Amityville II: The Possession (1982)

Nasty fun, Enthusiastically Sick!

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Oct 6, 2001 | 1 out of 1 found this Amityville II: The Possession (1982) review helpful

AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION may not be the best horror movie ever made, but it's certainly one of the most energetic. When it delivers it pulls no punches, and is directed and performed in such an outlandishly over-the-top way, that your head will... be spinning before the end credits roll. Even though it's a prequel to the original movie (which means it should take place in 1973) people drive 1982 cars and listen to Walkman radios. A seriously dysfunctional family moves into the infamous Long Island house, including abusive father Burt Young, wimpy mother Rutunya Alda, cute sister Diane Franklin(the exchange student from BETTER OFF DEAD), rebellious older brother Sonny (Jack Magner) and two onoxious younger siblings. Immediately, Sonny begins to feel weird. He becomes withdrawn, ill, and eventually seduces and has sex with his sister, in a scene that's sure to make your skin crawl. Finally, in what may be one of the most brutal sequences ever to appear in a Hollywood movie (you'd never see this in a horror movie these days--people are way too "sensitive" and PC) he becomes possessed and blows away his whole family with a rifle. Father Adamski (James Olsen), the local priest, believes he can exorcise the demon living inside Sonny, and kidnaps him from police custody to expel the eveil spirit. They wind up (of course) in the house, and engage in an intense and surreal showdown, with Sonny's face splitting open revealing a freaky looking demon underneath. In the end, Sonny is exorcised and the demon defeated, though he's still charged with the murder of his family. I'm not saying this is a movie by which to raise one's spirits or consciousness, but those with a slightly warped sense of entertainment will certainly find it engrossing enough. Sure, it's exploitive, sensationalistic and tasteless trash, but compared to the homogonized crap that passes for "horror" these days, AMITYVILLE II is as freakish and bizarre a moviegoing experience as you're likely to ever have. Read more Less