Final Girl Film Club - Amityville 2: The Possession

Ok so it's Final Girl Film Club time again, were the blogging world comes together, to bitch about one chosen movie, which this week is the turn of "Amityville 2: The Possession", the prequel to the 1979 original, which I only have vague recollections of watching, but I was curious to see if this film would prove to be more memorable than the first. So join me now as I now present you with my two cents on this months film choice.

Title: Amityville II: The Possession

Director: Damiano Damiani

Released: 1982

Staring: James Olson, Burt Young, Rutanya Alda, Jack Magner, Andrew Prine, Patrica Montelli Rating: 3/ 5

Plot: Years before George and Kathy Lutz moved in and were terrorized by the spirits in the Amityville House, a family, The Montellis, lived there before and were terrorized by demoniac spirits and their own son who is ready to kill them

Review: Sequels as I looked at with my last review can often be tricky things to pull off, let alone do well, with the main problems for sequels coming from trying to follow, directly on from were the first film ended. Still despite being one of the less well known of the horror franchises, especially amongst the fair-weather horror fans, who’d probably name “Nightmare on Elm St” & “Friday the 13th” when asked to name a long running horror series, the Amityville films have since the release of the 1979 original “The Amityville horror” spawned an impressive eight sequels, which includes this prequel and the 2005 remake of the same name with this film currently rumoured to be receiving the remake treatment in 2010.
Still with Sequels being such tricky things, it is perhaps because of this reason it was better that director Damiani, choose to make a prequel to the 1979 original, rather than a direct sequel, a choice that was also probably heavily influenced by the real life case of Ronald DeFeo, Jr who in 1974 shot his family, claiming that voices in his head told him to carry out the murders. Still seemingly this wasn’t interesting enough for Hollywood meaning that this film shares many connections to that case, changing the name of the family from DeFeo to Montelli, while at the same time, adding numerous details of its own to the case, using Hans Holzer’s book “Murder in Amityville” for the majority of the films extra plotting, with the most obvious addition of course being the idea of possession.

Opening with the Montelli family, moving into the now infamous house, they seem like a perfectly normal kind of family.....well actually they are pretty messed up to begin with as Anthony Montelli (Young) clearly prefers to rule the family with a domineering attitude, as he spends most of his time shouting at his children, even on several occasions appearing willing to use, physical force to control his children, but then when his kids seem as dysfunctional as they are, it makes you wonder how he hasn’t been driven (more) insane, especially seeing how his wife Delores (Alda) sees to be off in her own perfect little world, which gives the viewer that she is kind of oblivious to what is going on around her, even though she later confesses to her eldest daughter about how her marriage is secretly falling apart. Meanwhile the two youngest children are creepy as hell, with one such memorable scene involving Jan and Mark (played here by real life brother and Sister Erica and Brent Katz) play fighting in the kitchen, only for Jan to pull a plastic bag, over her brothers head while laughing “Ha Ha, Your dead” which to them seems incredibly funny, but to the audience comes across more than slightly creepy, much like the incestuous antics of the older brother and sister Sonny (Magner) and Patricia (Franklin), who even before the haunting’s have started and long before Sonny become possessed, are seen flirting with each other and even after Sonny has become possessed by a demon, (which is pure assumption on my part, seeing how it’s never properly explained) she doesn’t seem to find it weird that her brother is asking to see her naked, let alone the incest scene, which closely follows, with her only real remorse coming during an extremely brief confession to the priest, which here seems to only have been added, for the point of driving home the point that incest is bad (aswell as creepy), as no doubt Damiani didn’t want to obviously be seen, as promoting incest as a good thing.

