Amityville II: The Possession

Amityville II: The Possession

Maybe it’s the higher quality source material that it copies but this film is slightly better than “The Amityville Horror.” It takes the most notorious piece of real estate in North America and incorporates parts from “The Exorcist,” “Poltergeist,” and ‘Murder in Amityville,’ which was the book about the original Amityville horror.

A little history, maybe. While a lot of people thought that ‘The Amityville Horror’ was fact and others believed it to be fiction, nobody denied that there had been a terrible mass murder in the infamous house at some point before “Horror” took place. A young man living there went crazy and slaughtered his parents, two sisters, and a brother.

After being put away for the crime, he left behind an empty house that stood vacant until it was bought by the Bill Lutz family. Of course as any “Amityville” fan knows, once they moved in green slime oozed out of every pore of the house; swarms of flies buzzed around inside; pigs appeared with glowing red eyes. Eventually they ran away. (Nowadays half the people in America would let somebody else’s 80 percent mortgage chase them out.)

So what “Amityville II” really is is a prequelÑtelling us what happened in that damn spooky house before George and Kathy Lutz ever heard of Cape Cod. The movie itself is vague on when exactly it’s set (although “Amityville Horror” came out in 1979, this one has 1982 automobiles). It opens with a foggy shot of the house, those eerie attic windows gleaming like diabolical eyes; there’s a “For Sale” sign in frontÑwhich I’m afraid did make me laugh out loud.

Soon enough another family moves in: Burt Young (Rocky’s brother-in-law) is dad; he beats mom and the kids; mom weeps, won’t sleep with him. Meanwhile, older brother (Jack Magner) successfully seduces sister (Diane Franklin), who confesses to priest (James Olson). House is already acting up; built over ancient Indian burial ground (cf. “Poltergeist”); secret room in basement leading to crypt (room different in “Amityville Horror,” but never mind). Incestuous son begins hearing voices, shoots everyone in family, is jailed. Priest realizes lad has been possessed by evil spirit, last act of movie rips off from “The Exorcist.”

For a movie so filled with crucifixes, monsignors, confessionals and Bibles, “Amityville II” doesn’t pay a lot of attention to such theological questions as (a) Why would the desecration of a pagan burial ground be offensive to evil spirits, as opposed to benevolent ones? and (b) Why does this case call for a Catholic priest instead of a Mohawk medicine man? But never mind. There are some good performances here; Magner and Olson especially; some good technical credits Sam O’Steen’s editing in particular. It’s just that this whole “Amityville” thing is such absolute horse manure.

The Skeptical Inquirer magazine (published by Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, www.ciscop.org) gives a summary of the Amityville allegations and says that in a 1995 trial “the Lutzes admitted that virtually everything in ‘The Amityville Horror’ was made up.”

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