Amityville II: The Possession Reviews

Initial Thought: I am continuing on with the franchise. This is apparently a prequel to the first one. The stars here are much less known than the first one.

Characters/Acting: I only recognize Burt Young from the Rocky movies and Diane Franklin. I really hate the husband here. Unlike the previous movie this guy was an asshole probably way before the house. The older brother and sister are quite an odd pair of siblings. They just seem way too close to the point when we first meet them I thought they were just lovers living together with the whole family. If Game of Thrones was made in the 80s Jack Magner would have been Theon Greyjoy I mean him and Alfie Allen look so similar. I swear the mother overreacts to absolutely everything. I really only liked the daughter. Everyone else here drove me kind of crazy.

Story: This is supposedly a prequel to Amityville Horror. It is all about the murders. On the outside the house looks exactly the same. The inside is set up so very different though the basement looks mostly similar. There was one stupid scene where the priest comes to the house and the husband answers the door and meets him. Then the wife who went to church alone comes in and asks if he met her husband. I can't believe they seriously went with that. The pace here is a lot quicker here than the first film. There is so much here that confuses the timeline within the series given technology involved and other criteria. The shootings don't even match with those mentioned and shown in the previous film. This has to be just some other family that moved into the house. It's quite weird how almost nothing is mentioned about the past. The visuals here are pretty bad and most definitely resemble aged Italian horror. I did like that this is pretty different and doesn't go the way you would expect it to. The ending left a bit to be desired as it makes it so you have to make your own interpretation of what happened.

Directing/Writing: The director hasn't done anything I recognize, but he has done quite a bit of work in the 70s. This is also based on a book like the first one. This time it is a different author though by the name of Hans Holzer. His other credit is Amityville Curse. Dardano Sacchetti is uncredited here. He has done notable work though with Lucio Fulci's Zombie, Demons films, and The Beyond. Tommy Lee Wallace is the most well known person associated with this. He wrote and directed It, the completely irrelevant Halloween III, and the original Fright Night Part 2.

Final Thought: It isn't a particularly good film, but in my opinion it's pretty unpredictable. I honestly did not see a lot of it coming. It may not be a similar lore to Amityville as it adds its own touch. It was only worth watching for a few scenes. If you watch this series don't expect it to make much sense most of the time. They can't all be winners though.