Possession might be the main theme for this prequel, but we still manage to get a decent amount of ghostly activity despite this, including an extremely haunting sequences, as a paintbrush glides through the air, before drawing a picture, as a warning to the family, which Anthony refuses to believe is anything to do with ghost, much like when the kitchen is pretty much trashed by the spirits, which like the bedroom scene he’d rather blame on his children. Still these early haunting scenes, which begin almost from the start, as we are less than ten minutes into the film, when blood starts pouring from the tap’s, which would be enough of a warning for most people, that something strange is afoot, but seeing how it happens in front of Delores, she quickly writes it off in her own mind, rather than mention it to anyone.
It’s around the same moment that the ghostly haunting start to run out of steam that the film moves onto the main focus of the story, as Sonny becomes possessed, turning the film in more than one way into kind of a cash in on “The Exorcist” (1973) as we witness the battle between good and evil unfolding, as Father Adamsky (Olson) suffers visions of his own, such as holy water being turned into blood, as he attempts to bless the house and as he later attempts to save Sonny’s soul from the demon, which has taken control of him and which lead him to kill his family, during one particularly chilling scene, as a blank faced Sonny moves around the house, rifle in hand killing the members of his family one by one, while not even showing the slightest hint of emotion, in this recreation of the real life murders which the story is built around.
For fans of “The Exorcist” you might be able to detract from this film, for it’s exorcism like scenes, but personally I felt that it manages to bring it’s own spin to the idea, with a notably distinct lack of pea soup and more especially by bringing in the idea of a processed person, being driven to murder their family and how such a case would be seen in court, aswell as some still impressive transformation sequences, during the final confrontation between Sonny and Father Adamsky

The trouble with this film however is that, it never seems to know what sort of film it want to be, starting off as a family drama, as we see the dysfunctional family, trying to portray this image of family wholesomeness, only to then turn into a ghost story once the spooky thrills start, before then turning into a crime drama of sorts as we see Anthony threatening his wife with a rifle and even more so when Sonny kills his family, which in the lead up to those murders, the film is trying to busily turn itself into it’s forth incarnation as a possession movie, it almost had be shouting at the screen “Pick a genre already!”. Still somehow out of this jumbled wreckage of genre swapping, it still manages to be an entertaining film, even if this is your first introduction to the series, it stands well on it’s own or as part of the larger franchise.

Final Girl Film Club - The Beyond

Okay so it's that time once again, for us to all watch a film on mass and share our collective thoughts, an experience better known as "The Final Girl Film Club" which is just a small part of "Final Girl" Stacie Ponder's blog devoted to the slasher flicks of the 70's & 80's which of course is definatly worth a look if you havn't already.
For this latest edition of the film club, it's the turn of the 1981 Lucio Fulci flick "The Beyond"...please enjoy.

Title: The Beyond
Director: Lucio Fulci
Released: 1981
Staring: Catriona MacColl, David Warbeck, Cinzia Monreale, Antoine Saint-John, Veronica Lazar, Anthony Flees
Rating: 4 / 5

Plot: Liza ( MacColl ) inherits a dilapidated hotel from her uncle and decides to restore it unaware of the secrets it hides including the fact that it happens to also be built on one of the seven doorways to hell.

Review: Fulci is a director who I’ve honestly not seen a great deal of his back catalogue of films, though like fellow Italian director Dario Argento, he commands a rabid fan base, who will no doubt be overjoyed by the recent ( if long delayed ) release of “A Cat In the Brain” (1990) and who also tend to get rather upset with anyone wanting to bash their Idol, still until I watched “The Beyond” my only experience with his work had been via “Zombie Flesh Eaters” (1979) which is better known to many fans as “Zombi 2” and remembered not only for its notorious “splinter in the eye” scene but also for being one of the first Zombie movies, to answer that infernal question as to who would win in a fight between a zombie and a shark! With these fond memories in mind I was keen to see what else he had to offer.

Originally released as “Seven Doors of Death” it has since been reborn as “The Beyond” now it’s been restored to its uncut form, after seeing a variety of cuts over the years as censorship restrictions have changed over the years since it’s original release.
Opening in Louisiana back in 1927, were we are forced to bare witness to a lynch mob not only flailing a man accused of witchcraft with a chain, which cause large bloody wounds to appear as the chain tears at his flesh, as they then proceed to crucify him, before covering him with what looks like boiling hot mud and this is all within the first ten minutes of the film! This opening is shot in a monochrome tinge, which did kinda make me think I was watching “Cold Case” if a slightly ultra violent one at that. This shocking opening gives you a good indication of what is to follow, as the film now jumps forward to present day ( or 1981 as the handy title card points out ) and to were the main story is set, as we now follow the new owner of the hotel Liza, as a series of increasingly strange events start to happen around the hotel, including her chance meeting with the blind girl Emily ( Monreale ), who really could have come straight out of “Silent Hill” especially seeing how every line of dialogue seems to have a real spooky tinge to it, often cranking up the tension in the scenes she appears and it’s this attention that Fulci plays with throughout, often finding a reason to boost it slightly in the few occasional moments he lets up on the pressure, often aided by Fabio Frizzi’s score, which switches from Jeff Wayne electro style to nails dragging down glass moments of scratchiness, none more effective than during the spider sequence, in which we are forced to watch the tide of spiders slowly making their way towards an unconscious Larry.

