With ‘The Amityville Horror,’ One House. Many Haunts.

When it comes to large film franchises, a few titans emerge: Godzilla, James Bond, Spider-Man.

But there’s one movie with so many offspring, it’s giving those big boys a run for their money: “The Amityville Horror.”

There are at least 45 sequels to Stuart Rosenberg’s 1979 horror drama about a family under siege by supernatural forces inside their home in suburban Amityville, Long Island. That’s more than the “Star Wars,” “Fast and Furious” and “X-Men” franchises combined.

So many Amityville movies are being cranked out — at least four this year — that the horror magazine Fangoria added Best Amityville Film as a category in its annual awards last year.

“There’s a built-in marketplace for the Amityville franchise,” said the director Shawn C. Phillips, whose films include “Amityville Karen” and the new “Amityville Bigfoot” with Eric Roberts. “There are people out there that will literally watch every single Amityville film they make. It’s kind of gotten to the point where filmmakers are trying to top one another.”

To be fair, “sequel” and “franchise” are being used generously. Fewer than 10 films make up the legit “Amityville Horror” canon, and even that number is up for debate. Like the word “Paranormal,” “Amityville” has become more of a low-effort synecdoche for generic possessions of things (“Amityville Vibrator”), holidays (“Amityville Christmas Vacation”) or locations (“Amityville in Space”). The films are mostly comedic, have micro budgets and have little continuity with the original.