Amityville II: The Possession ** (1982, James Olson, Burt Young, Rutanya Alda, Jack Magner) – Classic Movie Review 6200

The Long Island haunted house from 1979’s The Amityville Horror tries to tingle the spines of the Montelli Italian-American family, who make the mistake of moving into the home built on an ancient Indian burial ground, in director Damiano Damiani’s none too spooky 1982 movie stew concocted from a pretty revolting script.

Burt Young plays the slobbish father Anthony Montelli, who is just one of a bunch of fairly uncharismatic characters in a gory prequel to (and more or less rerun of) part one, in which the Devil enters the body of the family’s eldest son Sonny (Jack Magner) and turns him to murder.

James Olson also stars as the priest Father Adamsky, with Rutanya Alda as Dolores Montelli, and Andrew Prine, Diane Franklin, Ted Ross and Moses Gunn. The brisk performances and intense handling just about keep it going, somewhat atoning for the screenplay.

There are three sequels so far: Amityville 3D (1984) and the made-for-TV Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes (1989) and The Amityville Curse (1990).

The Amityville Horror was remade in 2005 with Ryan Reynolds. The rebooted  Amityville: The Awakening followed in 2017.

Tommy Lee Wallace’s screenplay is based on Hans Holzer’s novel Murder in Amityville.

The Montelli family is based on the real-life DeFeo family, but of course certain liberties are taken with the true story facts.

It is shot by Franco Di Giacomo, produced by Ira N Smith and Stephen R Greenwald, scored by Lalo Schifrin, and designed by Pier Luigi Basile, with Dino De Laurentiis as executive producer.

It is filmed at the Churubusco Studios, Mexico City.

Damiano Damiani made the excellent spaghetti Western A Bullet for the General.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6200

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