You gotta hand it to the realtors in the suburbs of Amityville, New York — they sure know how to close a murder house! They’ve been doing it since 1975 when the Lutz family purchased the Dutch Colonial with the creepy attic windows just a year after its previous residents were massacred.

Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered his parents and siblings for reasons not fully known, but ranging from bad drug trip to insurance fraud to plain old daddy issues. Possible demonic possession soon captured the imagination when the Lutz family ditched the home 28 days after moving in, citing paranormal occurrences.

Author Jay Anson based his fictional novel, “The Amityville Horror,” on accounts from the Lutz family, suggesting a malevolent force dwelled inside the house and was responsible for possessing its most vulnerable residents. The book was a bestseller and triggered a series of films, including the 1979 original and this year’s “Amityville: The Awakening.”

“The Awakening” is a reboot of sorts meant to introduce the franchise to an audience too young to know the original and possibly even its 2005 remake, starring a pre-Deadpool Ryan Reynolds, while entertaining longtime fans with a few callback moments and a controlled meta approach.

The film opens with a new family moving into the Amityville house: single mom Joan (Jennifer Jason Leigh), hot and brooding teen daughter Belle (Bella Thorne), little sister Juliet (Mckenna Grace), and comatose son James (Cameron Monaghan). There’s also an Aunt Candice (Jennifer Morrison) who lives nearby and is around to help however she can.

Joan has moved her family to Amityville to be close to James’ neurologist, but she has an ulterior motive: to use the house’s evil energy to awaken her son, who was brain damaged after being tossed off a balcony for confronting the guy who posted naughty pics of his sister online. The plan is a success and soon James is up and about killing people.

Fortunately, Belle’s new schoolmates make her aware of the house’s uncanny history of possessing people and warn her that her brother is especially vulnerable given his condition. As her brother grows stronger, he begs her to kill him. She’s eventually swayed, but not until the body count starts to add up quick.

The Awakening is definitely a tween fright flick. It’s well produced with soft scares that won’t keep you up at night. Don’t expect much from its seasoned players. Leigh brings chops to the table, but her role is regulated to Charlie Brown parents. Likewise, Morrison’s part is more of a cameo.

Belle’s friends Terrence (Thomas Mann) and Marissa (Taylor Spreitler) usher in the meta moments in the film and they are a hoot – i.e. Terrence’s excitement over watching an Amityville Horror movie in the actual Amityville house (the group chooses the original over the remake because remakes suck!). Sadly, the film’s meta moments are too far and in between to reach Jamie Kennedy’s level of hilarity and wit in Scream. It’s a device inexplicably abandoned midway.

The weight of the film is on Thorne’s shoulders to carry. There’s no real depth to her character – everything you need to know is on the surface and as easy to spot as her ass cheeks in tiny booty shorts (thank you, wardrobe!), but her performance feels natural enough to make her a worthy final girl.

The Awakening is written and directed by Franck Khalfoun, the man behind the insanely suspenseful cat-and-mouse thriller P2 and the awesome 2012 remake of Maniac. This film is nowhere near that level of fright, but it benefits from Khalfoun’s pacing, making it one of the better entries in the Amityville franchise.

Amityville: The Awakening is available on DVD and Blu-ray now.

A trailer has gone online for Inoperable, a time-loop thriller set in a hospital during a destructive hurricane. Scream-queen Danielle Harris stars in the film as a hot patient who keep waking up in an evacuted hospital and must figure out a way out before time runs out.

The film is directed by Christopher Lawrence Chapman (The Accident) from a script by Jeff Miller (ClownTown) and co-stars Katie Keene (Clowntown), Cher Hubsher (Amityville Terror), and Isabella Sofia Menna (Clowntown). It will have a limited theatrical run Dec. 1.

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Hot, young witches in lingerie is all we need to know to pique our interest in Coven, a Wiccan based thriller conjured up by our cock and balls… oh, wait. That’s not true. It just feels like that. The film is directed by Maragaret Malandruccolo and written by Lizze Gordon. We don’t know who they are, but they’re geniuses!

Coven tells the tale of four undergrad witches in search of a new member to take the place of the one they murdered. Only then will they be able to unleash the powers of an ancient witch.

Gordon not only penned the script, she co-stars in the film alongside stunners Terri Ivens (Piranhaconda), Jocelyn Saenz (Amityville Terror), Sofya Skya (My Stepdaughter), Miranda O’Hare (“Age of the Living Dead”), Jessica Louise Long (Death Pool), and Margot Major (Screwed).

