A family moves into their new home, which proves to be evil, resulting in the demonic possession of the teenage son.
Three years after “The Amityville Horror” lit up theatres and terrified millions worldwide we were finally given the sequel treatment.
A sequel or a prequel? a-lot of fans get confused so let’s clear this up. Some of the movie posters for this film featured a long preamble that read: “The night of February 5, 1976, George Lutz and Kathy Lutz fled their home in Amityville, New York. They got out alive! Their living nightmare shocked audiences around the world in The Amityville Horror (1979). But before them, another family lived in this house and were caught by the original evil. They weren’t so lucky… this is their story!”
I remember my first viewing of the film, I had no expectations as sequels to such large films never really match up to the original, you know exactly what I’m on about. I sat there on my own and watched it and found myself over a 100 minutes later with my jaw firmly on the floor with my eyeballs sticking out like a cartoon. It was a hell of a-lot to take in, but it definitely lived up to the original, maybe even bettered it.
The film touched base on a-lot of taboo subjects but it’s mostly remembered for one particular subject, Incest. You have a weird feeling between the brother and sister all through the film but when it finally crosses that line you find yourself squirming in your seat and feeling highly uncomfortable. My only question is, he was possessed, what was her excuse?
My immediate thoughts on the film were that I truly enjoyed it and I still do, but it owes a-lot to “The Exorcist”. It follows a similar line and the possession scenes seem eerily similar, but if you’re going to take inspiration then you could choose worst. Also we know The Montelli family in this film were fictional characters loosely based on the real life DeFeo family, I would’ve loved to have seen more of the DeFeo story involved in the film.
“Amityville II: The Possession” is a fantastic sequel, it shows you how it’s truly done and how to keep a series going without losing quality.
Miscellaneous facts about the film:
According to an interview with George Lutz at website Horror.com, (Lutz’ twenty-eight days in the real-life house provided the base for The Amityville Horror (1979)), Lutz wanted this sequel to be based on John G. Jones’ book “The Amityville Horror Part II”. However, producer Dino De Laurentiis, in conjunction with American International Pictures, made this sequel based on Hans Holzer’s book ‘Murder in Amityville”. Lutz sued De Laurentiis but was unsuccessful but was successful in getting a disclaimer put on posters that read “This film has no affiliation with George and Kathy Lutz”.
Jan and Mark Montelli were portrayed by real life brother and sister Erika Katz and Brent Katz.
The house in the film, as in the original The Amityville Horror (1979) movie, is not the actual house as depicted in the best-selling novel, as that dwelling was unavailable to shoot in for both films. The home in both movies was a Colonial style replica situated in Toms River, New Jersey.
In the same year that the movie was released, the film’s screenwriter Tommy Lee Wallace wrote and directed Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) which also launched in theatres in 1982. Both movies were sequels. Amityville II: The Possession (1982) was the first produced screenplay of Wallace.
Debut theatrical feature film of actor Jack Magner whose only other screen acting credit after this movie was in Stephen King’s Firestarter (1984).
Burt Young’s father died early on during filming.
American directorial debut of Italian director Damiano Damiani.
Rutanya Alda once stated that a rape scene featuring her and Burt Young was edited out.
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