An Italian-American
family move into a house built on an
ancient Indian burial ground as they
think it's the house of their dreams.
However the family ends up getting into
quarrels when they move in to the house
as the wife of the family named Dolores
Montelli (Rutanya Alda) tries to keep the
family together with her christianity.
The oldest son named Sonny (Jack Magner)
doesn't see eye to eye with his abusive
father as he behaves obnoxious and is
suddenly posessed by an evil spirit as
the spirit traps him when he tries to
escape from it.
He is fascinated with his sister Patricia
(Diane Franklin) and then the next thing
you know he seduces her.
Next, he does an evil deed when Montelli
tries to bless the house as the evil
spirit tells him to stay away from him.
Then after he celebrates his birthday
late at night his face turns very demonic
and is forced to murder his family with a
shotgun.
Montelli feels responsible, and tries to
save the possessed boy's soul.
This one was the
prequel to the first one but is totally
fictional as it was based on the real
life family of the DeFeo's but when you
watch this flick you can tell that the
whole story is extremely fabricated. It
seems like a total ripoff on The
Exorcist and The Omen
put together. It's not overly terrible
thank god but not that good either. It
still had it's admirers though as some
adore it but I wasn't one of them.
Burt Young is
terrific with his role as an intimidating
father with his aggression making it look
like those real scrict Italian people
that behaves violently when angered.
Jack
Magner does very well too with the
goin on's at the house and it's
disturbing when he becomes slowly
posessed too when he is so innocent from
the beginning of the film.
Diane Franklin also does a great
job as the innocent but confused sister.
James Olson plays a good and calm
preacher.
However, Rutanya Alda is a
little over the top and seems a little
silly with her performance as she is
meant to be truly intense and serious.
There's a brief
breast shot of Diane Franklin
when she is about to be seduced by the
actor who plays her brother.
A woman is shot
bloodily in the stomach.
A posessed boys face is peeling off.
The directing is
by Damiano
Damiani and is average with it and
only worked on other films in his foreign
country.
He does show an effective moment with Rutanya
Alda when her character feels a
presence in the laundry room of the house
whuich she seems to do not too bad but
sometimes is a little overly dramatic but
there's a very good camera shot on it.
Then late at night there's more good
camera shots of the evil spirit wandering
the house too approaching Jack Magner
but there's no reaction to him which
looks normal as Damiani keeps it
a surprise since this is just the
beginning of the film as well there's
other spooky moments like a door banging
and no one is there and paintbrushes
moving by themselves drawing grizly art
with windows opening and shutting.
He directs a real intense scene with Burt
Young and Rutanya Alda
acting temperamental and violent then we
have a great moment with Magner
pointing a shotgun towards Burt's
character looking menacing.
He works great with Magner when
he slowly turns evil and he searches some
parts of the house like the cellar where
he sees illusions of a hand showing good
shocking expressions when the evil
spirits follows him as he tries to run
away from it and poltergeists starts
invading the whole house afterwards.
He directs a scene between Pamela
Franklin and Magner
terrifically as brother and sister as he
tries to seduce her.
He directs the scene with James Olsen
and Alda wonderfully and intense
when he spots an illusion of blood in the
parents bedroom when he tries to bless
the house.
There is a touching scene when Magner's
character celebrates his birthday with
his family looking like they'll be happy
after all but of course the terror starts
later on which disturbs this happy moment
later on.
And then the terror begins when Magner
takes the shotgun and goes on a killing
spree which looked great and we have a
perfect scared reaction by Franklin.
There's lots more including an exorcism
in the Amityville house as that was well
performed thanks to Damiani's
direction with it.
The music was composed by
Lalo Schifrin who did the same for
the first film and shows some of the same
elements from the first film along with
sharp and creepy violin playing.
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