You have to wonder if the makers of the 1979 horror film The Amityville Horror had any clue that 32 years later people would still be making films stemming from the original.  And you have to wonder if even they would say, “Just stop.”

While the concept of the Amityville house being haunted is up for debate, there is no doubt that it is based around a real 1974 murder where a son, Ronald DeFeo,  killed six family members in the house.  The ghost/horror story that came out of the house didn’t show up for a couple of years, and the validity of the claims have been made time and time again.

While the novel was turned into a 1979 film, what has followed has just gotten progressively worse.  Now my good friend Steven Hodson pinged me earlier with the news that another film based around the house is going into production, and, yes, it’ll be in 3D.  Of course it will be.

Amityville: The Legacy 3D is due to begin filming his fall with a targeted release for Oct. 2012.  First Showing has a lengthy synopsis of the plot:

Six priests enter an abandoned home in the middle of an intense thunderstorm. The leader of the group, Father Manfred, quiets the doubting Father Kibbler, the youngest priest. The priests separate and Kibbler follows the sound of laughter into the attic. Inside, flies swarm by the the iconic windows of the Amityville house. The door slams shut and an unseen demon claws at Kibbler. Manfred kicks open the door and battles the demon until it consumes him in fire. The attic erupts but the demon is vanquished — contained in a weak, but still-alive Manfred.

Thirty years later, we meet Nancy and Michael Evans and their daughter Amanda, a happy family recently touched by tragedy. Nancy’s sister Carolyn committed suicide, leaving Nancy and Michael to care for her kids, Brian and Jessica. The Evans family is in the process of moving from the city to live in Carolyn’s suburban home, where Nancy hopes to bond with Brian and Jessica. Michael plans to fix up the house, sell it, and move the family back to the city.

Before they settle into the home, the friction between Michael and Jessica threatens to splinter the family. Very soon after their arrival, Nancy begins to sense a palpable, evil presence. She can’t seem to sleep through the night due to mysterious and horrifying noises. Their family cat is found in the attic — dead. Slaughtered. Worse, as a family unit, they have a hard time meshing with Brian and Jessica. Michael becomes consumed with renovating the house, and hires a couple of hard-partying locals, Ant and Sean, to help him. But they are afraid to go in the attic. They know what happened in there.

As Michael’s passion turns to obsession, Nancy struggles with her very sanity. She’s coming apart at the seams, unhinged by the evil presence that only she seems to feel. She knows it will stop at nothing to get them out of the house. When she finds some letters Carolyn wrote to Father Manfred and Father Kibbler she makes a startling discovery — Carolyn went through the same thing. Unable to track down Manfred, she locates Kibbler — but he offers her no help. He is no longer a priest, and only communicated with Carolyn because Manfred no longer could. She begs him to help her find Manfred, and Kibbler finally admits the truth: Manfred is in an insane asylum.

Nancy goes to see Father Manfred and convinces him to help her vanquish the evil spirit. Michael’s erratic behavior intensifies as the hauntings escalate, culminating in a horrific attack on one of Jessica’s friends and the mysterious disappearance of a local delivery man. And it soon becomes clear that Michael is building an exact replica of the Amityville house. Nancy finally convinces Kibbler and Father Manfred to put aside their bad blood and help her fight the evil spirit and cast it from the house. But if they think the spirit will go quietly or that they even know the source of its strength, they have another thing coming.

Why?  Why does this move need to exist?  The simple answer is that it doesn’t.  While you can pick on the original horror story idea, but you have to remember that at its core this is a series of tales that are based on a family’s tragedy.  While there have certainly been other movies to profit from tragedy, this one just continues to get sillier by the minute.  And what kills me is that these aren’t exactly huge money makers, it’s not like anyone is leaving a fortune on the table if they don’t make this.

Just stop, this series has long ago run its course, and it’s time for them to come to an end.