Unclean & Unseen! – AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION (1982)

It’s derivative as hell, but the needle on my Creepy Sleaze-o-Meter just broke off!

After my parents got divorced, my family moved into government housing. I’ve seen it in recent years, and the area has become a snakepit–grassless playgrounds, weedy shrubbery, and a palpable sense of danger and crime now surrounds the area. However, way back in the early 1980s, it was new, clean, and, most importantly, hopeful for those living under the poverty line.

One of the greatest things about living there was that we had HBO for the first year or so. Our previous apartment had sported a slightly-illegal Showtime hook-up (bonus!), but this was the first time we’d partaken in the American ritual that was Home Box Office. 

I was a new horror hound at the time, and even back then it was tough to scare me. However, a fateful late night in the autumn of 1983 offered up one of the first showings of AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION, and it’s arguably the most scared I’ve ever been watching a horror film. 

Backpedaling from the original, director Damiano Damiani instead opts for the ‘prequel’ route. Using Hans Holzer’s 1979 book “Murder in Amityville” as a template, the sequel attempts to show us why the house got so jacked up to begin with, and let me tell ya, it’s a doozy of a story. In a nutshell, a combative Italian-American family (is that redundant?) moves into the ominous Long Island house with the quarter-moon windows, only to see its oldest son slowly succumb to demonic possession. He screws his sister and then cusses her out for good measure, hears murderous commands from the devil on his Sony Walkman, and starts a series of physical metamorphoses that really, really look like they got lifted directly from earlier films like THE BEAST WITHIN and…hmm, THE EXORCIST (surprise!). All that ain’t nothin’, though, as the film climaxes with the kid mowing down his father, mother, and three younger siblings at close range with a rifle. Fucking hell!!! 

One wonders what co-writer Tommy Lee Wallace was trying to say here. Sure, the frequent John Carpenter collaborator and director of such hotly-debated horror entries as HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH and the 1990 television adaptation of Stephen King’s IT is no stranger to horror craziness. Having said that, AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION, with its depictions of spousal and child abuse, blasphemy, incest, and graphic violence, was totally off the hook for an early 1980s offering from a major studio. The even more amazing thing? The original cut of the film was supposed to include a more explicit incest scene, as well as a separate anal rape sequence that was eliminated only after test audiences reportedly flipped out. *blink, blink* All y’all motherfuckers need Jesus! 

Ultimately, a spate of tepid reviews, competing genre titles, and reigning box office juggernauts from the summer of 1982 staved off any chances for the movie to make a serious dent in the marketplace. Much like John Carpenter’s THE THING, which was released and immediately floundered just three months earlier, AMITYVILLE II was probably just too much for audiences back in the day. 

In the end, though, I couldn’t care less about Leonard Maltin’s “BOMB” rating. I love this chaotic sleazefest as much now as I did when I was traumatized by it at age nine. It will forever stand tall as the most entertaining–and most daring!–Amityville film of them all. 

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