
Although the screenplay was written by American Tommy Lee Wallace (Fright Night Part II, It), the director Damiano Damiani, who never made an English-language film before or since, gives it a distinctively Italian flavor, similar to one of Lucio Fulci's epics but with more coherence. Alternating between twisted family drama and supernatural thriller, it ladles on the child abuse, incest and religious trauma for the first hour or so before the troubled son, Sonny (Jack Magner) takes matters into hand and offs his family. It's literally a prequel, fictionalizing the story of the real-life DeFeo family, whose killings at the hand of their son, Ronald, formed the basis for the Amityville story. Now called the Montelli family, it is headed by father Burt Young (from the Rocky movies), the greasiest, meanest, most awful patriarch in screen history, making you wonder why his long-suffering and super-religious wife (Rutanya Alda) can stand living with him, let alone give birth to his four kids.
When they move into the Amityville house, Mom is hoping that a new, bright future can begin for them, but this is a far too screwed-up family unit. Even before they've finished moving in, blood is pouring out of the taps in the kitchen and Mom discovers a mysterious trap door in the basement covering a small, dark and wet space that serves no other purpose except to be nasty. She sends one of the movers in to check it out, and soon he's covered with flies and shit. Helpfully, she calls out, "Are you all right?" Later—again in the basement—she's doing laundry, and first encounters the Malevolent Force™ in the form of a weird wind. Sonny happens to come downstairs at just that moment and Alda, eyes bulging and Method acting like crazy, says "Somebody... touched... MEHHHHHHH!!!"
At dinner, before Mom leads everyone in prayer, she says, "I think we're a very lucky family," a moment which manages to be both pathetic and funny at once. The mirror above the sideboard suddenly comes off the wall and falls, an event which infuriates Pop, who blames Sonny. That night, the Malevolent Force™ bangs on the front door and Pop, furious at having his beauty sleep disturbed, wheezily runs outside with a shotgun and snarls at the unseen intruders: "There's a 12-gauge shotgun waiting for anyone tres-PASS-in'." Yes, he pronounces it oddly, with the emphasis on the second syllable.
Next, the two youngest children watch in horror as the Malevolent Force™ causes paintbrushes in their bedroom to rise into the air and cover the walls with violent and offensive graffiti. Though the kids protest their innocence, Pop starts whomping on them, motivating Sonny to seize the gun and stick it into his now repulsively sweating father's throat. His finger reaches for the trigger, but Mom, clad in a nightgown that gives her a strangely saintlike appearance, appears to glide across the floor, serenely take away the weapon and whisper, without a trace of irony, "What's happening to us?"



To meet the requirements of the exploitation audience who came to see possession hijinks, the film becomes an Exorcist clone for its final act, including much pumping of inflatable bladders under the skin, but it doesn't really spoil what has gone before. MGM has very kindly released a lovely widescreen DVD and occasionally airs the film on its cable network. MGM HD. Catch it...but you may want to take a shower afterwards.
1 comment:
thanks for the spoiler. asshole.
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