Amityville II: The Possession (1982)

Episode 98, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  Today’s film Craig picked out for us, it is the 1982 film the Amityville Horror 2: The Possession. This is the sequel to the Amityville Horror one from way back in 1970. I want to say 74, but it might actually be 78. And I remember seeing that film. I have seen that film that was a popular film at its time, even though it’s an incredibly boring. 

Craig:  That’s it’s so boring. And it’s just unfortunate because James Brolin is in it and he’s totally hot and there’s other good actors in it and it’s well acted, but it’s just boring. 

Todd:  It’s a top shelf movie. It is a top shelf movie with all of the budget and acting and direct everything behind. Even Lalo Schifrin does the soundtrack, who also did the soundtrack to this film, which I was pleasantly surprised to see. And Lalo Schiffrin does amazing soundtracks. He’s the guy behind, like, for example, the Mission Impossible theme song. He’s the only thing that carries forward into this movie. This movie seemed to be a much later attempt to capitalize on the Amityville mania, I guess, that was sweeping the nation at that time. And this movie is nothing if not a wild, crazy ride. 

Craig:  Totally. I couldn’t believe. Okay, so the whole reason that I picked this movie is because I saw an article on Bloodydisgusting.com about how Andyville two is a way better movie than Bill one. And I read the article and I was like, how have I not seen this movie? I watch as much horror as I can. And even just when we were adolescents going to the video store, these Amityville movies would pop up on the video store shelves all the time. Like every couple of years there would be a new one and I would rent them. But I guess in 82 I was only three, so I guess it was a little too early. And I watched a bunch of those sequels.   I don’t remember much about them. There was one about a haunted clock, and there was one about a haunted doll house, and I remember enjoying them. They were really schlocky and silly and stupid, but kind of fun to watch. But somehow I never got around to watching this one. And it is a sequel, but it could very easily stand alone. You don’t have to have seen the first movie to appreciate or enjoy this movie. Really, the only connection that it has to the first movie is that it takes place in the same house, and that’s historically true. Whatever this house in Amityville weird shit went down there, and a couple of weird things happened there.   And this is one of the only sequels that actually somewhat kind of tells a story of something that actually happened. This is based on the Defeo murders, wherein the eldest son of a family murdered his entire family in one night in their beds when they were sleeping. And the movie is loosely based on that. They changed some things. They deleted one sibling. And as the title would suggest, this is a possession movie. And there was never any suggestion or claim by the actual defeo murderer that there was anything with possession or voices or anything of that nature. But other than that, the events of the movie are actually based in reality.   And it’s pretty wild. 

Todd:  I would say, craig, that not only is this a possession movie, but this is like an everything. Well, first of all, this era, exorcist was big, right? Yeah, Amityville was big. So we got the haunted house aspect in there. We have the Exorcist aspect in there, top to bottom, especially in the second half of the movie. Then we even have some straight out evil dead references in here. Really bizarre family situations I think we’re going to get into later. It seems like Tommy Lee Wallace, who is the writer of this film, who. It’s interesting, we just finished reviewing it, the miniseries, and Tommy Lee Wallace was the writer director of those.   This was his very first screenplay. But then he went on to write and direct Halloween three, which we’ve done in the past. Then did fright night part two, which I haven’t seen. So he has kind of an interesting horror history. Cannot say that this is his best work ever. It’s clear. Maybe this is his very first screenplay, but I was just dying through this movie. 

Craig:  It’s kind of whackadoodle, but it’s so fun. The first half of the movie is pretty much the conjuring, and then the second half of the movie is the exorcist. And the first part of the movie was so fast paced, I was taking notes. It’s not a lot of fun to take notes when you’re watching these movies. But I had to keep pausing because there were so many things that I wanted to write down because things just kept happening, happening. And then we got to, I don’t know, about the midway, a little bit past the midway point of the movie, and it reached what I thought was going to be the climax of the movie. And I’m like, wait, what are they going to do with the last 45 minutes? And then it was like a whole different movie for the last 45 minutes. And that could be a bad thing.   And to be fair, even though I really did enjoy watching this movie, it’s so fast paced for the first half. And then it slows down a little bit. And I was a little bit disappointed with that. But then I thought that the ending was so good that I got over it. Like, okay, all right. If we had to sit through that little kind of slow part to get to the end, I’m cool with it. 

Todd:  Yeah, I enjoyed this movie because it was so bad. This is one of those so bad that it’s good movies. Like, this is the movie you want to sit down and watch with your. This is the kind of movie that I wish you and I were in the same room watching. Because I think we would have had so much fun with this film. It starts out, and again, like I said, you’ve got this Lalo Schiffrin score. And I think he just pulls it straight from the first film, actually, with those creepy children voices kind of singing in the beginning. Actually, I think he was either nominated or maybe even got an Academy Award, some kind of award for his score in the original Amityville horror movie.   It’s a little iconic. And this family is pulling into this new house. And we know this house because it’s on the COVID of the video sleeve. But it’s also the house from the first movie. It’s a house that looks almost like a barn. And it has these two big windows in the top floor. And I always felt like it looked like eyes. 

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, absolutely. 

Todd:  Right. It kind of has that look. And what’s hilarious about it is every time you see the outside of this house, the camera goes out of its way to make it seem sinister. And even the delivery man who’s delivering the packages to this house stops and turns around and stares up at the windows of this house. And we immediately get introduced to this family. So we’ll give you the quick rundown. There’s Anthony, who is the father. And Anthony is played by a guy who, Bert young, who, you know him when you see him.   He’s been in everything. He’s a pretty famous character actor. He always plays these rough kind of guys. And he’s Paulie from. Exactly. Exactly. All the rocky movies. Right.   His wife is Dolores. And she’s this kind of submissive wife, I guess you could say, who’s kind of trying to keep the family together. Mark and Beth are the two little boys and girls who we don’t really see enough of, honestly, in this movie. And then Sonny, who’s the older brother and there’s a big distance between Sonny and Trish, who are the older brother and older sister. And then Mark and Beth are the younger girl and boy. And I don’t know, Mark and Beth are probably like, what, eight and nine. 

