With spring, and consequently spring-cleaning, in the air, I was in the mood to visit with a couple of old friends – and remind myself that some people have domestic problems rather worse than dirty windows, an infestation of daddy long-legses, and cat hair as far as the eye can see.
Amityville II: The Possession is just as sleazy as I remembered, although perhaps a little more clever about its sleaziness than I was prepared to concede the first time around; while Amityville 3-D takes poking you in the eye to heights not even the Italians ever dreamed of. Booga-booga!
#1 by Paul on October 5, 2008 - 2:06 am
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Nice reviews as ever, though it’s worth noting that Amityville 3-D is indeed available in 3-D (link is region 2 DVD)!
http://www.amazon.com/Amityville-3-D-Region-glasses/dp/B00004YABP/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1223193903&sr=8-5
#2 by Mark on October 5, 2008 - 10:40 am
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Have to diagree about Damiani – he might not have been a horror director, but he certainly wasn’t a journeyman director either – his “a bullet for the general” is one of the best spaghetti westerns ever made and his later “poliziones” are really more politcal thrillers and (rather cynical) comments on Italian society. Damiani was one of the first directors that dared to address the Mafia and is highly respected (in Italy) for that.
Amityville II still sucks of course, but I suspect Damiani just needed some money (or agreed to do the picture in exchange for DeLaurentis prodicung one of his “serious” pictures).
#3 by lyzard on October 5, 2008 - 3:12 pm
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“Journeyman” only in the sense of many genres over many years; I could have called Richard Fleischer the same thing, no disrespect intended. I just thought it was odd that he was getting to his first horror film after so long – that’s where so many people get their start! Unfortunately, none of Damiani’s poliziones/thrillers are available here – although I do have Season 1 of The Octopus in my rental queue. Would you call that typical of his work?
#4 by lyzard on October 5, 2008 - 3:14 pm
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Alas, alas, not with my eyesight! (Picture Leela peering through the red lens, then the blue lens. “It’s not working!”)
#5 by Mark on October 5, 2008 - 3:56 pm
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The Octopus is fairly representative of Damiani’s work, although not nearly as good as the movies he did with Franco Nero in the 60s/70s (The main reason Franco isn’t seen as a mere “genre actor” in Europe are probably his collaborations with Damiani). I think the term “journeyan” always implies that someone isn’t just dabbling in many genres, but also lacks a distinctive style (and themes) and that’s certainly not true in Damiani’s case – even the dysfunctional family in Amitville II is rendered in typical “Damiani fashion” (perhaps unfortunately so in this case, since his somewhat gritty approach really doesn’t work at all in combination with all the supernatural stuff).
btw.: I’m pretty sure that some of the movies he did with Franco are available in Australia from one of the “1-Dollar bin” labels. (I think it’s the same one that also released Horror Express and Alice, sweet Alice) – at least in Melbourne you could find some titles quite easily a couple of years ago.
#6 by Ed on October 5, 2008 - 4:23 pm
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Ah, crummy horror sequels. God, I love them! Great work as always, Lyz.
#7 by MatthewF on October 6, 2008 - 4:44 am
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I like the fact that the legal distinctions between Amityville 1 & 2 are so obscure that you actually have to describe them before anyone notices. It must have been a Friday afternoon in court when the judge let that one through.
#8 by Ed on October 6, 2008 - 10:46 am
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On the topic of the second film; has Burt Young ever played a likable character? Seriously, every time I see the guy he’s playing some level of jerk.
#9 by KeithA on October 6, 2008 - 1:04 pm
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For some reason, when I was a kid and we stayed up late to watch Amityville 3D on satellite TV (my friend’s dad had one of those giant satellite dishes), the distorted photos and little demon face photo scared the hell out of me. And the ONLY thing I remember from Amityville: The Possession was that kid turning green and having his chest go all concave. Weird. Usually all I remember are the boobs.
#10 by lyzard on October 6, 2008 - 2:22 pm
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You don’t remember the boobs because that is simultaneously the moment when Sonny reveals he’s stolen Patricia’s panties from the laundry. This being a very Catholic film, it likes to make you feel as uncomfortable as possible about what you’re doing. 🙂
I always figured it was one of those cases where the judge recognises that while you’re technically correct (“The best kind of correct!”), you’re also a bit of an ass. Like when you sue for damages and get awarded $10.00. In this case they kindly awarded George a word.
#11 by KeithA on October 6, 2008 - 3:36 pm
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Now he should sue anyone who uses the word “Horror” in any title, ever.
#12 by Mark Hawley on October 6, 2008 - 9:06 pm
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He’s going to have to do it from beyond the grave since he died in 2006.
