Off Script: The Amityville Horror; Amityville II: The Possession

Film: The Amityville Horror; Amityville II: The Possession
Format: DVD from Stockton Township Public Library (Amityville) and Somonauk Public Library (Amityville II) through interlibrary loan on The New Portable.

There have probably been stories of haunted places for about as long as there have been stories in general. Tons and tons of horror stories and horror movies have dealt not with the idea of evil people or entities, but have instead dealt with the concept of evil places, places that are “born bad” to put it in the parlance of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. While there are many of these stories, probably the best known of the genre is The Amityville Horror, which takes a page out of the playbook from The Exorcist as well as The Haunting. In this case, we have a house that was not merely born bad but that is alleged to be literally possessed by Satan himself.

The film starts as the Lutz family movies into the house in question. They’ve gotten the house for a song because it was the site of a previous mass murder; the oldest son of the previous residents slew his parents and younger siblings, blaming it on voices that he heard from the house. It’s not long before the house itself starts to demonstrate that his claims of hearing voices might not just be looking for an insanity plea.

Round Trip

Film: Voyage of the Damned
Format: DVD from Bourbonnais Public Library through interlibrary loan on rockin’ flatscreen.

When Voyage of the Damned showed up from at the library, I didn’t really know what I was getting. And then I looked at the cast list. This is a cast that, and I say this with only slight hyperbole, made me pee myself a little. Now, admittedly, a great number of the notables only appear in a couple of scenes. Denholm Elliott, for instance, has about half a dozen lines in the first couple of minutes and never appears again. Seriously, though, the cast is astonishing. Voyage of the Damned also happens to be Jonathan Pryce’s first film and Oskar Werner’s last film. Just to name drop more of the cast, it features James Mason, Faye Dunaway, Max von Sydow, Orson Welles, Malcolm McDowell, Michael Constantine, Jose Ferrer, Julie Harris, Wendy Hiller, Ben Gazzara, and Lee Grant (the only person here to earn a nomination). Seriously, I peed a little.

Voyage of the Damned is a “message” film in that we’re going to be getting a big, important story about the sort of thing that filmmakers love to deliver messages about. In this case, the main theme is one of anti-Semitism in Europe and the world before the outbreak of World War II. In a sort of public relations stunt, the German government has loaded a collection of close to 1000 Jews with the intent to ship them off to Havana. It’s a sort of goodwill gesture/refugee dump with an ulterior motive. Captain Schroeder (Max von Sydow) is a noted non-Nazi, which is why Otto Scheindick (Helmut Griem) is placed on board to make sure that there’s no seditious behavior going on.

Doing Time

Film: Brubaker
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

I imagine for a particular type of actor, playing the crusading hero is kind of fun. Personally, I’d rather play villains because they tend to get the best lines. But at a particular stage in a career, I guess a lot of actors want to look back at something they did that might have had more of an impact than just cackling madly and chewing scenery. Thus we get Robert Redford’s performance in Brubaker where he plays the role of a crusading prison warden.

We don’t know this initially, by the way. The film begins with Henry Brubaker (Redford) riding on a bus to Wakefield State Prison in an unknown (but likely Southern, based on accents) state. For all we know, he’s just one of the inmates. What he finds is a place rife with disturbing behaviors, terrible conditions, and a great deal of illegal activity from the higher-ups and many of the prisoners. The general population is given sub-standard food that is rife with maggots, sleep in terrible conditions, and are farmed out as slave labor for local businesses. The prisoners who act as trustees actually live pretty well. The food grown on the prison farm is sold off to businesses at a profit, and the food the prison buys for the inmates is also sold for a profit. When one of the death row inmates (played by Morgan Freeman in his first credited big screen role) threatens the life of another inmate (David Keith), Brubaker blows his cover and starts reforming the prison.

Plastic Jesus

Film: Cool Hand Luke
Format: VHS from personal collection on big ol’ television.

My brother-in-law Mike’s favorite film is Cool Hand Luke. At least it used to be. I’m honestly not sure if it still is, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he still claimed it as his favorite. Mike’s favorite thing to say about Cool Hand Luke is that the average temperature per scene is hotter than any other film ever made. Every scene is 100+ degrees. Sadly for Mike, Sunshine, which takes place in large part in close proximity to the sun probably eclipses that record just on the virtue of having a couple of scenes with temperatures in the millions. Still, I think his point might well stand. This movie involves a lot of sweating.

We are introduced to Luke (Paul Newman) when he is completely drunk and cutting the heads off parking meters. This gets him a two-year sentence on chain gang, where we’ll be spending most of the rest of our time. It is here that we meet the rest of the players. The other prisoners include Babalugats (Dennis Hopper), Tramp (Harry Dean Stanton), Koko (Lou Antonio), and Dragline (George Kennedy), who is very much the prisoner in charge of the gang. The key bosses here are Boss Godfrey (Morgan Woodward), better known as the Man With No Eyes and the Captain (Strother Martin). Luke learns quickly that he’s got no power in the chain gang but can’t stop his mouth from running.