2017 film by Franck Khalfoun
Amityville: The Awakening is a 2017 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Franck Khalfoun and starring Bella Thorne, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Cameron Monaghan, Mckenna Grace, Thomas Mann, Taylor Spreitler, Jennifer Morrison, and Kurtwood Smith. It is the tenth installment of the Amityville film series and a metafilm taking place in the "real world", where the 1979 original, its sequels, and the 2005 remake are all works of fiction. Its plot follows teenager Belle Walker who moves into 112 Ocean Avenue with her family, who shortly find themselves haunted by a demonic entity using her brain-dead twin brother James' body as a vessel.
Originally titled Amityville: The Lost Tapes, it was announced in May 2011, and was initially conceived as a found footage-style film and a separate entry in the franchise. However, the studio abandoned the film's original idea, and hired Khalfoun to write and direct a new draft in early-2012. Filmed in 2014, the film suffered numerous release delays before finally being released for free on Google Play on October 12, 2017 and on DVD in 2018.
Amityville: The Awakening was theatrically released by Dimension Films in a limited release on October 28, 2017. The film had grossed $8.4 million worldwide and received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics, with criticism for its generic writing, horror clichés and reliance on jump scares. It is the last film to be released by distributor RADiUS-TWC, as the company shut down along with Dimension and their parent company, The Weinstein Company, on July 16, 2018, following the sexual abuse allegations against its co-founder Harvey Weinstein.
Plot summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.