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Set one year BEFORE The Amityville Horror, making
this a prequel, this has a family, headed by
temperamental wife- and child-beater Burt Young,
moving into the infamous haunted house in Long Island.
Not before long, the family's teen son is possessed by
those evil spirits, flips out and kills his entire
family. A local priest, the only one who believes in
this nonsense, decides to help the boy and perform
an exorcist to get rid of the ghosts.
First of all, in my opinions the so-called classic
The Amityville Horror was terrible. So to say that
the sequel is partly superior isn't saying much. But
it is quite better, at least for a while. It's not as
dull and slow moving as the first film and has
some really good moments, like when the kid is alone
in the house and becomes possessed. But the film soon
goes repellent as weird, misfit subplots are revealed,
like the wife- and child-beating and mostly
absurd an incestuous relationship between two siblings,
that's just nasty!
And after the family bites the big one we move on to
that priest, who may not be as pretentious as Rod
Steiger in the original Amityville film, but he sure
is bad! The only reason he's set up as the film's
hero is because he's the only sympathetic character
still alive! So he takes that possessed kid back to
the house to... perform an exorcism! Hmm, ring any
bells? Yes, the entire climax is a worthless THE EXORCIST
rip-off with lousy special effects. Then the film ends
and we find out that the events that took place in
the first movie begins. Doesn't ever anything
really scary happens in that darn house?
When it comes to acting, we have Burt Young (Sylvester
Stallone's uncle in Rocky) who is indeed an OK actor
but his mentally unbalanced character flips out over
nothing and starts beating up his family! What's that
about? He's really dislikeable, and the rest of the
family is just annoying, over-acting fodder. The mom
just sobs and screams hysterically, while the older
sister takes her clothes off in front of her possessed
brother, not curious why he's asking her to do it.
Fucked-up family if you ask me, they're better up dead.
Not much. The murders are done with a shotgun, many
off-screen but there are some yucky slime effects
in the climax, if that's your cup of tea.
The score, by Lalo Schifrin who also composed the first
film, is admittedly eerie. It sounds like a twisted
version of some TV family drama score, but it becomes
scary as we know what the movie's really about.
If you liked the first film you might enjoy this crap,
otherwise stay out! A dreadful sequel delivering
more yawns and laughs rather than shocks and scares.
Check out the next one, Amityville 3-D, instead - it's
much more fun!
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