Craig:  If not younger, I guess. Not that it matters. I have the little girl’s name written down as Jan. Not that it matters at all. 

Todd:  Actually, you might be right about that. 

Craig:  It doesn’t matter. The little ones, there’s two little ones who are played by real life brother and sister Erica and Brent Katz. And like you said. Yeah, we don’t really get to see enough of them. I kind of wish we would see more of them, but, yeah, then the older brother and sister, they’re kind of the important ones. Sonny is played by Jack Magner and Trish, Patricia is played by Diane Franklin, who. Diane Franklin was super familiar to me, and I looked through her IMDb page, and she really wasn’t in a whole lot. So I don’t know why she was so familiar.   It remains a mystery to me why. 

Todd:  I know why she looks so much like Jennifer Connolly is why she looks so does. Yep, yep, yep. And you’re right. I felt the same way. Well, she was in a couple of big ones of the era anyway. Better off dead. 

Craig:  Yeah, better off dead. She was in that. And she was in a cheesy movie from the 80s that I remember how I got into college, which I doubt anybody else remembers, but I always enjoyed it. 

Todd:  But anyway, last american virgin, she was in that one. She was in terror vision, which is one we have to do sometime. And she even had a brief cameo role in Bill and Ted’s excellent adventure. She was. 

Craig:  Yeah, that’s right. 

Todd:  A princess in there. So she kind of skipped around through movies in the lot of tv be. But you’re right, she looks so much like Jennifer Connolly that she’s super familiar. 

Craig:  True. 

Todd:  So they’re older. They’re like considerably older, I would say, like teenagers, basically. And they look even older than that. 

Craig:  Quite. 

Todd:  But. And that’s a good thing as we go on. 

Craig:  And it’s obvious from the beginning that there’s clearly tension in this family. They pull up, they’re moving in the very first day into this new house. And right off the bat, Anthony, the dad, is giving the oldest son crap. So I put the pedal to the woo. 

Todd:  He should have seen. It was fantastic. 

Craig:  I left a guy like mine. 

Todd:  Where the hell were you? I told you to back up your mother. She knows the way. Don’t be smart, boy. You’re not too big for a whipping. Yeah, I know. You proved that to me. 

Craig:  Okay? 

Todd:  You know, you’re pushing it. You’re right on the edge. 

Craig:  Dad, I just stopped at the corner for a pack of cigarettes. 

Todd:  Stop your whining. You’re going to be a man by smoking cigarettes now. You’re growing little fuzz over here. Learn how to take some orders. You hear me? 

Craig:  I didn’t hear you. Yes, sir. And one of the things that I liked about the movie is that the second they get in this house, things start to go wrong. And while I really appreciated that the whole time, I’m thinking the first five minutes that they’re in there, crazy crap starts happening. I’m like, just get out. Clearly there’s something wrong with this house. They go in, and they find that all the windows are nailed down. The mom turns on the faucet in the kitchen, and blood comes out.   And it’s clearly blood. And she’s terrified at first, but then it clears up, and she’s like, oh, okay, never mind. I get it. It’s an old house. Maybe some rusty water would come out. But that’s not rusty water. That is blood for sure. Take a hint.   Take a hint. 

Todd:  And my favorite part is when the mother is unpacking in the basement, and she goes down there, and one of the moving guys comes down with her. It’s like, where do you want this? And she’s like, oh, these are my husband’s guns. Why don’t you throw them in the closet? So he walks in his closet in the basement. As he sets down the box, it kind of bangs the wall and opens up what’s essentially the little flap in the wall, like a secret passage. He says, oh, you know, you got another room back here. She’s like, oh, really? And so he gets down on his hands and knees, and he crawls back in there, and there’s just water, like, dripping down in here at a rate that would be flooding the basement. And this whole other quote unquote room we see later is more like a whole other basement in this house. It has these brick or stone pillars in there.   Looks like a crypt. This guy’s like, you got some serious problems in here, lady. And bugs are falling on him, and it’s super wet. And he comes out and he’s just drenched. And he’s kind of like, you might want to get that looked into. And she’s like, yeah, I guess so. That’s it? Yeah. 

Craig:  Oh, God, it’s so funny. I referred to it in my notes as the evil poop room, because it’s just this room that’s just full of flies and poop and this water constantly running in that she finds out about. And then she’s like, oh, whatever, I guess we’ll worry about it later. And the evil poop room ends up being pretty much the source of all their problems. Because after that repair man, or whoever he is, leaves, we get a pov shot. And then we get these kind of, throughout the movie, of this evil spirit or demon or whatever it’s supposed to be. We get its point of view coming out of the room and coming up behind her. And then a cold wind blows and she’s scared to death.   And then Sonny, the oldest son, shows up and she’s like, somebody touched me. And he’s like, oh, mom. 

Todd:  Oh, God, it’s funny. And it’s so evil dead, too. It’s so pov evil. And this isn’t the only evil dead, flat out rip off in this film, quite honestly. There’s more of it later, but actually, the camera work in this movie is quite good. Yeah, that’s a testament. Yeah, he did rip off evil dead, but the camera work in evil Dead is pretty damn good, too. And so it’s fine.   There are a number of shots, even in the beginning of this movie, where it doesn’t even matter where it’s one really long take. Like, if you’re paying attention, it could be like three or four minutes of the camera moving from one room to another and a person having a conversation, then going back out of the hallway and the camera follows them. And they have this conversation. Somebody else walks by and the camera follows them. What we sometimes refer to as geek shots, these kind of shots that filmmakers like to throw in that probably the audience doesn’t care, but other filmmakers go, wow, that’s really awesome. The movie’s filled with them. And so it’s not only a testament, really, to the director and his technical ability, but also really to the fact of the actors. The actors, I’m not going to say they give fantastic performances, but at least they’re talented enough to be able to pull off these long takes.   And the director, I guess we haven’t mentioned, is Damiano. 

Craig:  Damiani, which is like the coolest name. 