The plot is confusing at the best of times, with the audience left the majority of the time to figure out what is going on, stringing together the few pieces of information that we get, from the mythology that Emily frequently spouts, making this hardly a film that you can watch half heartily, as it commands your full attention, just so you might have some clue of what is happening, which at times did have me wondering if anyone knew where this film was going, especially when you are suddenly thrown into the zombie rampage finale, which was supposedly added at the insistence of the German distributors, who at the time were in the midst of a Zombie craze, though honestly any excuse for a Zombie rampage will always be welcome viewing. In it’s most stripped down form, the plot could also be viewed purely as a way of linking one gory set piece to the next, which fair enough is one of the main selling points of Fulci’s work, especially seeing how he portrays each gory set piece with an almost voyeuristic delight, happily showing flesh being torn and bodily fluids flowing readily. He also manages to keep the death scenes inventive to say the least, even if he does seem to take great delight in having his death sequences involve the victims eyes in some way, often exaggerating an overused means of death by the simple act of including a damaged eyeball, whether being chewed on by spiders or poked out on a spike rammed through the back of one victims skull, Fulci seems to find a way to include it. Despite being heavily in the gore department, Fulci does manage a few decent shocks without the gore with the Bathtub sequence being particularly memorable, even if these brief moments usually lead to something alittle gorier. Another point worth noting while on the subject of gore though, is how true to its poster which really is, something of a rarity for films which feature a painted poster (often the tell tale sign of a bad movie), but “The Beyond” pays off on each of the posters promises, no doubt much to the delight of the gore hounds, no doubt disappointed in the past by similar promises given by the posters for similar horror flicks.

“The Beyond” is a real throwback to the glory days of horror films, before they became their current watered down state, especially with the insistence of using CGI over old school effects. It’s also worth noting how frequently looked down upon this film is by certain established critic which I discovered while doing the background research fro this review with Leonard Maltin giving it a two star rating, while Roger Ebert giving it even less with a half a star rating critising it for many of it Schlocky moments, when he has openly praised the work of Russ Meyer, whose work could easily be categorised in the same grindhouse genre that Fulci’s films belong, but while these critics might have once carried weight with their words, in these days were E-Critics are in such abundance, these opinions come across as nothing more than silver spooned opinions to those who still care enough to listen and we shouldn’t expect critics of this kind to appreciate a film like “The Beyond” without nitpicking it to death, when it should be appreciated for the dreamlike journey that it is. True you might not fully understand were your going, but the ride more than makes up for it.

Final Girl Film Club - Friday the 13th

Today is kind of a chance of pace, as this review is being written as part of the “Final Girl Film Club” which is of course part of the fantastic Final Girl blog run by Stacie Ponder, who quite rightfully in the midst of the remake of this months pick, has given us a chance to look back at the original, a film that I’m personally a huge fan of and is which is the first entry in one of the longest running horror franchises at 10 entries not including a spin off movie and TV series, something that few horror films manage to achieve outside of “Nightmare on Elm Street”. I am of course if you have for some strange reason, not guessed that I'm of course referring to the legendry “Friday the 13th”!!


So let’s not dwell on the fact that they have had the audacity to remake a true horror classic (aswell a 15 rated flick none the less) and instead, join me as we take a trip back to Crystal Lake to see were it all began.



Title: Friday The 13th

Director: Sean S. Cunningham

Released: 1980

Staring: Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Jeannine Taylor, Kevin Bacon, Walt Gorney

Rating: 5 / 5


Plot: Originally closed back in the late 50’s, after two camp councillors are butchered by an unknown assailant, Camp Crystal Lake is preparing to be reopened once more several years later, as a new group of councillors arrive at the camp, only soon to find themselves the target of the same killer who once more has some real nasty intentions.

