Poltergeist Movie Review
A family moves into a house and almost immediately strange things begin to happen. Soon afterward their youngest daughter is trapped in some alternate dimension via a portal in her closet. We all know the original Poltergeist is a horror classic--this remake...well...we'll just say the words "horror classic" will never be used by any sort of majority to describe this film. The storyline is similar, but different enough to separate itself a bit from the original. The family in this film seems to be struggling more financially than the family in the first (this may lead the viewer to question how they can afford all the expensive stuff we see throughout the film). This film also seems less horror driven, and almost borders on comedy, in thanks mainly to the father/husband in the film, Eric Bowen.
Smile Eric
Let me preface this by saying I am a Sam Rockwell fan. I have loved him in practically everything I have seen him in (Seven Psychopaths, Iron Man 2, The Way Way Back, even Galaxy Quest), but he is absolutely miscast in this film. His performance completely throws off the mood of the rest of the film, one that should be of doom and horror is offset by Rockwell's portrayal of a father seeing his family falling apart and being nonchalant (at best) about it. The iconic scene of the daughter turning to her family and proclaiming "They're here" returns in this film, but the delivery is as mundane and uninteresting as you can possibly imagine.
"They're here...what's for breakfast?"
The clown also returns, but looking a bit more sinister, so I guess that's a good thing. The special effects don't seem any better than those in the original...that's pretty disappointing considering the CGI capabilities of a 2015 film and taking into account this film came out 33 years after the original! The special effects of the 1982 film, while dated now, were groundbreaking for the time. The special effects and CGI in this 2015 film are largely laughable. There are a few scares here and there, and some creepy images, but you really expect more from this film. Sam Raimi was one of the producers of this film, and you can certainly see his influence, but unlike some of this legendary works from the past, Poltergeist seems to lack any particular direction and vision. There are enough bright spots in the film to keep you watching until the end (Jared Harris as poltergeist expert/reality television star Carrigan Burke really shines here), but unfortunately this film is neither scary, funny, or terribly interesting--Instead, it is a movie that is doomed to be on lists of worst horror remakes and lost in the sea of mediocre movies for years to come.
On A Scale Of One To Ten: 5
Poltergeist Movie Trailer
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