With the box-office success of the first Amityville Horror movie, seemingly a sequel was inevitable. The problem being that the 1979 movie The Amityville Horror (based on the 1977 book) didn't really have much material by way of a 'sequel' to conjure up, since it slowly became apparent after the first Amityville Horror movie that the subjects of that film - the Lutz family - had made up the stories of the house being haunted and the supposedly non-fictional book and movie were a bunch of bunk.
The one truthful aspect of the Amityville Horror book and movie was that a grisly murder spree had taken place there just prior to the Lutzes moving in. In 1974, 24-year-old Ronald DeFeo Junior murdered his parents and his four younger siblings via shooting them with a shotgun while they slept in their beds. During DeFeo's subsequent trial his lawyers proposed several theories for what happened, running the gamut from varying degrees of drug-induced insanity to self-defense. DeFeo himself gave multiple accounts over the decades of his subsequent incarceration as to what happened, claiming at different times that 1) he killed everybody, 2) he had no memory of killing anybody, 3) his eldest sister Dawn helped kill some of the family and 4) 'somebody' else of whom he either couldn't be sure of or couldn't mention who wasn't Dawn helped him. Local lore claimed the house itself was built on the site of an ancient Indian burial ground (a claim that has never been confirmed via ANY type of historical records) which made the property (and, by extension, DeFeo) 'possessed' and that DeFeo and his eldest sister Dawn may have been involved in an incestuous relationship.
Got all that? Whew! Good.
Well, after the Amityville house passed from the Lutzes to different owners - none of whom ever claimed anything by way of supernatural happenings - the producers of Amityville 2 decided to, er...um, 'fictionalize' the DeFeo murders as the basis for the script/screenplay for Amityville 2. Thus, the sequel is a prequel...of sorts.
I guess a bit of context in 2024 is useful as to explaining how the whole Amityville myth got rolling in the late 1970's in the first place, being that back then most people outside of the regional metro New York area had probably only heard of the Amityville house via the book and the 1979 movie. Back then, by and large it was word of mouth in terms of the rumors surrounding the DeFeo case and the Lutz family. Everybody loves a haunted house story, and supposedly this one had some basis in fact. So, into that vacuum of rumor and urban legend came 1982's Amityville II: The Possession.
Being a prequel, the plot loosely concerns itself with the DeFeo family. For screenplay (and, assumedly, legal) purposes, their names are changed to the Montelli family. Most of the Montelli children don't look Italian, but whatever. Amityville 2 throws in a priest called to bless the Montelli house in a throwback to a similar role for Rod Steiger in the first Amityville Horror movie. The Montelli parents physically slap each other around, with the Montelli father in particular being violently physically abusive to the entire family (a claim the real-life Ronald DeFeo Junior made after the murders). The eldest Montelli siblings (named 'Sonny' and 'Patricia') engage in incest after Sonny is possessed by some sort of malevolent spirit which - like the first Amityville movie - originates from the basement of the house. About mid-film, Sonny embarks upon a murderous rampage, shoots the entire family in a rather disturbing sequence, is subsequently arrested and alternates between claiming not to know what happened and while incarcerated intermittently revealing to the priest that he is possessed by a demon. The priest sneaks Sonny out of prison, brings him to the Amityville house, performs a ritual to rid the demon from him and eventually Sonny is cured and returned to prison. The movie ends with the empty house and a FOR SALE sign on the front lawn, presumedly just before the Lutz family bought it.
In factual terms. Amityville II: The Possession is only loosely based on fact. In real life, Ron DeFeo Junior was aimless junkie in his early twenties who was basically supported and overindulged by his parents because they refused to make him accept any meaningful responsibility. In Amityville II, Sonny Montelli is depicted as a decent, Waspy-type with no references of any kind made toward drug addiction. The DeFeo's never had a priest who was meaningfully involved with the family in terms of spiritual counselling vs. Amityville II's priest who actually saw incidents of violent physical domestic abuse, much less heard a confession from the eldest DeFeo daughter claiming she had incestuous relations with her brother. Ronnie DeFeo Junior was taken into police custody within 24 hours after the murders took place, confessed to the crimes while in police custody, remained in custody throughout his subsequent trial and a year after the murders was found guilty of six counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to six sentences of 25 years to life: DeFeo was never sprung from prison via a fictitious priest, taken back to the crime scene and subject to an exorcism. It may seem foolish to go to the lengths I have to explain the reality versus the movie fiction except for the fact that there is apparently no shortage of simpletons out there who blather drivel along the lines of "well, the first Amityville Horror movie was a bunch of bunk, but the second movie was true!" The second movie was 'true' inasmuch as the bare skeleton of the screenplay/script was based on some fact. However, the vast bulk of what ended up onscreen was the product of Ronnie DeFeo's ever-changing story combined with a couple of fraudster parapsychological ghost hunter hoaxers called the Holzers who latched onto the Amityville story immediately after the 1977 book and 1979 movie were commercially successful.
As mentioned, the movie itself is this peculiar blend of uncomfortable moments coupled with laughable attempts at movie horror. Most of the first half of the movie is where most of the disconcerting moments happen, including the violent domestic abuse, incest and the murder sequence. The second half of the movie, unfortunately, goes off the rails into these ridiculousness scenes of Sonny being possessed and the fictitious priest saving his soul that come off as a bunch of half-baked, third-rate leftovers from The Exorcist. ALL of which adds up to an unpleasant and at times disturbing viewing experience with plot holes wide enough to drive a tractor trailer through. There have probably been upwards of a hundred plus films released since 1979 with the word Amityville in the title, yet virtually none of them have dealt truthfully and/or factually with the one incident that verifiably happened there. I suppose for that one would need an accurate true crime documentary.
