When Sonny Gets Blue

If it wasn't for the recent marathon of the "Amityville" movies, well the first three anyways, on AMC the other night, I would never of bothered to check out any of these films besides the first one. After seeing this sequel, which is really a "prequel" to the original film, it's safe to say that you can stop after the first film because this one and the remaining films offer very little to watch or get excited about. This isn't saying much about the original either, because it too wasn't much of anything to begin with. This sequel, released in 1982, is more in touch, more or less, with the actual murders that took place in the infamous Long Island house on 112 Ocean Avenue on the early morning of November 13, 1974. It still exploits those tragic events into a supernatural haunted house story with it's facts turned around for entertainment value and a different family. Burt Young plays the overbearing and abusive matriarch of the family that consists of his wife and 4 kids. The oldest being Sonny(Jack Magner). It isn't long after the family moves into the house that strange things happen. In fact, they happen almost immediatley. Which was a problem with the first film. The James Brolin character got taken over so quickly, it was hard to connect with him because we didn't get enough time to know him. The same goes for Sonny, who is almost instantly changed once he moves in. The spirits and the voices drive Sonny over the edge, telling him to murder his family. His family are not very sympathetic and they don't earn your interest enough to care if they get wiped out or not. The family priest played by James Olson, gets in on the horror in the house and tries to help the family. The big action comes sooner than you would think, and the rest of the film turns into another Hollywood piece of mumbo jumbo that forgoes any kind of suspense or truthfulness that came in the film up to this point. It completely unravels and becomes a mess that seems as if it were just slapped together. It does have one harrowing scene when the son gets the dirty deed done on his family. That part was the only interesting and halfway creepy thing about this otherwise forgettable film. The acting isn't much better than the original, with the exception of Young as the brute father and Olson as the priest. The brother/sister action in the film is unsettling, but also a bit laughable. She has no problem with getting nude and posing and all this, instructed by her brother, but once she learns that he has some undergarments of hers, then hey!, she senses that something is odd. Really?!?!. The film is also kind of shocking in some ways because of some of the deaths that take place since it is unusual to see them in a horror movie. I won't say what it is though. The "Amityville" movies have been a questionable, and less than stellar affair right from the start. The original was not very good, and it didn't get any better with the unending amount of unneeded and uunwarranted sequels. Oh, and by the way, in case you were wondering, my title refers to an old Johnny Mathis tune. So, while this film has some things going for it that are a tad better than the original, like a faster pace, and a better priest, and that one harrowing set piece showcasing the murders, it still fails to come to the level of a film that was sub par to begin with. That kind of tells you everything right there.

Prequel to "The Amityville Horror"...

When I first saw this movie back in the 8th Grade, I was quite impressed with the scary atmosphere and the special effects that it delivers for a low-budget film. The story concerns an Italian family from New York who buys the old estate and once they move in, the horror begins... A father mysteriously turns abusive and starts beating the kids, a brother who ends up sharing a sexual relationship with his sister, and the terrifying supernatural which soon eventually drives him to the edge and causes him to kill off his entire family! Very bloody and gruesome storytelling no doubt! Sure the acting drags at some points (just SOME points) but it's a very good and original homemade horror "B" movie that's guaranteed to give you nightmares! You'll be wanting to watch with the lights on late at night! This is also a very rare and hard to find lost gem, so pick one up today and give it a try! I only wish they'd put this on DVD together with the ORIGINAL "Amityville Horror" (already out on DVD now) but maybe in some kind of Special Edition DOUBLE FEATURE pack! That would be most splendid for all horror fans out there!

A sequel that is a prequel and which fails either way

"Amityville II: The Possession" is essentially a prequel to "The Amityville Horror" in that it tells why the home in the Long Island community was available for sale for that the Lutz family could move in and end up running fleeing for their lives. This time it is the Montelli family that moves into the accursed house, which is not good because they are an unhappy family in the grand tradition of Tolstoy that is heading for trouble no matter where they live. The main tension is between the father, Anthony (Burt Young), and his eldest song, Sonny (Jack Magner), and if it were not for the fact that anyone who saw the original movie knows what is going to happen at the end of this one, you might be wondering which one of these guys is going to lose it first.

Surprisingly, this 1982 film goes through a lot of the same things as the original, which is not surprising for a sequel but more so because there was never a notion that every time somebody moves into this house rooms are covered with flies, blood comes out in strange places, and unseen presences are running around making people feel uneasy. In another move that makes sense only in terms of the movies rather than the "history" of the house, the unseen beings start covering the walls of the children's bedroom with evil pictures and phrases. At this point the film convinces you that there is something really evil in that house, and it would be Anthony Montelli. Even when the local priest (James Olson) comes by to bless the house and sees Anthony going after his family, he walks away (which would seem to be good advice with regards to this film).

On some levels this film is better than the original, but only in the sense that if there never had been an original this one might work better. The flaw with the film version of "The Amityville Horror" was that whereas the novel told a "true" story in a rather documentary style, which was abandoned for cheesy horror film effects. The simple idea of possession that was implied to be the reason the son went off one night and killed his family is now adorned with a whole host of tacky "Exorcist" like ideas. The irony, as I understand it, is that the killing of this family was the one bit of the hoax that really was true. The names are changed because this film would have been the target for a lawsuit otherwise. If director Damiano Damiani had stuck to the true story and forgot about all this other nonsense he would have had a better film. In fact, the only part of "Amityville II: The Possession" that really works is the night of the murders.