Todd:  Ever, especially when you’re making a movie like this. And he’s italian. And so we’ve talked about italian. We’ve reviewed quite a few italian films so far in the. This is his breakthrough, basically his Hollywood breakthrough. He did quite a few really well regarded films in Italy before this. And this was his breakthrough film in the United States. And he continued to do stuff after this.   He’s clearly even just from watching this movie, no matter what you think, you have to say that the directing is fantastic, the cinematography is fantastic. Even if the writing isn’t that great, the acting isn’t always that great, and it gets really goofy and silly at times. 

Craig:  Well, and I hate to go out of sequence, but since you’re talking about the cinematography, I wanted to mention one shot that I just thought was really cool. There’s one scene where Sonny is left alone at home and he’s walking through the house. The camera is kind of tracking right in front of him. And then in one take, or seemingly in one take, it flips upside down and then flips back around again. And it seemed really seamless. And I saying it out loud, it doesn’t sound that impressive, but I was thinking, how did they do that? Was that camera on some sort of apparatus that it was able to spin all the way upside down and then come back around or. I don’t know. You’re the filmmaker.   You tell me. Were you impressed with that or was I just as an amateur? No. 

Todd:  Yes. I was super impressed with it too. But I’ll tell you, that’s straight out evil dead, right? The exact same scene with a guy holding a rifle happens to ash in the evil dead, where the camera comes behind him and then comes over him and in front of him to the point where it’s upside down and then spins back over. So, yeah, I was really impressed with it technically. And I don’t know, I guess you get the camera on a crane and you do all kinds of funky stuff to do that. But I also thought, well, he totally is ripping off of Sam Raimi so specifically with this shot that it was kind of shameless. 

Craig:  I really didn’t even think about that until you said it. When? When you said it today, I’m like, oh, yeah, it’s definitely true. But I didn’t think about it at the time. 

Todd:  It’s a good shot. 

Craig:  Yeah, it is. And there’s some good stuff going on here. And like you said, are these Oscar Worthy performances? No, but I actually thought that the performances were pretty good for the most part. From the very, very beginning. Sonny is in the creepy eye window room. That’s where he lives. And there’s a scene with him and Patricia up there. And from the very beginning, it seems like there’s weird, flirtatious sexual tension going on between this brother and sister.   Isn’t it great? 

Todd:  It’s all right. 

Craig:  I love it. 

Todd:  You’re getting heavy. 

Craig:  Hey, you used to hug me all the time. 

Todd:  That was when you were lighter. 

Craig:  No, that’s not, because now you’re old and snotty. 

Todd:  Well, there is another reason. 

Craig:  What? 

Todd:  You’re not my type. 

Craig:  Oh, you like them tall, big boo? 

Todd:  That is none of your business. How about you? What’s your type? 

Craig:  I like them sensitive, dark and about this high. 

Todd:  You’re ridiculous. 

Craig:  No, come on, let’s get to know the house. And I feel like they were trying to set it up. Like, oh, it’s just innocent for now. But even at that point, I’m like, you guys are a little too close. 

Todd:  My family is pretty touchy feely huggy kissy. You know what I mean? Me and my sisters growing up, we’ll embrace each other in public. We’ll kiss each other in public. We don’t really have that. We’re just a little like that. And I think it took me a long time, probably to the point where I was in high school when I realized other people might think this is a little strange. But these two, and even beyond, even later, when Sonny has his very od birthday party, it just seems like something’s a little weird about this family. And this is one of my.   Actually, this is one of the things that I think works against the movie, honestly. And the writing and I guess the directing and acting, is that so much of what’s wrong with this family is despite the house. Right? I mean, the minute they come to the house, before they even set foot in it, the father, you can see he’s a bit of a jerk and he’s a loose cannon. He’s going off on his son and the mother is real tense about it. So you can tell that there’s a past history there. And then they’re moving in and this brother and the sister have this really weird flirtatious thing to them before any energy or whatever in the house can get to them. And so all of this sense that it’s the house and this demon or the spirit or whatever that’s causing these things to happen just really falls flat. Because we’ve already gotten all this before.   Right? 

Craig:  Yeah, I agree with you. I think that what was supposed to be implied was that this family had some weird stuff going on anyway. And then when they got in the house, the influence of the house just multiplied all of that by 100. So they get there, then they have their family dinner. And during dinner, the whole house shakes, which somehow the dad blames on the. Like, how did he make the whole house, like an earthquake happen. And a mirror falls and doesn’t break. But then when Sonny looks at it, it does break.   Weird. And then when they all go to bed, we see the pov shot of something coming out of the basement again. And it pulls the tablecloth off the table to throw over a crucifix. So it’s clear that something supernatural is going on here. And then there’s loud knocking at the door. And the mom and dad go down there and there’s nobody there. And the dad gets the shotgun, and the knocking is still going on. And he opens it up and nobody’s there.   And then in the kids room, the two little kids, they see these floating paintbrushes that get up and paint this big mural on their wall, which is like a dragon or some sort of demon. And it writes, dishonor thy father and pigs in all capital letters. And so Anthony and his wife go in the kids room. And Anthony takes off his belt to beat the kids with like they did. Like these two little kids crouching fearfully in their beds. Painted this big mural on the wall in the last three minutes. Make any sense? And then there’s this I just wrote down on my paper. Full out violence.   Like, they just go ape shit on each other. It’s crazy. The dad is trying to beat the kids with the belt. And the mom freaks out and, like, I’m going to kill you. And she runs in and scratches his face, and he’s beating on her. And then Sonny comes in with a shotgun and points it right at his dad’s head. And Trish is, like, screaming. I’m like, is this their family? This is this just a normal Friday night? It’s crazy. 

Todd:  And this is another moment where there’s again, like, this one shot thing happening at times. And the camera’s swooping around and there’s this, I have to say, like, really corny moment that ends it where the camera swoops around and Sonny’s holding the gun to his dad’s head. And his mom just. Everything stops. And his mom walks between them from behind and then walks forward and just lifts the gun out of their hands. And they’re just, like, frozen in place as she walks forward with this gun and practically stares into the camera and says, oh, my God. 

Craig:  What’s happening to us? 

Todd:  It’s so bad. Oh, my God. 

