Even in a depressed economy, there are some properties that a realtor would have a hard time selling at any price. The Bates Motel would probably be a hard sell (especially since they built that highway a few years back that sends everyone around.) I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around moving into 1428 Elm Street, and even though the Munsters aren't scary, I'm still not moving into 1313 Mockingbird Lane. The hardest home of all to move has to be the one at 112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville, New York. Though the outside has been renovated and the address changed, I'm not going to be fooled into moving into the Amityville Horror house. I will however include the sequel to the film that made the little New York village infamous. Coming in at #8 on The Halloween Top 13: The Devil Made Me Do It,it's that problem property itself, The Amityville II: The Possession.
Though the roman numerals for '2' are tacked on after the title, Amityville II might have been better off just using The Possession as its lone subtitle. The events in the film detail what happened in the Amityville house before the Lutz family moves into the home. The house was owned by the DeFeo family who lived there until their mass murder at the hands of their teenage son, which was alluded to in the first film. Based on the sensational book Murder in Amityville by parapsychologist Hans Holzer, Amityville II: The Possession attempts to explain why Butch DeFeo killed his whole family. In keeping with the supernatural miasma that made the first installment of the book and movie successful, the author speculates (under the guise of psychic knowledge) that Butch DeFeo was demonically possessed by the entity that lives in the basement of the home. The Lutz family wanted nothing to do with this sequel. George Lutz wanted it to be based on the book The Amityville Horror Part II by John G. Jones and sued successfully to have posters posted in theaters bearing the inscription, "This film has no association with George or Kathy Lutz."
Amityville II barely needs a plot synopsis, but I'll run over it really quick anyhow. The Montelli family move into their new home in Amityville, NY. Dad (Burt Young) is an abusive asshole. Mom (Rutanya Alda) does her best to protect her four kids, attempting to bear the brunt of the abuse herself. Instead it gets directed to the oldest son, Sonny (Jack Magner). Already full of rage and hate, Sonny becomes an easy vessel for the house demon to latch onto and latch he does. Sonny's attitude goes from bad to worse, and the next thing you know he's having sex with his sister and shooting his family en masse. (Though unlike the original film they are not all shot in bed.) Father Adamsky (James Olsen) suspected there was an evil presence in the home, and after having a vision of the murders while they happen, he knows Satan must be the culprit. Expending every ounce of himself, Adamsky intends to perform and exorcism to save Sonny's soul no matter if it kills them both.
The real Butch DeFeo has never claimed to have been possessed. The most recent account I can find from DeFeo states that he and his sister Dawn intended to kill their parents and leave. When Dawn killed the younger kids to prevent them from being witnesses, Butch killed her. No mention has ever been made on an incestuous relationship with his sister, and it seemed shoehorned into the story for a bit of sleaze and cheap titillation. No matter the exact details, the real events were horrific enough without getting demons involved in it. The screenplay by Tommy Lee Wallace was, of course, not based out of reality in the first place but rather Hans Holzer's book. (Years later William Weber, DeFeo's defense attorney, was quoted as saying that the whole thing was made up over some drinks in a bar to cash in on Amityville.) Wallace did a fine job with the script, his first, though I would prefer him later in his career as a director (Halloween III, Fright Night 2) to a writer (It, Vampires: Los Muertos).
Director Damiano Damiani is no stranger to fans of Italian Politzia films having directed both How to Kill a Judgeand Confessions of a Police Captain with Franco Nero. Unlike other Italian directors who dabbled in all the genres, Damiani mostly kept to drama, Westerns, and action films. I can only assume his connections with producer Dino De Lauentis secured the position for him. Though not an avid horror hound, the director manages to create an eerie mood to the proceedings, and several scenes made me think that he has studied the greater works of Umberto Lenzi and Lucio Fulci. The greatest scene in the picture is the jailhouse confrontation between the priest (James Olsen) and Sonny Demon (Jack Magner). Perfectly shot and paced, this tete-a-tete is second only in the category of demonic jailhouse scenes to a similar scene in Exorcist III, a movie that would appear on this list had it not appeared on The Halloween Top 13: The Sequels. Olsen and Magner are the two performances to watch throughout the entire film, but keep a special eye on Burt Young as Sonny's abusive dad. Known for playing Rocky's fun loving buddy Paulie, Young does against type and makes you really, really hate him.