The one truthful aspect of the Amityville Horror book and movie was that a grisly murder spree had taken place there just prior to the Lutzes moving in. In 1974, 24-year-old Ronald DeFeo Junior murdered his parents and his four younger siblings via shooting them with a shotgun while they slept in their beds. During DeFeo's subsequent trial his lawyers proposed several theories for what happened, running the gamut from varying degrees of drug-induced insanity to self-defense. DeFeo himself gave multiple accounts over the decades of his subsequent incarceration as to what happened, claiming at different times that 1) he killed everybody, 2) he had no memory of killing anybody, 3) his eldest sister Dawn helped kill some of the family and 4) 'somebody' else of whom he either couldn't be sure of or couldn't mention who wasn't Dawn helped him. Local lore claimed the house itself was built on the site of an ancient Indian burial ground (a claim that has never been confirmed via ANY type of historical records) which made the property (and, by extension, DeFeo) 'possessed' and that DeFeo and his eldest sister Dawn may have been involved in an incestuous relationship.
Got all that? Whew! Good.
Well, after the Amityville house passed from the Lutzes to different owners - none of whom ever claimed anything by way of supernatural happenings - the producers of Amityville 2 decided to, er...um, 'fictionalize' the DeFeo murders as the basis for the script/screenplay for Amityville 2. Thus, the sequel is a prequel...of sorts.
I guess a bit of context in 2024 is useful as to explaining how the whole Amityville myth got rolling in the late 1970's in the first place, being that back then most people outside of the regional metro New York area had probably only heard of the Amityville house via the book and the 1979 movie. Back then, by and large it was word of mouth in terms of the rumors surrounding the DeFeo case and the Lutz family. Everybody loves a haunted house story, and supposedly this one had some basis in fact. So, into that vacuum of rumor and urban legend came 1982's Amityville II: The Possession.
Being a prequel, the plot loosely concerns itself with the DeFeo family. For screenplay (and, assumedly, legal) purposes, their names are changed to the Montelli family. Most of the Montelli children don't look Italian, but whatever. Amityville 2 throws in a priest called to bless the Montelli house in a throwback to a similar role for Rod Steiger in the first Amityville Horror movie. The Montelli parents physically slap each other around, with the Montelli father in particular being violently physically abusive to the entire family (a claim the real-life Ronald DeFeo Junior made after the murders). The eldest Montelli siblings (named 'Sonny' and 'Patricia') engage in incest after Sonny is possessed by some sort of malevolent spirit which - like the first Amityville movie - originates from the basement of the house. About mid-film, Sonny embarks upon a murderous rampage, shoots the entire family in a rather disturbing sequence, is subsequently arrested and alternates between claiming not to know what happened and while incarcerated intermittently revealing to the priest that he is possessed by a demon. The priest sneaks Sonny out of prison, brings him to the Amityville house, performs a ritual to rid the demon from him and eventually Sonny is cured and returned to prison. The movie ends with the empty house and a FOR SALE sign on the front lawn, presumedly just before the Lutz family bought it.
In factual terms. Amityville II: The Possession is only loosely based on fact. In real life, Ron DeFeo Junior was aimless junkie in his early twenties who was basically supported and overindulged by his parents because they refused to make him accept any meaningful responsibility. In Amityville II, Sonny Montelli is depicted as a decent, Waspy-type with no references of any kind made toward drug addiction. The DeFeo's never had a priest who was meaningfully involved with the family in terms of spiritual counselling vs. Amityville II's priest who actually saw incidents of violent physical domestic abuse, much less heard a confession from the eldest DeFeo daughter claiming she had incestuous relations with her brother. Ronnie DeFeo Junior was taken into police custody within 24 hours after the murders took place, confessed to the crimes while in police custody, remained in custody throughout his subsequent trial and a year after the murders was found guilty of six counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to six sentences of 25 years to life: DeFeo was never sprung from prison via a fictitious priest, taken back to the crime scene and subject to an exorcism. It may seem foolish to go to the lengths I have to explain the reality versus the movie fiction except for the fact that there is apparently no shortage of simpletons out there who blather drivel along the lines of "well, the first Amityville Horror movie was a bunch of bunk, but the second movie was true!" The second movie was 'true' inasmuch as the bare skeleton of the screenplay/script was based on some fact. However, the vast bulk of what ended up onscreen was the product of Ronnie DeFeo's ever-changing story combined with a couple of fraudster parapsychological ghost hunter hoaxers called the Holzers who latched onto the Amityville story immediately after the 1977 book and 1979 movie were commercially successful.
As mentioned, the movie itself is this peculiar blend of uncomfortable moments coupled with laughable attempts at movie horror. Most of the first half of the movie is where most of the disconcerting moments happen, including the violent domestic abuse, incest and the murder sequence. The second half of the movie, unfortunately, goes off the rails into these ridiculousness scenes of Sonny being possessed and the fictitious priest saving his soul that come off as a bunch of half-baked, third-rate leftovers from The Exorcist. ALL of which adds up to an unpleasant and at times disturbing viewing experience with plot holes wide enough to drive a tractor trailer through. There have probably been upwards of a hundred plus films released since 1979 with the word Amityville in the title, yet virtually none of them have dealt truthfully and/or factually with the one incident that verifiably happened there. I suppose for that one would need an accurate true crime documentary.
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