THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979), AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION (1982)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical, psychological*


Of all the horror-serials spawned during the 70s and 80s, almost nothing beats the AMITYVILLE series for sheer tedium. I can enjoy a good haunted-house tale as much as anyone, but the first film in this series-- based on a book relating the purportedly real experiences of the Lutz family-- has almost nothing going for it, beyond a solid performance by James Brolin.

Not having read anything about the book beyond a brief synopsis, I can't speak to the film's accuracy as an adaptation. It does seem likely that the screenplay beefed up the action in which George Lutz seems to be infected with the house's supernatural residents.

As for what the critters are, and what they're doing in the house, the script gives three separate potential explanations for the weirdness-- that the house was a site of devil worship by a Puritan-era witch, that the Indians who lived there once kept crazy people on the house-site until they died, and that there's some sort of well that functions as a "gate to hell." No single explanation is ever confirmed and the story ends in one of the most anticlimactic ways seen in a 70s horror film.

AMITYVILLE II, directed by Damiano Damiani, is at least a more tolerable spookfest. The prequel relates the events in which the family that owned the house before the Lutzes was mostly killed by the family's teenaged son. Damiani at least plays every scene with ghastly brio, though he elects to mix together elements of ghosts, demons, and evil Indian spirits. But at least, in contrast to the first film, the natural tensions of the victim-family don't come out of nowhere, but are exacerbated by the demon-like inhabitants. The son who eventually commits the murder suffers from some Oedipal demons against his tyrannical father, though they seem directed not at his mother but at his sister. Workmanlike though the film is, it's probably the best of the AMITYVILLE entries.