One of the real questions about Amityville II: The Possession has to be "does it stack up to the original", and the answer to that is no. (Hence, why it didn't appear on aforementioned Sequels list.) The original has '70's movie making & James Brolin's beard going for it. What Amityville II does have is gory makeup effects, a compelling story-line, and Jack Magner using his boyish good looks to demonic ends. Plus the original film is all about spirits and flies in the window where the sequel/prequel brings a demon out to play in the world. So there you have it, I have used the power of Christ to compel this review to come out, and it has possessed you all for six paragraphs now. If that's not scary, I don't know what is.
That wraps it up for The Halloween Top 13: The Devil Made Me Do It for today. Join me back here tomorrow for #7 on the countdown, but before you go, scroll down under the trailer for the first reader submitted list. Oh and before it gets mentioned, the house in the film is actually 18 Brooks Drive in Toms River, New Jersey as it was in the first. Just in case, I wouldn't move in there either.
Bugg Rating
Halloween Top 13: The Devil Made Me Do It- READER LIST
Today, my good pal Morgan Rankin of The Kid in the Hall blog and The Bloodsprayer has submitted her list. If you're not checking her stuff out on her sites, then you're really missing out. Morgan is one of the greatest young writers doing this dang thing right now, and that's a fact. Without further ado, here's her 13.
Franco Nero plays Giacomo Solaris, an up and coming director whose new film has caught him in controversy. In it, a judge is killed because of his close ties to the mob, and there is no mistaking that the character is meant to be Judge Traini (Marco Guglielmi). The Judge and his wife Antonia (Francois Fabian) take offence at the film‘s accusations, and Traini meets with Solaris to tell him that his film will be shut down. Before the judge can make the order, he is killed in a similar fashion to the character in Solaris’ film. Feeling like he had a hand in Traini’s death, Solaris begins to investigate if the murderer was inspired by his film, a calculated mafia hitman, or the act of someone with other unknown motives.
As the film began, I underestimated it a bit. It seemed like the same old song and dance that I’d seen in many films, but this was my first experience with director Damiano Damiani. I was familiar with his name only because he made several films with Franco Nero, but I had never seen either of his most well known films, El chuncho, qien sabe? (A Bullet for the General) or Confessione di un commissario di polizia al procuratore della repubblica (Confessions of a Police Captain). I can assure you that I will be making up for that lacking on both counts. Damiani co-scripted the film, and all the strength that comes from this film can be traced to the solid work put into the plotting. How to Kill a Judge takes the thriller formula and blends it with so much misdirection that you’ll feel like someone was trying to steal your watch. The ending is has a satisfying ‘duh’ feeling without feeling like you’ve been cheated.
Damiani said he wrote the character of Solaris as a director to be an objective force as opposed to the police or mobsters. Damiani showed Solaris’ controversial film as a dreamy Fellini-esque affair (that I would not have wanted to watch), but the film Damiani made eschewed symbolism to show the seamy underbelly of Sicilian law enforcement and the love/hate relationship with crime and the mafia. The character of Solaris was brought to life perfectly by Franco Nero who fit easily into the role of the happening, artistic, rebellious film maker. Nero showed the character’s confidence and worry equally well, and this is the kind of role that speaks to why Nero still enjoys a prolific career.
The film is peppered with interesting supporting players, but the one real drawback of the film was that I nearly needed a scorecard to know who all the players were. Characters drift in and out, some of them with similar names, and until the flock got thinned down a bit it remained a tad baffling. I think it might even have been planned as another piece of misdirection. The players that standout from the crowd are the couple of familiar faces I spotted. Elio Zamut, who was great in Camino’s …Calling All Police Cars and Bloody Payroll, really slimes up the place as a mobbed up Senator, and Francois Fabian looked as lovely in ‘70’s fashions as she did in saloon girl grab in Corbucci’s The Specialist.
While I can forgive the miasma of characters that populate How to Kill a Judge, the part of the film that most disappointed me was the score by Riz Ortolani. His scores for Cannibal Holocaust and House on the Edge of the Park really nail the feeling of films, but Ortolani must have slept though this one. So much of the film played out silently, and the few pieces involved never caught my attention at all. I really could have used the De Angelis brothers working their funky, funky magic on this film, but I suppose that’s not the film that Damiani was intending to make.
While many Italian films can be pointed to as a take-off of another more successful film, How to Kill a Judge feels like a fresh and original story. Even though the film lacks in the action department, Damiani builds mystery and suspense at a breakneck pace, and Nero will pull you into the mystery with him. I will definitely want to see any of the other films that the two of them made together, and I highly recommend checking out How to Kill a Judge for a taste of Italy that provides something a little out of the norm.