Craig:  It’s hilarious to talk about it because talking about it makes it sound so horrible. But I swear to God, I was enjoying it. Like, I was having so much fun watching it. It was crazy. 

Todd:  And the best part about it is as soon as that scene is done, like the next scene, everything’s back to normal, right? 

Craig:  And that keeps happening throughout. Like, they’ll have these big crazy things happen. They’ll be like, oh, no big deal. And then Sonny’s up in his room, I think, and he’s listening to his walkman and he’s got his headphones on. And all of a sudden the sound goes out and this voice whispers to him, why didn’t you pull the trigger? Why didn’t you shoot that pig? And that kind of becomes a motif throughout. Like, this voice is talking to him and commanding him to do things. And then the mom, they go to church. And being a Catholic, that was an actual catholic mass.   These were actual catholic priests, that they were priests. Actual catholic prayers that they were saying. And afterwards, she asks the priest to come over to bless the house. And then this priest, Father Adamsky, something doesn’t matter. I just kept referring to him as the priest. She invites this priest over, and then that kind of introduces this new element into the movie which carries through then throughout the rest. 

Todd:  Being a Catholic, you tell me, is this a common thing to ask a priest to come over and bless your house? 

Craig:  It’s not uncommon. Okay. My parents never did it, but it wouldn’t be considered weird. 

Todd:  And is it a production like it is here? Like, where he puts on his robe and he pulls out a bunch of paraphernalia and walks around the house and sprinkles holy water around? 

Craig:  I don’t know. I would imagine that it probably just depends on the priest. Some priests might do that. Some would just come in and say a little prayer and that would be the end. And again, I don’t think it’s a common thing, but I don’t think that any priest or anybody else would think that it was OD. Especially you’re moving into a new house. Some people burn sage to cleanse their house or whatever. It’s not weird, it’s not common, but it’s not. 

Todd:  Well, you know, this is another spot where there’s one of these very long takes that’s really cool. And you see that the fact the priest comes over and the Father Anthony doesn’t go to church, apparently he’s not a very religious person and the mother is. And so there’s a little bit of tension there. He really doesn’t want to have anything to do with the priest. But the priest comes in anyway, and he’s just almost obliviously cool about all of the tension. That’s going on around him. And it’s just this really long take. And I thought it was just a little strange at this point in the film that the mother is asking the priest to bless the house.   Now, if this is a thing that you move into a new house and some Catholics would just do that, then that’s fine. But I felt like up to this point, there’s really very little, if anything, that has actually happened that you don’t feel like was bubbling up beneath the surface of this family anyway. I mean, at least from the mom’s perspective. So aside from the fact that she felt like somebody touched her downstairs, they had this big argument, this big fight. Right? But I don’t think from her perspective, she would have seen anything supernatural about it. Right? I mean, it’s not like she saw the floating paintbrushes, paint the walls. 

Craig:  It’s not, dude, if my walls were shaking, I guess she didn’t actually see this happen, but she did see the crucifix covered up. I mean, I guess one of her kids could have done that. But true, I would have been inviting the priest over to my house, too. And maybe just very casually in the way that she did. Like, we just moved into a new house. Could you come bless it? Not because I think it’s haunted, even though I do, but could you maybe just stop by. 

Todd:  Say a few words from God, please? 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  Okay, fair enough. Well, when Sonny shakes the priest’s hand, the kitchen explodes and just everything goes haywire. And for some reason, Anthony then hits Beth, a little girl. He blames her for it. And he’s just flat out child abuse, basically, on this girl right there in front of the priest. And he’s like, well, I think I’m going to go now. He just backs up all his things and leaves. And then they all decide that they have to go to the church to apologize.  

I mean, I don’t know. What is it, like eight or 09: 00 in the evening or something? 

Craig:  It seemed like it. But then later on when Sonny asks about it, they say, yeah, we went to the church, it was fine. And then dad took us all out to dinner. So maybe it was earlier, but it seemed late. I don’t know. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. 

Todd:  Okay, so they all end up having to go to the church, but dad stays behind. Oh, Sonny stays behind. He just doesn’t want to go. And we get the sense at this point, there was an earlier scene, I think, where Sonny was also in the basement, where the same pov shot that touched the woman also seemed to touch her. And he starts having these. I don’t know, his arm starts bubbling up or something. There are all these great bladder effects under his skin, showing that something has changed. So we get the sense by now that Sonny, he’s hearing the voices.   Obviously, he’s hearing the voices from the basement room. He goes to the basement room where dad still has his guns up on a rack, even after Sonny’s held a gun up to him. Then we get, again, what I felt was another strange moment. He goes downstairs and he’s wandering around. And again, the house is kind of waking up and being sinister, and the water pipes all start snapping, spraying water everywhere. And he goes upstairs again. Kind of no big deal, right? Because sunny, right. This is, like, something that would be a serious issue in your house.   But he goes back upstairs and we never really see anything about this again. 

Craig:  Well, the house virtually explodes several times throughout the movie. And then it’s like, that’s no big deal. Carry on. 

Todd:  Exactly. 

Craig:  The light bulbs burst and flames shoot out of the basement and the rifles on the rack all shoot off. All the pipes burst. And then the next day, it’s like, whatever, nothing happens. 

Todd:  Anyway. He’s being chased by this entity throughout the house. And even though he’s protecting himself with a gun, he never once actually points the gun at this thing that he can see that we can’t, or whatever. He just backs away from it and backs away from it downstairs and backs away from it up the stairs, backs away from it, like, into his bedroom. And eventually the gun floats out of his hand and it’s just a terribly cheesy moment. And I think probably has to do with the effects. Just like the paintbrushes, it looks like these things are on strings, just dancing around. And then I guess, are we supposed to get this impression that this spirit almost, like, rapes him? The way that it backs him onto a bed and comes down onto him. 

Craig:  Two or three times and rips his shirt open? Yeah. I don’t know. I think that it was just supposed to be. There had already been implications that he was influenced. I feel like this is the part where we’re supposed to think, oh, he’s being possessed. But that ran through my mind. It did feel rapey, but I actually liked the effects quite a bit. Like you said, there are all these bladder effects where the skin in his arms and his neck is bubbling up.   In this weird scene when his shirt gets ripped open, his abdomen is scrunched in. If you weren’t fat like me and you sucked your abdomen in, as far as you possibly could so that your ribs were protruding. That’s what it looked like. But I think that this is the point where, okay, he’s possessed now. 

