Good Idea/Bad Idea? Dimension and Miramax Making Another Amityville Horror

Horror remakes and sequels are a dime a dozen, but low-budget flicks like Paranormal Activity have boosted interest in making yet more moneymakers, no matter how redundant they sound on paper. Enter The Amityville Horror: The Lost Tapes, a new "found footage" sequel to the classic horror pic that will shoot this summer for a January 2012 release. What say you, Movieliners? Will this familiar concept be drawn thin or reinvigorated by the whole "found footage" shtick?

The synopsis, from Dimension Films and Miramax:

THE AMITYVILLE HORROR: THE LOST TAPES showcases the events after the time of the original The Amityville Horror book and movie through found footage dating back to 1976. An ambitious female television news intern, on the verge of breaking the most famous haunted house case in the world, leads a team of journalists, clergymen and paranormal researchers into an investigation of the bizarre events that will come to be known as The Amityville Horror ... only to unwittingly open a door to the unreal that she may never be able to close.

Producer Jason Blum is a veteran of the Paranormal Activity 1 & 2 films, so expect Amityville tapes to follow through in the lo-fi spirit of those cash cows. What's most intriguing about this concept is the 1976 period; will the intrepid wannabe Lois Lane stumble across a pile of brand-new Betamaxes? Sift through ghostly phenomena snapped by someone's Kodak Instamatic? If so, this could prove just as nostalgic for film and photo nerds as J.J. Abrams' Super 8.

Casey La Scala (producer of films including Donnie Darko and director of Grind)and Daniel Farrands (writer of The Girl Next Door and director of horror docs including Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy and His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th) will co-script and co-direct the film. The Amityville Horror: The Lost Tapes will open January 27, 2012.

[Press release]