauntings of all time. Based around real-life murders by Ronald DeFeo Jr, the novel the Amityville Horror captured the world’s imagination as it apparently told the real life experiences of the Lutz family who moved in after the murders and the haunting they experienced.
The book was so popular that several movies have been released over the years that have focussed on the house. The most recent one to be released is Amityville: The Awakening, which tells an original story not based on the Lutz account of the haunting, helping to reinvent the franchise and breathe some new life into the classic haunted house horror story.
Tongue-In-Cheek Advertising
The advertising campaign behind the movie was one of the most memorable and impressive in horror movie history. The advertising campaign leaned heavily into humor, using Instagram and creative use of hashtags to leave an impression on the public.
One of the most memorable of these adverts was seen on Instagram, where the post had a picture of the iconic Amityville house with the caption ‘moving in today #newbeginnings’.
5 Years Of Filming
Delays to production are bound to become commonplace. That being said, this movie was one of the productions unlucky enough to go through development hell.
The extensive length of time it took to release the movie even led to inconsistencies in the actors, with some even have different body tones between scenes. Filmmakers like to keep a level of continuity throughout their movie, so this undoubtedly would’ve been an annoyance for the makers of the movie.
First Theatrical Amityville Movie For 12 Years
The Amityville haunting is one of the most iconic haunting stories of all time, with the events capturing the minds of a worldwide audience since the book’s initial release in the 70s. As a result, there always seems to be a stream of Amityville haunting media across the decades.
That being said, the release of Amityville: The Awakening marked 12 years since the last Amityville movie, with that being release in 2005.
First Original Amityville Story
Due to the fact that the Amityville haunting is based on a book that is, in turn, based on ‘real life’ events experienced by the Lutz family, there isn’t much room for an original story including the Amityville hauntings.
That being said, this movie marks the first theatrical release of an original story concerning the Amityville Horror hauntings.
Twins Age Gap
The film has a fairly strong cast, including Bella Thorne and Cameron Monaghan as a pair of fraternal twins. However, what is interesting is that, despite being fraternal twins in the film the actors themselves have a fairly substantial age gap.
Bella Thorne and Cameron Monaghan were actually born four years apart, which makes for an interesting piece of knowledge when watching the movie.
McKenna Grace’s Debut
As has been said earlier, the movie went through its own version of development hell that kept the movie in limbo for around 5 years. While this had its own toll on the cast, it also led to some interesting developments for the cast.
Initially, McKenna Grace was set to receive her acting debut in this film but due to the length of time it took to release, was not her theatrical debut.
Original Title
In addition to going through several years of development hell, the movie also went through several different script ideas. Some of these script changes also had an impact on the eventual title of the movie.
Originally, the movie was set to be released under the name of Amityville: The Reawakening, but this was changed in favor of Amityville: The Awakening.
Cut Down For PG-13 Release
Movie studios often like to avoid releasing R rated movies, with the restrictive rating preventing the movie from reaching as wide an audience as possible and therefore limiting how much the movie is able to earn at the box office.
As a result, though initially set to be an R rated movie, 13 minutes of the film was cut in order to make the film fall under the PG-13 rating and reach as wide an audience as possible.
Originally Found Footage
Perhaps due to the fact that the movie was originally set to be released in 2012, in the middle of the found-footage trend that had taken off after the runaway success of the Paranormal Activity franchise, the film was set to be a found footage movie.
The film was initially titled ‘Amityville: The Lost Tapes’ and would’ve followed a female news reporter and a team of paranormal researchers investigating the house and the infamous hauntings, though this idea was scrapped after the delays in filming started to rack up.
Release Date Issues
Development hell is one of the worst places a production team can find themselves. Sometimes, this development hell can go on for several years, keeping movies from being released or even filmed for decades.
Fortunately for the production team behind Amityville: The Awakening, their experience of development hell would only last for 5 years before the film would eventually receive its release in 2017, 5 years after the initial release date of 2012.