Todd:  Yeah, I think you’re right. Because we were totally out of haunted house territory by now. And we’re going into full on possession. Everything happens. I think the doors are slamming and the windows are going or whatever. Anyway, the family ends up coming home and Trish and Sonny are upstairs and they have a very bizarre conversation. 

Craig:  So even before things get super weird, even their conversation is just messed up. You should see a doctor. You’ve got dark rings around your eyes. 

Todd:  What happened to church? 

Craig:  Oh, it was unbelievable. Daddy made his apologies, but then he took us out for a steak dinner. 

Todd:  Okay. Pretty believable so far. 

Craig:  Yeah. He tried to get Mommy drunk, but she wouldn’t go for it. 

Todd:  Yeah, it’s a little weird, but we’ve seen this family before. 

Craig:  There’s something strange. I think Mommy doesn’t want to make love to daddy anymore. I think he tries to force her. What? 

Todd:  Where did this come from? And who talks about this? And more importantly, where did you get this idea? And I guess there is an earlier scene and I don’t know, maybe there is a connection here, but apparently there’s a deleted scene from this film where Anthony actually. 

Craig:  Sorry, I know. It’s hard to even say. Right? 

Todd:  Yeah, like Avalie rapes his wife. I honestly don’t know where in the movie that would fit in except for the fact that this would happen and then the next day everything would be cool again, just like everything else in this movie is. It’s just terrible writing. That’s just all it is. It’s just terrible writing. 

Craig:  It’s fair. It is. It is terrible writing. But what I read was the director really wanted to shock and appall the audience. Eventually they test screened it and it didn’t test screen well. People were really uncomfortable with some of these scenes, including this next scene that comes up. Because after this conversation, Sonny then says to Trish, sit on the. 

Todd:  On. Strike a pose for me on the bed. We’re going to play a game where you are the beautiful model and I am the famous photographer. Pose for me. Take off your nightgown. 

Craig:  What? 

Todd:  Just for a second. 

Craig:  Okay? Just for a second. Gross. Come on. I had a sister and we were both teenagers at the same time. And this is not something normal. 

Todd:  No, this isn’t something. 

Craig:  No. 

Todd:  Nobody is this oblivious at this point, right? 

Craig:  And she’s like laughing like it’s fun and go ahead and bleep me. But then they fuck and we don’t get to see it. Like, I want to see it. No, we don’t see it. We just see him kiss her. But apparently they shot the scene like they shot the sex scene, and audiences were so appalled by it, understandably, that they cut it out, thank God. And then she’s at confession talking to the same priest that came to their house to bless it. And she’s like, father, I went all the way with my friend and he’s like, well, that’s bad.   You should resist temptation. And she’s like, I didn’t even like it. And we didn’t even like it. He just does it to hurt. And he’s like, you mean to hurt you? And she’s like, no, to hurt God. And he’s like, don’t even say that. That’s horrible. And then she runs out. 

Todd:  Oh, God, it’s so weird. 

Craig:  But honest to God, I appreciated that it was so bold. 

Todd:  Well, that it is. 

Craig:  I appreciated that. It was shocking. I didn’t expect it to go there. And then it did. And I’m like, well, if you’re going to go balls out, go balls out. I appreciate that, but do it a. 

Todd:  Little more deftly, I suppose. We’ve covered movies that have the incest angle before, and I’m almost every time it’s got a little bit of skill behind it. It doesn’t feel so sure in such a bizarre way. But again, like I said, it calls back to the beginning of the movie where you kind of felt this chemistry between them from the very beginning. And so, okay, you’re right, maybe it’s a little more amplified now, but come on. I mean, left to their own devices in a house that wasn’t haunted, a scene like this could very well have been extremely plausible considering the way they were acting towards each other in the first ten minutes of the film. 

Craig:  Yeah, that’s true. 

Todd:  It just comes across to me anyway as silly and a little amateurish and on its face, and it was a little bit of a distraction for me. Not that flat out brother banging his sister isn’t distracting enough, but it’s a bad movie, man. But it’s hilariously bad. And you can laugh at it. 

Craig:  It’s funny because when I was talking about it last, I watched these by myself. Of course, as everybody who listens to this podcast knows, I watch these movies by myself. But I was talking to my partner about it last night and I was like, I don’t know. It was bad, but it was good. And I think the reason that I liked it is just because it was just balls to the wall, boom, boom, boom. Especially in this first half, which if we’re ever going to get to the end, we’re going to have to wrap up pretty quickly. But in this first half, things just kept happening, happening like there was never a dull moment. 

Todd:  True. 

Craig:  I was sucked into it. Yeah, it’s bad, but I was sucked in and I was having a good time watching it, as you always do when incest. Okay, so the priest comes back to bless the house again and he’s kind of interested in Sonny. And Sonny’s door slams itself right in front of the priest. And then the mom asks the priest to bless her bedroom and bless her bed. And he’s got one of those. 

Todd:  Can you bless the cat, please? 

Craig:  Yeah, he’s got one of those sprinklers. That’s what he calls it, the holy water thing. But then blood starts coming out of it and the priest clearly sees it and he barfs. But then it disappears and Sonny laughs. And then the priest goes to talk to his superior and it’s scary german guy. Did you notice? 

Todd:  I did. It was fantastic. 

Craig:  I have no idea what this guy’s name is. Don’t even care. Don’t care to write it down. But scary german guy from Monster squad is his boss. And the priest wants to do an exorcism because he thinks there’s something going on there. But scary german guy tells him he can’t. 

Todd:  He has to wait for something, some approval from above. 

Craig:  Approval. Approval from the bishop or whatever. 

Todd:  This is standard in these movies. This is exactly right. This is the conflict. Right? 

Craig:  Let’s just wait and see what happens. 

