Amityville II: The Possession

I really love horror movies. Which is why these last few years have been so painful. At their best, the fear and revulsion at the core of films of the genre can be linked with social observation to make really powerful psycho/social pieces. From Poe to Lang to Hitchcock to Romero, Cronenberg, De Palma and the rest of the young American directors of the 60's and 70's, it's a truly noble tradition. And then came the leeches: the hollow, greedy, gore/possession movies that have given the genre such a bad name recently. Dino DeLaurentiis, the producer of this dismal "prequel", doesn't make films, he takes up theatre space. The idea that Christianity is also devil worship isn't particularly new, nor particularly revolutionary, it's just convenient. Typical DeLaurentiis; nothing to say, just somewhere to say it. It's not that Amityville II is bad, it's just worthless. The acting is OK, the direction adequate, if predictable, and it's scary enough. But if all a movie can do is scare you, why bother? There was absolutely no reason for this movie to be made, other than to give a few people jobs and take up a couple of hours of my time. Sorry, Dino, but if only as a protest against the whole trend, this one gets no stars at all.