Hannibal Classics Developing 'Amityville: The Legacy 3D'

Hannibal Classics has just announced a spin-off of the 1979 classic The Amityville Horror, to be titled Amityville: The Legacy 3D. The new film will be based on the book Amityville: The Evil Escapes by John G. Jones, which also inspired some of the sequels. Andrew Helm and Steve B. Harris are set to write the script, with Harris, Richard Rionda Del Castro and Paul Mason (who also produced the 2005 remake) producing. No director or cast is attached at this time.

Legacy will be the tenth installment in the Amityville series, which includes four previous feature films, four direct-to-video releases, and a made-for-TV movie. It will also be the second one in 3D — the third film, Amityville 3-D, came out during the '80s 3D craze. Read more after the jump.

Shooting for Amityville: The Legacy 3D is scheduled to begin this September, for an October 2012 release date.

Here's the press release from Hannibal Films (via Coming Soon) – please note that it contains spoilers for the film:

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. AMITYVILLE – THE LEGACY 3D reinvigorates a classic franchise with astonishing scares, dazzling set pieces, and twists that will leave audiences shocked and hungry for more.

Discuss: Are you looking forward to another Amityville film? Have any of you read the book?