Todd:  With exorcisms and priests and cardinals and monseignors and whatever it is. It’s exactly the same as the detective and the chief of police. Right? There’s always this, oh, I want to go ahead and do the exorcism. And the guy’s like, no, you can’t do it. You got to wait for something from ahead. And the guy’s like, no, I’m going to do it anyway, and go on. 

Craig:  My same dynamic, which is exactly what ends up happening. But then Trish invites the priest to Sunny’s birthday party, but he declines to come, which I didn’t really understand. Like, if he’s so concerned, why wouldn’t he go? 

Todd:  Well, that was just a strange scene. Anyway, she comes in, she invites him to the birthday party. She also kind of wants to talk about Sonny, which is a topic that he’s interested in. But he ends up getting a phone call. 

Craig:  Yeah, somebody had a stroke. Somebody had a stroke. 

Todd:  And so he’s like, oh, man, I got to head off and get this stroke. And so she runs out and at the same moment some guy who we’ve never seen before wanders in. Hi. Did you see a young girl in the hallway? Yeah. She was in a big hurry, too. She almost knocked me down. I don’t have time to deal with camping anyone. One of my parishioners is dying.   Sorry to hear that. Here, let me help you. I’ll be right back. I’ll be here. It was just so weird. This guy just this random guy just. 

Craig:  Pops in and he just remains a random guy. Like he’s a device. Like they needed somebody to kind of fill in these little parts. And I have no idea what his name is. He’s just another priest. His character is completely unimportant, except for that he shows up every once in a while to do something totally unimportant. 

Todd:  Yeah, but the thing is, this priest we’re getting into the second half of the movie, and the second half of the movie is the exorcist. It’s basically what it is. Yeah. And this priest who has been set up to this point to be so concerned about this family that just like in the Exorcist, he’s becoming obsessed, right? He’s gone to the monseigneur or whatever and said, get to the cardinal. And I need permission for this exorcism. And he’s like, you can’t have permission. You got to wait. You got to wait.   This girl comes into his office, clearly wants to talk to him. He’s a little distant about it. And then he gets this random phone call and is immediately runs out of the room. 

Craig:  None of it makes sense. No, it doesn’t make sense, but it sets know kind of the climax of the first half of the movie. Because Trish wanted to talk about Sonny. She’s worried about him as it turns know what she was going to tell him was that she’s scared. She thinks that he might turn. And I want to get to that. But we can’t not talk about that creepy birthday party because they have the creepy birthday party. And Sonny comes down and he’s being super nice, but his little brother and sister are giving him presents and things.   And he picks each of them up and hugs them. And if we hadn’t seen everything that had come before, it probably wouldn’t have seemed weird. But knowing that he screwed his older sister later. Earlier in the movie, it’s just like, ew, don’t touch them. Both of them. The little boy and the little girl, he picks them up and he hugs them and they’re like, I love you. And he’s like, I love you. And it makes you cringe.   Like, keep your gross, skeevy incest hands off those kids. 

Todd:  It’s just slightly over the line, right, of just a little too. Now, you could be this affectionate with your family at home, and it would be a problem. But in the movie, you don’t generally see it drag on like it does in this. And that’s the weird thing. It’s not really a party. It’s him coming downstairs, him being presented with his present. And then in turn, he goes to each of them and picks them up and embraces them and gets his hands all over him and says something nice. Goes to the next one, does the same thing, goes to the next one, does the same thing, goes to his sister, does the same thing, while everybody else is just standing around staring like they’re all taking their turns.   And then he puts his hands on the sister. And nothing any different from what he’s been doing with his little brother and his little sister. But because his hand goes down her back, the mother sees this and seems suddenly alarmed by it, like you see it in her face. Nothing else in this scene was alarming to you. But his hand going down her back suddenly is alarming to you, right? 

Craig:  And then the mom confronts the sister later because she sees the sister go up to Sonny’s room because Sonny retreat as soon as he’s done with his family, he goes back up to his room. All the guests arrive and he disappears. 

Todd:  But wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. Once he’s done embracing his sister and his mom is alarmed, he ends up on the other side of the table and the father’s there. We haven’t even seen the father until this point. And he kind of half makes up with him. Oh, it’s okay. 

Craig:  And everybody claps. 

Todd:  Everybody claps. And they’re all on the other side of the table, like, just staring at him. It’s, like, completely posed. Like you could take the family picture at this point. And then all of a sudden, the doorbell rings and, like, everybody else from the neighborhood suddenly comes in at the same time. 

Craig:  Well. And while he’s standing there across the table, the evil voice says to him, look at them. They’re pathetic animals. They’d be better off if you kill them. 

Todd:  Don’t you think? So? 

Craig:  He, like, kind of slyly smiled. I feel like what they were trying to accomplish was kind of the battle between Sonny being his real self, who really does love his family, but he’s being influenced by this evil voice that’s kind of taking over. It doesn’t play like that at all. He just seems like a freaking Creeper. 

Todd:  Who occasionally gets a vocal message, like, what, three times from this spirit? He doesn’t seem that tormented. Let’s just put it that way. 

Craig:  Well, and then that’s what happens. Honest to God, I felt like this was going to be the conclusion of the movie, even though I knew there was still 45 minutes left. Sonny’s laying in bed, there’s a big storm outside. And the voice says to him, you must do it now. And all of a sudden, Sonny’s face turns into this demon face. And he goes around the house and he shoots his whole family. I mean, that’s basically all it is now in real life. In the story that this is actually based on.   It’s actually kind of mysterious because every member of the family was found face down in their bed as though they didn’t hear the rest of them being shot. And I think both of the parents were shot twice, and all of the kids were shot once. And how could they not hear that? Why would they still be in bed? Like the guy Defeo, who killed his whole family? Initially, he said that it had been some mob boss that his dad was involved with. But then within the next couple of days, he confessed that he did it. And then later, years down the road, he made up. Well, I assume he made up all kinds of stories that his sister was in on it, and really she killed everybody. And he only killed her. And he made up all kinds of stories that there was no evidence for.   But it was weird. But in the movie, demon, Sonny just goes around and one by one kills them all. And then they’re all dead. 

