Prior to the events of the original film, the home at 112 Ocean Avenue was owned by the Montelli family.
The forces inhabiting the house soon fixate on the family's weak points, exploiting the family's abusive dynamics to drive eldest son Sonny (Jack Magner) toward a heinous final act.
I have never read the book on which The Amityville Horror was based. I do not know enough to have an opinion on its validity as a historical document.
On the one hand, I find the idea of this movie having sequels completely understandable - it was a huge hit.
On the other talon I find it fascinating that this film - supposedly based on a true story - had any sequels at all.
There is something hilariously craven about the fact that both of the sequels to the first film were based on other non-fiction books by completely different authors. There is a strange purity to the way the producers continue to persist with the idea that these films are based on ‘real events’.
One almost wishes they had continued to a fourth entry based around producer Dino Delaurentis’ struggles to craft a fourth movie while being haunted by the houses’ supernatural forces.
Since the Lutzs’ story ended with the previous film (at least the most cinematic chunk of it), the filmmakers went the prequel route, and dramatised the real-life tragedy which started it all.
The DeFeo family’s fate was briefly shown at the start of the 1979 movie, but this film shows no fidelity to that depiction:
The familiar name is different and the portrayal of the eventual murderer is completely different.
Refreshingly, the film does feel like its own beast, and in certain respects, The Possession is a far tighter film than its predecessor.
Unlike the broad canvas of the first picture, the supernatural menace is focussed on the family.
In a way the film is clumsy - in the first couple of minutes, it feels like the filmmakers are trying to set up the characters as certain archetypes.
I am not saying this is the cause, but there is a certain heightened quality to the performances that feels like the effect of having a director (director Damiano Damiani) operating in a second language he cannot speak.
The film wants to have its cake and eat it - the supernatural forces are both capable of manipulating the family’s existing weaknesses, and taking direct action to destroy the family.
The film does not try to be ambiguous, showing the spectral forces’ work around the house, but what makes it more consistently effective than the chaos of the first film is that the actions we see (painting sacrilegious images in the kid’s room, banging on the door) are meant to provoke tensions within the family unit.
While James Brolin's George Lutz is on a slow boil, the Montellis have already boiled over:
Patriarch Anthony (Burt Young) has a hair-trigger temper and is physically abusive toward his family; siblings Sonny and Patricia (Diane Franklin) share an uncomfortably close bond; mother Dolores (Rutanya Alda), the spiritual leader of the family, to powerless to help her family.
It is a bleak movie, but there is something compelling about how consistently bleak it is. While I fault some of the choices, there is a sense of inevitability to the family’s fall that works.
It is also relatively simple, unlike its predecessor, where the subplot with the priest feels like padding.
Unlike Rod Steiger, James Olson's Father Frank Adamsky is more directly threaded with the family.
Olson and his character are the most interesting element of the film.
He is portrayed as an ordinary man trying to deal with the family in as judicious way as possible. At a crucial moment, he brushes off a call for help.
This guilt as much as anything pushes him to attempt an unsanctioned exorcism.
And the church he serves is shown as both all-powerful and ineffective.
The one element that jostles is the performance of Magner - the other actors might be heightened, but they are more naturalistic and feel like they are reacting to each other. He seems a little more theatrical.
It is not necessarily bad, but it feels out of step with the style of the rest of the movie.
His portrayal was probably not helped by the script.
While the character is hearing voices tell him to kill his family, the film makes the bizarre choice to just turn it into a full-on possession.
Thus Sonny’s motivation is completely removed from his final action.
The result is less satisfying - having a child pushed to murder his family is scary enough
by literalis-ing the possession, the film seems to be betraying its own theme of having the devil exploit and manipulate weakness.
The film fumbles the third act: having a guilt-ridden priest trying to save the souls of the family he failed to save in life, without the backing of his church, should pack a punch.
But with the family dead, the final exorcism feels like an unnecessary extension. It also feels far too indebted to The Exorcist in the imagery and the way the demon attempts to tempt the priest.
Bleak and somewhat frustrating, The Possession is still a superior film to its predecessor.
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