Inicidentally a funny fact: The lawyer who represented him during his suit against the remake was none other than Larry Zerner, aka Shelly from Friday the 13th Part III (in 3D)! Here’s his wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Zerner
Fitting that Lutz was reperesented by a guy most famous for playing a character who liked to pull hoaxes!
Also the bit in the review of Amityville 3-D about the bad special effect during the fake-seance scene reminded me of Howling 3 where the characters go see a werewolf film and the transformation scene was so laughably fake, I assumed they were having fun with how cheesy the FX were, then I was amazed to find out later transfomation scenes were just as bad, and coicidentally almost identical to that of the film within a film.
#13 by lyzard on October 9, 2008 - 4:00 pm
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Wow…. The 6-degrees-ness of that post is making my brain leak out of my ears.
#14 by The Rev. D.D. on October 10, 2008 - 9:45 am
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…Does that mean you’ll be reviewing some more Full Moon movies now?
Granted, that might add to the problem, but you’ll be less likely to notice now…
#15 by lyzard on October 10, 2008 - 3:19 pm
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Well, funny you should mention that…. 🙂
#16 by Ed on October 11, 2008 - 12:09 am
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Ah, once more unto the breach then. Eh, Lyz? Good luck.
#17 by The Rev. D.D. on October 11, 2008 - 9:04 pm
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Yipes! I didn’t mean it Ms. Kingsley! Don’t do it! Think of the child–erm…the fans! Let Nathan deal with them and save yourself! DON’T GO INTO THE LIGHT….OF THE FULL MOON!!!
#18 by MatthewF on October 13, 2008 - 10:52 am
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…but what if someone made a dollshouse of the amityville house? what then?
#19 by Paul Talbot on October 13, 2008 - 1:22 pm
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@MatthewF: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0115535/ 😉
#20 by lyzard on October 13, 2008 - 3:23 pm
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I’m GETTING THERE!! I’m GETTING THERE!! Yeesh! 🙂
#21 by supersonic on October 19, 2008 - 4:50 am
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Now if any rival group wants to mock and diss the B-masters crowd, all they need is to go “Ha, them? Their best film critic is half blind!”
#22 by lyzard on October 19, 2008 - 9:20 pm
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Half? Feh. I wish.
#23 by supersonic on October 19, 2008 - 9:59 pm
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So how blind are you? (And how do you escape being the equivalent of a deaf music critic?)
#24 by lyzard on October 19, 2008 - 10:16 pm
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Myopia, astigmatism, night blindness, no peripheral vision. I can see clearly about three inches without my glasses, and (using the word “clearly” somewhat loosely) ten feet with them. I have a 46 inch widescreen TV and sit on the floor about four feet away from it. Both our parents were long-sighted, yet my siblings and I are all blind as mole people. (And no – the physical evidence is that *none* of us were adopted.)
(Hmm….it occurs to me that I probably didn’t have to translate out of metric for you, did I?)
#25 by El Santo on October 21, 2008 - 7:32 pm
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Wow. I knew it was bad, but…
You’re going to be pretty much the first “sighted” person in line whenever they get around to inventing Geordi LaForge’s visor in the real world, aren’t you?
#26 by supersonic on October 21, 2008 - 8:09 pm
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Remember the weird false-color images it produced, because it takes in all kindsa non-optical wavelengths? Maybe it wouldn’t even work for watching TV with. You need one with an HDMI input jack so it can pipe the movie directly to your visual cortex. Which would certainly free up space in the living room.
“translate out of metric”? How much do feet and inches still get used down there?
#27 by lyzard on October 21, 2008 - 9:55 pm
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Some. People still use “feet” because there’s no comfortable unit under a metre, and “6 foot” because most people have an idea of that as a height (although newsreaders these days tend to say both – “the suspect is around 6 foot or 180 cm tall….”), and sometimes still give baby weights in pounds, but generally we talk metric.
#28 by KeithA on October 22, 2008 - 10:48 am
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I prefer the modern American system of measurement, which includes units such as “football field,” “truck,” and “watermelon.”
#29 by El Santo on October 22, 2008 - 8:39 pm
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“People still use ‘feet’ because there’s no comfortable unit under a metre”
That’s the biggest reason why I personally like the traditional English system better, even if it is vexingly irrational. Decimeters really don’t help.
#30 by MatthewF on October 23, 2008 - 2:58 am
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In england we have many other units of measurement such as double decker busses (…”enough nuclear waste leaked out to fill 10 double decker busses) and Wales (“…irradiating an area the size of Wales”). Sometimes we weigh things in rugby players.
#31 by Blake Matthews on October 23, 2008 - 9:26 am
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i have a combined total of six years living in Brazil and I still have to do the calculations in my head to get an idea of weight, height, and distance. Working with trade shows and models, however, has helped me a little bit in terms of associating height in centimeters with its close equivalent in feet.