Todd:  And it’s really kind of brutal. And very brutal. It’s very brutal and it’s effectively shocking. Especially because we’ve really gotten to know this whole family and we really have a lot of sympathy. Well, for the kids, because they’re kids, right? 

Craig:  The kids, little kids. 

Todd:  But the sister. The sister is just like this sweet girl. I sort of felt like you get the feeling, anyway, as you’re watching this movie that you’re going to be with this girl throughout the film, right? Because she’s such an integral part of the story and such a sympathetic character, and she seems conflicted with her thing with her brother. And he flat out kills her. And when the cops pull everybody out in a body bag and the priest is back at the house and he almost one by one, gets to see all the different bodies, and they unzip the body bag and she’s in there, I was almost kind of surprised. I was like, really? Like, she’s dead. That’s it. That’s like it for her, for this movie. 

Craig:  And it feels like two movies. And then the second part, the last 45 minutes, it really is the exorcist where this priest is super concerned about what’s going on. And he visits the kid in jail, and the demon reveals itself to the priest, but the cops don’t believe him. And scary german guy shows up again and is like, you shamed the church because we never gave you permission. And the lawyer tries to plead that he’s innocent by means of possession. 

Todd:  Dude, you were flying through this so fast because we got to get to the end of this podcast, but you were passing by some of the funniest parts of this movie because. 

Craig:  Stop me. Go for it. 

Todd:  Think about that seat at the back of the car with scary german guy again, right? The priest is in the back of this car with the scary german guy, and they’re having their typical conversation where scary german guy is telling him, you can’t go behind the church, you can’t go rogue like this or whatever. And the priest’s like, what? 

Craig:  I have to. 

Todd:  You guys can’t turn a blind eye. 

Craig:  To it, blah, blah, blah. 

Todd:  So he jumps out of the car and he goes. And then some random dude gets into the car next to scary german guy just to deliver the line. Now I understand why all the prisoners are complaining about him. He’s coming back to say one or two more things. It is so bad. And the whole time, scary german guy is almost looking directly at the camera. 

Craig:  It is pretty hilarious. It’s true. It is pretty hilarious. And then I am trying to wrap things up because we’ve been talking for too long, but Detective Turner is the detective, apparently, who is in charge of this case, and he’s played by Moses Gunn. Now, this is another guy who I was like, oh, my gosh, I know who this guy is, but I can’t figure it out. And I think he’s been in lots and lots of stuff. But what I remembered him from is he was in the never ending story. He was the guy that tasked Atreu with the quest.   And as soon as I read that, I was like, oh, yeah, that’s him. He won’t release him for the exorcism. But the demon. And I feel like this is straight out of exorcist three, which I don’t even know if exorcist three had come out at this point. Probably not. 

Todd:  No. 

Craig:  The possessed guy talking to the police guy in a jail cell. It is exorcist three. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And that’s what’s going on. And the priest wants to take him out and take him to the church so that he can exorcise him, but the cops won’t let him. And then the priest goes to the Amityville house and sees Trish’s ghost, right? 

Todd:  That’s right. 

Craig:  And then just a little bit later, Trish’s ghost calls him on the phone. 

Todd:  Well, this random woman walks up to him and says, father, what are you doing out here? 

Craig:  Nice to meet you. I’m the exposition librarian. 

Todd:  And as they’re walking away, I know some strange stories about that house. And the next scene, it’s like she’s a librarian and she’s walking him through the basement of the library, showing him newspaper clippings. 

Craig:  Oh, God. And then I love that, because let me give you the exposition. This house was built by a witch on an ancient indian burial ground. 

Todd:  That’s right. 

Craig:  The end. That’s why bad things happen. 

Todd:  There piled so many things on top of each other. Oh, my gosh. Woman expelled from Salem for witchcraft built a house on an ancient indian burial ground. 

Craig:  Okay, so then Sonny has his trial, and the lawyer tries to argue, innocent by virtue of possession. And the judge is like, no. Then everybody will say, the devil made me do it. And so then Sonny faints, and he ends up in the hospital. And the priest and the detective are there with him and save me, appears in blood on his arm and then disappears immediately straight out of the exorcist. 

Todd:  It’s so hilarious, because, again, it’s like, it’s such a kitchen sink movie. The scene before that, when they’re in the freaking courthouse. Your honor, it is my intention to prove at the trial that Sonny Montelli is a victim of demonic possession. And therefore what, Mr. Booth? Demonic possession, your honor. Possession by demons and therefore innocent. The charges placed against him. Your honor, this is highly irregular.   Will counsel please approach the bench? I’m like, where is this movie going? Are we in for some courtroom drama here? No, we never get that again. 

Craig:  No, it becomes law and order for, like, three minutes. Moving on, moving on. The detective, after they see this message appear in the kid’s arm, wants to go get the doctor. And the priest is like, no, you have to let me take him. And the detective is like, okay, here, take my gun, knock me out with it, and then you can take him. And this part, I think that you thought this movie was way more dumb than I did, but this part was super dumb. He knocks the detective out, and then he just sneaks the kid out of the hospital, and he takes him to the church. And this whole time, this is supposedly a demon possessed kid who murdered his whole family.   And all of a sudden, the priest just thinks, like, oh, it’ll be super easy to get him into the church and exorcise him because I apparently have. 

Todd:  To get him into the church, too, right? 

Craig:  And so he takes him up the church steps. Sonny sees the church and freaks out, and he runs back down the steps. 

Todd:  He casts his level five wall of fire spell. 

Craig:  Yes. And then he’s gone. He’s disappeared. And so the priest automatically knows that he’s gone back to the house, the Amityville house. And so the priest goes there, and he sees some spirits coming out of the evil poop room, and he asks God to bless these spirits or something. Then he goes upstairs and straight up has a father Karis movie with Sonny upstairs. And as much as it totally copies the exorcist, I mean, it is straight up a copy, down to the look. Down to Sonny’s look.   I mean, he looks just like Reagan. Yeah, exactly. But it looks good. I mean, it was a good copy. 

Todd:  It’s scary. 

Craig:  Yeah, but, I mean, it’s an exact copy. And they have the priest. You can never defeat me, and you’re weak, and blah, blah, blah. And you don’t have the backing of the church, so you’re all alone. And the priest is like, tell me your name. You know my name. You know my name very well, Father. And all of a sudden, Sonny has turned into Trish, the whore. 