Review: “Friday The 13th” it is safe to say a true horror classic and has been for many horror fans been a right of passage, aswell prime sleepover fodder since it’s release and like all classic horror films it still retains it’s ability to shock even now in these times when most of the films released around the same time have lost thier edge, Friday the 13th along with a few select others still maintains the shocks.
Following hot on the heels of John Carpenters equally classic “Halloween” which had started the slasher craze in 1978, it wouldn’t be until the release of Friday the 13th that the slasher genre would be come an integral part of the horror genre, spawning numerous copycat’s eager to cash in on the success of this new genre, with few coming close to matching the genius of this first film in the series and without a doubt certainly one of the most strongest entries, setting the foundations for which the series would build upon with future instalments, by giving us our first views of the now notorious camp site, which itself at the time was a new and original setting with most similar films at the time being set in suburbia, here in this setting the characters were going to the evil, rather than the evil coming to them, which until this point had been the traditional setup, with evil coming to the peaceful streets of suburbia, by having them going to the evil, it opened up a whole new wealth of posibilities, as now no one is safe, somthing that part three in perticular would be keen to enforce, when in the trailer the narator refers to these woods as "Jasons Woods"
So after the opening slaying of the two horny councillors, in a scene which bares more than a slight similarity to that of “Halloween” with the killer remaining firmly off screen, an idea which is continued as the new batch of councillors are killed off, with occasionally the audience getting to see an arm or a hand, but never enough to give away who the mystery loon is, which brings up a slight grumble, when you have the big final revel to find out its a character whose only just appeared and which thanks to “Scream” is now one of the worst kept surprise endings ever rivalled only by “The Sixth Sense” but even knowing this the film still manages to throw out a fair amount of red herrings that will have you guessing till the final revel, who the killer is before finishing off with one of the all time great horror endings, which thanks to some rather misguiding music, has on more than one viewing caught me off guard and feeling the sudden need for an underwear change.
The tense atmosphere slowly builds as the film progresses and the bodies begin to stack up, with the councillors being dispatched in increasingly gory ways, thanks largely to some great FX work by Tom Savini, with the most memorable of course being the famous arrow through the throat, as suffered by a young Kevin Bacon and it’s safe to say, that these death scenes, are probably the reason that the film has lasted as long as it has, with the whole script being built around the various death scenes. I still remember the first time I saw this film, being completely blown away by how you actually got to see the payoff, which is usually cut away from at the last second, in most horror films, but Friday the 13th would finally give the gore hounds what they all had longed to see, which again is thanks largely to Savini, who was egar to see just how far he could push the limits of Special FX at the time, with each death scene constantly trying to outdo the last.
Admittedly the acting is less special, with most of the cast’s acting being nothing to really report on, but is not so horrible to detract from the film, though special mention of course being Betsy Palmer who stars as Mrs Voorhees and manages to act everyone else off the screen, in her brief screen time as she turns from a friendly homemaker to full blown psycho in a matter of minutes, as her true madness is slowly revealed. It's really a credit to her performance that this change works as well as it does, seeing how when she first appears, she appears to be the kind of motherly figure you’d appreciate a hug from and no doubt enjoys making apple pie, an illusion shattered to pieces when, she revels her real grudge against horny camp councillors, which is definatly made clear as she snaps in front of Alice, adding even more creepyness by taking moments out of the chase with Alice to talk to herself, channeling her deformed son Jason, while staring into the camera with a genuinely creepy smile on her face. It’s interesting to note that Betsy Palmer would have turned down the role, had she not been in such desperate need for a new car, calling the film “a piece of shit” after reading the script. Another popular piece of fanboy history, also says that she originally won the role, due to being able to drive out to the set, still even if this is true it is hard to imagine any other actress being able to make the role as memorable as she did, even if the series is remembered more for the later antics of Jason, it would be his mother that paved the way for what is still one of my favourite horror series.

Studio bosses may be adding Friday the 13th to the ever increasing list of remakes and with decent remakes of these classic films few (Rob Zombie’s Halloween being a notable exception) and with all reports at the moments currently not showing this latest addition, as the one remake that will be break the chain of bad remakes that audiences have so far been forced to endure, but at least on the positive side, the fans will always have the classic original to return to.