By MICHAEL GINGOLD
The latest fright film from director Darren Lynn Bousman and a new exploration of the true tragedy in Amityville now have a place on the 2019 calendar.
As it happens, it’s the same place: Both Bousman’s ST. AGATHA (pictured) and Daniel Farrands’ THE AMITYVILLE MURDERS will be released in select theaters and on VOD/digital HD February 8. ST. AGATHA, coming from Uncork’d Entertainment, was scripted by Andy Demetrio, Shaun Fletcher, Sara Sometti Michaels and Clint Sears, and stars Sabrina Kern, Carolyn Hennesy, Courtney Halverson, Lindsay Seim, Hannah Fierman, Trin Miller, Seth Michaels and Justin Miles. The synopsis: “It’s the 1950s in small-town Georgia; a pregnant con woman on the run seeks refuge in a convent hidden in deafening isolation. What first starts out as the perfect place to have a child turns into a dark layer where silence is forced, ghastly secrets are masked and every bit of willpower Agatha has is tested. She soon learns the sick and twisted truth of the convent and the odd people that lurk inside its halls. Agatha must now find a way to discover the unyielding strength needed to escape and save her baby before she’s caged behind these walls forever.”
AMITYVILLE MURDERS, which Farrands wrote and directed, is being handled by Skyline Entertainment and stars John Robinson, Chelsea Ricketts, Diane Franklin (who helped tell a supernatural version of this story in AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION), Paul Ben-Victor, Noa Brenner, Zane Austin and Kue Lawrence. The synopsis: “On the night of November 13, 1974, Ronald DeFeo, Jr. took a high-powered rifle and murdered his entire family as they slept. At his trial, DeFeo claimed that ‘voices’ in the house commanded him to kill. This is their story.”