Todd:  Whore Trish. She’s got the Tammy Faye baker look. She’s, like, licking her lips. 

Craig:  When I was making my confession, you thought about making love to me, didn’t you? And he’s like, no, I didn’t. And you say, licking her lips. No. She is making the most obscene gestures with her, like, comically obscene, but it’s funny. And then it’s the whole movie of the Exorcist. In about five minutes, the priest is trying to cast out the demon, and all of a sudden, Sonny’s face just starts to rip off all those bulges in his skin that we’ve seen before. It’s, like, amplified by ten, and his skin is splitting, and his whole face rips off to reveal this little weird alien demon head. 

Todd:  Yeah, it was awesome. 

Craig:  It was awesome. Oh, my God. It was really cool. Practical effects. Loved it. But the whole time I’m thinking, how is he going to recover from this? His whole face is gone. 

Todd:  There’s no going back from that, right? 

Craig:  Except that there is, because it’s a movie. Yeah, just like in the exorcist. The priest says, let it be me. 

Todd:  My God, not him. Let it be me. 

Craig:  The whole house explodes. 

Todd:  Literally, literally explodes. 

Craig:  But then it’s okay again. 

Todd:  Nothing happened. By the way, just before all this starts, the other priest guy or whatever, the priest friend on the fishing trip or whatever, had pulled up to the house, looked at it and walked toward the entrance. That happened about ten minutes before all of this started going down, right? 

Craig:  He must have been looking around a lot. 

Todd:  He was in the explosion, but he didn’t notice it. 

Craig:  All this stuff. And so then after the house explodes, we see Sonny rise up in crucifix position in all of this light. And he stands up and he’s fine. Rando Priest, who only serves the function to be there when necessary, shows up and escorts him out. And the cops are all there, and he’s like, don’t worry. We’ll make them understand that it wasn’t your fault. 

Todd:  The most optimistic statement of the year. Completely understand. You were possessed by a demon. 

Craig:  Yeah, I’ll tell him. It’ll be good. And so the police take Sonny away, and then we cut back to the priest sitting in the attic, and he’s all sweaty and gross. And then we see that his skin is, like, bulging, and he’s like, oh, God, don’t forsake me. The end, which is so great, which. 

Todd:  Is why this is such a low rent exorcist. In the exorcist, the guy’s like, take me, take me. And he takes the demon. The demon possesses him, and then he basically commits suicide. He jumps out the window. I mean, there’s all this backstory with him, right? He’s kind of tormented himself. And so there’s just all this angst, and it just feels like this is his destiny, that he’s going to. One good thing for this girl in this movie.   This guy’s like, let it be me. My God, not him, not him. So then the demon gets him, and then at the end, he’s whining, oh, God, please don’t forsake me. You just asked for the demon right now you don’t want him anymore. 

Craig:  Yeah. And then the last shot is just the new for sale sign outside the house. God, I don’t know. You have now convinced me that this is in fact a bad movie. But I have to say I really enjoyed watching it. It was fun to watch and I couldn’t believe that I had never seen it before. Why would you not be a horror fan if you were listening to this podcast? But if you are and you haven’t seen this movie, watch it. It’s fun.   Get some buddies together and pop some popcorn and get some beer and sit around and watch this. It’s funny. It is a fun movie. 

Todd:  This is the movie you’re looking for. This is really the goofy 80s movie horror film pulls from so many better films to cobble together this monstrosity of a film that this is. But I agree with you for that reason. It was hilarious. Now, it was fun to watch. It would have been more fun for me to watch with like five other people and six beers in me, that would have been even better. So I’m not going to knock it for that. But I will say that after the first half ended, I looked at the running time and I was like, what in the world is going to happen for the next 45 minutes? 

Craig:  Right? 

Todd:  For the next 45 minutes I was checking my watch every five minutes. 

Craig:  Fair. 

Todd:  This movie still, really, we have 20 minutes left. It was pretty slow. 

Craig:  True. And you could just watch it up through the final murder scene and then turn it off. 

Todd:  Fair enough. 

Craig:  Or watch it up through that and then fast forward into the last ten minutes. Because the last ten minutes, maybe five minutes are kind of fun. And I have to say, as much as it is a bunch of 80s movies cobbled together, it is not poorly made. I have seen much worse in terms of quality. In terms of acting, cinematography, direction, I have seen much, much worse. This is not bad in terms of that kind of quality. 

Todd:  That’s really the great irony about it. And I think that’s just what magnifies how hilarious it is, is it really is taking itself so seriously and it’s so well crafted in the cinematography department, in a lot of the acting department, in the fact that they’re not a list actors, but they’re at least especially for their time, very recognizable actors. This movie got a big release. It’s a dino de Laurentis production. It’s not like. Yep. I mean, granted, he’s put his name on a lot of schlock. He’s kind of schlockmeister, but his movies generally tended to be very successful.   Yeah, all of those things combined just makes it that much funnier. I think, when you end up watching it, it’s the great irony of the film. The writing, though, was terrible. 

Craig:  I have to say that my final verdict is that I liked it. I liked it and I’ll probably watch it again. I mean, I think that this would be a fun one. I am somebody, and I know you are, too. My friend who really enjoys watching lots of horror movies around Halloween time. And this would be one that I would pop in just for fun. Just for fun around Halloween time to watch a fun scary movie. I liked it.   Is it great? Is it a classic? Certainly not. I liked it. I had a lot of fun watching it. Would watch it again. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. Your party would be going on and it’d be kind of playing in the background. Every now and then you’d be glancing at it, but then at that point where the brother comes into the room and says, sit on the edge of the bed, let’s play, you’d be, oh, everybody come in the room. Everybody come. All right. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this one, please share it with a friend. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, any place that you can find your favorite podcast.   And you can also find us on Facebook where we have a page there like us. Share us, discuss this film and any other films you’d like us to see as well. We really love hearing your feedback. We really all love responding with you. Until next week, I’m Tod. 

Craig:  And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.