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Jenna Elfman (“Dharma & Greg”) is set to join the fourth season of AMC’s “Fear the Walking Dead” as a series regular. Character details have not been revealed, but with the show most likely moving its location to Texas we speculate Elfman’s role could be that of “The Walking Dead’s” Abraham Ford’s wife!

A crossover event between the two series was announced at this year’s New York Comic Con and Abraham’s Texas-rooted backstory – and overall popularity – makes him a prime candidate. Abraham’s wife abandoned him with their two kids during the apocalypse after growing scared of what he’d become.

That choice would lead to their rightful demise… dumb-asses.

Now, we know Elfman’s casting is as a season four regular and actor Michael Cudlitz would reprise his role as Abraham for a short stint so there’s a chance we’re just talking out our asses, but maybe we see them together for awhile and then stick with her as she attempts to survive, leading to that rightful demise.

We’re probably wrong, but… made you look 🙂

Sexy up-and-comer Casey O’Keefe is set to warm the cockles of your heart as a beautiful young woman who falls for a fat guy and takes him home for the holidays to meet her family in Gravitas Ventures’ Mercy Christmas, arriving on VOD Nov. 28.

But, don’t be fooled by the pretty blonde’s seemingly kind actions. She’s having the poor tubby bastard over for dinner as the main course! Might be a fair exchange if you ask us – assuming he’s already stuffed her stocking.

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Hospitals are scary. If the jaded, inept nursing staff doesn’t kill you, the malevolent spirits of the dead patients just might! The latter appears to be what ails Shauna Macdonald (The Descent) in Dark Sky Films’ newly released frightener Nails.

Macdonald plays Dana, a mother and track coach left temporarily paralyzed by a terrible auto accident and tormented by a hospital boogeyman no ones believes to be real. Looks like terrifying stuff. Let’s hope there’s a glimpse of Macdonald in a backless hospital gown to ease the tension!

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Romanian actress Alexandra Dinu co-stars alongside an award-winning cast in Bullet Head, a star-studded indie-thriller from writer and director Paul Solet, the twisted mind behind 2009’s sad and creepy dead-baby drama Grace.

Bullet Head follows three career criminals eluding capture after a heist gone wrong in a seemingly abandoned warehouse unaware of the bloodthirsty pit bull inside. John Malkovich, Adrien Brody, and Rory Culkin play the endangered thieves. Antonio Banderas is the gun-toting maniac on their ass.

Dinu plays Brody’s girlfriend. The film is rated R for violence, bloody imagery, drug use, and nudity(!) so let’s hope there’s a lot more to see from Dinu and not just some random shot of Malkovich’s old, saggy ass.

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Aviron Pictures has released a teaser for Strangers: Prey at Night, the long gestating and eagerly awaited sequel to Bryan Bertino’s terrifying 2008 home invasion classic, The Strangers. Johannes Roberts (47 Meters Down) is at the helm with a script penned by Bertino and Ben Ketai (30 Days of Night: Dark Days).

Christina Hendricks (”Mad Men”) plays the busty matriarch of a family stranded at an abandoned trailer park and tormented by three masked killers: Pin-up Girl (Lea Enslin), Dollface (Emma Bellomy), and Man in the Mask (Damian Maffei).

Strangers was terrifying and brutal and, despite the retarded subtitle, the sequel is looking pretty intense. Watching the burlap sack guy pull up in the truck or give chase in a pool is fucking freaky! Slated for release March 9, 2018. Check out the creepy website.

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Imagine being on a beautiful island in the middle of the night with Sabina Gadecki. Sounds pretty nice until you realize there’s something trying to kill you both. Nothing spoils the mood quicker than the need to keep breathing. But, what’s this cock-blocking murderous force and can it be stopped?

That’s what a group of college kids out at sea for some college kid fun must figure out in The Ninth Passenger. No details on Gadecki’s role in the thriller, but let’s hope it involves a bikini and low camera angles. The film is currently seeking distribution, but a trailer has gone online.

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Hannah Emily Anderson, the sexy tatted forensic pathologist in the SAW prequel Jigsaw, is playing games again in What Keeps You Alive, a psychological thriller from writer/director Colin Minihan (Grave Encounters) that finds the sexy redhead in an embittered battle with her wife on their first year anniversary.

Playing Anderson’s hot lady lover is her Jigsaw co-star Brittany Allen. Okay, we don’t really know exactly how hot Allen is – she was wearing a bucket on her head for most of her screen time on Jigsaw and when it was off her face was melting, but… lesbians!

No major details on the film so we don’t know why they’re at each other’s throats or more importantly if they kiss, get naked, and/or scissor, but we’re already intrigued!