The Amityville movies are in general pretty terrible. This would be because they’re based on a hoax (theoretically) and adapted from a book that wasn’t very good. I recently took the time to sit down and read the Amityville Horror and it’s a terrible read, yet a very interesting read at the same time.
After reading the book I wrote a short essay on my opinion of the book as a whole in my blog Pure Mattitude. You can read the whole thing if you want but I’ll give you a quick exert from my essay.
I’m not going to lie, after reading it I’m convinced that the events of the book really happened. I say that in the sense that no one could fabricate something this fucking boring and try to sell it as exciting unless it really happened.
The books “paranormal activity” involve “Windows breaking during a storm”, “car trouble” and “going to the same bar as the person who murdered his family a few years earlier”.
This awful and dull book lead to a feature film and 8 sequels. They are all pretty bad to the point of painfulness. Sadly due to the fact that pretty much all the movies are terrible people don’t really recognize the only one that’s moderately interesting; Amityville Horror II: The Possession.
You see while the first Amityville Horror is based on a very potential hoax and all the other sequels are simply made-up stories Amityville Horror II is the only thing based on a proven event, the DeFeo murders.
Now for the sake of creative liberties the names were changed to the Montelli family but the film is based on Murder in Amityville by Hans Holzer. The book (later renamed Amityville: Fact or Fiction?) tries to propose that Ronald Defeo Jr was possessed when he murdered his family.
The movie enters some dark and demented elements like a violent and abusive father as well as an incest filled relationship between brother and sister. But we’ll get to that in a second. First let’s go through the plot a bit.
When the Montelli (aka the Defeo’s) family moves into the Amityville house thinks get weird right away. Windows start opening and closing, paintbrushes come to life and paint hateful messages on the wall and eldest son Sonny starts hearing messages in his walkman.
Dolores asks the local priest to bless the house but his driven away by the abusive and violent husband Anthony (played extremely over the top by Burt Young). While the family goes to church so Anthony can apologize their eldest son Sonny (Son… Sonny… ugh) becomes possessed. HIs first act as a now demon possessed teenager is to bang the shit out of his sister (who is played by Diane Franklin aka Monique the French exchange student from Better Off Dead so really… who can blame him?).
As Sonny falls deeper into the possession his face begins to take on a more demonic appearance (because hey, it worked in The Exorcist). Eventually he’s driven to murdering his entire family on his birthday.
The young priest from earlier takes interest in Sonny an believing that he is possessed decides to exorcism him. While he may not be cleared of his murder charges, Sonny will be able to be himself again. The film ends implying that the priest is now possessed, if he is we won’t ever find out because the next sequel was a 3-D film about a demon living in the basement.
These final 30 minutes is what I find most interesting in this film. The demonic make-up is top notch during the final exorcism sequence. Sonny is caked in slime, contacts and rotting features. While the exorcism isn’t on the same level as other famous exorcism sequences (aka The Exorcist), it’s still quite good. While much of the sequence where Sonny’ becomes possessed is pretty absurd, the special effects and makeup remain quite impressive.
All in all the movie’s not terrible. There are some slow points and some of the performances leave something to be desired. Burt Young’s performance of the violent, abusive and cruel father for instance constantly walks the line between frightening and hilarious. The first scene in which he bites the youngest child and then beats Dolores when she tries to protect them is genuinely disturbing. On the flip side (just 10 minutes later) when he’s beating a child and screaming at the priest the sequence is so outrageously cruel that you find yourself chuckling a little.
On the opposite end of the spectrum Jack Magner’s performance of Sonny Montelli is quite energetic and well done (particularly given how ridiculous the possession sequence was shot). Sadly his only other performance was as “young serviceman” in Firestarter. I don’t even know if he is still alive as his IMDb page has little to no information on him.
In one of the more ridiculous moments of cinema history stemmed from the resolution of a lawsuit. George Lutz (the real life ‘victim’ of the first Amityville Horror) intended to have the sequel be based on the book Amityville Horror Part II. The book by John G Jones has the tagline “The terrifying true story continues” but then has a disclaimer stating “This book is a work of fiction, the author created this story”. When producer Dino De Laurentiis went with in a different direction Lutz attempted (unsuccessfully) to sue. However Lutz did win the right to put posters in theaters informing everyone this film has “no affliction with George and Kathy Lutz” (because you see an Amityville horror film for them and not a possessed and demonic house).
While the movie had mixed and negative reviews some critics (shockingly enough Roger Ebert) did see this as an improvement on the original (because it is). However the movie debuted at #1 it’s opening weekend and opened the door for Amityville everything (including possessed clocks and dollhouses). The Amityville Horror series is undeniably the worst horror franchise out there, but you still shouldn’t write off this particular sequel.