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I'm going to give a few details of the saga such as the type of films they are (Direct to video, theatrical, TV etc.) and a few more details.--VampireKen (talk) 16:42, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In what sense is this really a film series, as opposed to a bunch of films with the same subject matter? These seem to be mostly films with no recurring characters, made by different companies. There doesn't seem to be any creative or commercial thread tying these 17 films together. Isn't this like taking every film ever made about Jack the Ripper and collecting them together in an article called Jack the Ripper (film series)? -- Forty.4 (talk) 03:20, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've addressed this at Talk:The Amityville Horror: "Only the 1979 and 2005 films could be said to be based on Jay Anson's 1977 book, and all of the others take considerable liberties. Some do not reference the DeFeo murders at all. The word "Amityville" is too common to be trademarked, so anyone who wants to can make a film with "Amityville" in the title. This has led to the franchise being very loosely defined. No-one could make a film starring Batman or Superman without the permission of DC Comics, but it is pretty much anything goes with Amityville films." It isn't a series or franchise in the strictest sense of the term, but it is useful to see all of the films with Amityville in the title as part of a group.--♦IanMacM♦(talk to me)06:59, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Not really, because the Lutz/Anson version of events is not used as the plot basis of some of the films. The only thing that all of the films have in common is that they have the word "Amityville" in the title.--♦IanMacM♦(talk to me)16:47, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, okay, interesting. So there's no continuity in terms of narrative/character, no continuity in terms of intellectual property, and also even no continuity in terms of subject matter? It's just that the films all use the same word in their titles to make an allusion to the same folk story? Couldn't we arbitrarily create an article based around any word then? Isn't this like having an article called Krampus (film series) which includes every film to use the word 'Krampus' in its title? Actually there'd be more justification for that given that they'd all be about the Krampus; you're saying these aren't even all about the Amityville haunting. How about List of film titles referencing the Amityville haunting instead? Tbh though, I think this article should just be redirected to The_Amityville_Horror#Films and the write-up there modified to clarify that this isn't a series. -- Forty.4 (talk) 17:35, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't create this article, and agree that it doesn't fit the generally agreed definition of a film series or franchise. However, Amityville has taken on a life of its own and inspired numerous haunted house/posession films, and this article has them all in one place.--♦IanMacM♦(talk to me)18:44, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Any suggestions as to a better title for this article? The current title is entirely wrong, both in the sense that most of these films have no connection to The Amityville Horror novel (some not even to the Amityville haunting folk story), and in the sense that this is not a film series by any reasonable definition. Even if the films were all based on the Amityville novel or folk story, that wouldn't make them a de facto film series any more than all films based on Dracula or the Countess Bathory folk story are 'film series'. If all the films listed here were based on The Amityville Horror, the proper place for such a list would be in a #Film section of the novel's article. Whereas if all 17 films were based on the Amityville folk story, the proper title would be something like List of films based on the Amityville haunting. The current article either needs to be rethought and retitled or just deleted, because it's currently outright misinformation, and when Amityville: The Awakening was released last year I saw a lot of outlets reporting information on the 'series' that they'd clearly got from this article. -- Forty.4 (talk) 18:21, 7 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
After some further research, it does appear that all of these films are based on the folk story, some quite loosely, but still - they're all about hauntings in and around the town of Amityville. They may not have anything to do with the novel and they may dispense with many of the details of the original story, but they're clearly still all inspired by the folk story of the haunted/cursed Amityville house. I'm going to be bold and move the page, because this title is completely wrong. -- Forty.4 (talk) 19:34, 7 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
These two articles share almost the same subject matter, with only one difference in the list of films in each one: The Conjuring 2, which is present in this article but not the other. As 23 of 24 films based on the haunting are part of the franchise, I see no reason to provide a separate article on the same topic; any additional films or supporting information can still be mentioned if necessary. The article above should therefore be merged into this one, which should then be renamed to "The Amityville Horror (franchise)", as most of the listed films are part of the franchise. — RAVENPVFF·talk·01:10, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, but it needs to be made clear in the merged article that this isn't a franchise, but rather a body of unrelated films and novels drawing from or referring to the same historical and literary sources. - Forty.4 (talk) 23:38, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It might be a good idea to note that The Conjuring (the first movie) also references the Amityville haunting pretty explicitly in the first act. That might be a further argument for a collected and independent page instead of migrating this content. Cwallenpoole (talk) 08:42, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
