Amityville II: The Possession

May contain some spoilers:

It's true. I have read some of the commments in here and there's are actually two people that said the exact same thing about the film. And that was that the film should have ended when the priest was looking into the house and he sees the spirit of the dead girl walking. Then the old lady comes up to him and says she has heard stories about the house. That would have been an awesome way to end it and I then would have given it a ten. As it stands I am still giving it an 8 because even though the end was contrived and straight out of The Exorcist, it is still one hell of a scary film. And if you thought you had reason in the first one to yell " Get out!" then wait till you see this one.

The first hour of this film is absolutely terrifying. It has so much atmosphere and chilling scenes that I couldn't understand why people hated this film so much. The room in the basement is dark, dingy and the camera work is so spooky that you can't help but get suckered into believing that something is in there. When the mom is ironing and she feels something touch her arm and then the wind, that was a perfect scene. It was frightening. But the highlight of this film is when the family minus Sonny goes to church. It is here that Sonny gets stalked by an unseen force. And I even caught myself yelling at the TV, " GET OUT! " When he goes up the stairs and then down and then back up again into his room, it bothered me and it literally gave me chills. The camera work is so creative and haphazard that you really can't tell where the demon is. Is it on the ceiling, behind him, in front of him, where? That was a brilliant sequence in the film.

Some of the acting is pretty bad especially from the mom, but it makes up for that with its chills and tension. I really think that people that criticize this film are perhaps people that should watch it again. I saw it for the first time when I was about 16 and thought it was okay, but then I rented it today and it frightened me during the day. That is pretty good film making. And is it me or are Italian directors better at good horror than the average north American director? Because I've seen some pretty scary horror films that were directed by Italians and they seem to have a style all their own. Just a thought.

Amityville II is a perfect film to watch before the original. It is actually a prequel and it is good to watch them back to back. Give this film a chance and I'll bet it will scare you. It did a pretty good job on me.

8.5/10