Poltergeist (2015)
Directed by Gil Kenan
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Kennedi Clements
Reviewed by Chip Fehd
Okay, I need to get something off my chest. I will admit I did not want to see the Poltergeist remake. Nope. Nuh-uh. No chance in hell. The original Poltergeist (1982) was one of the defining films of my childhood, and I can still recall every frame to this day. There are maybe three films to ever truly scare the crap out of me as a kid: 1980’s The Changeling with George C Scott; The Eyes Of Laura Mars with Tommy Lee Jones and Faye Dunaway (don’t ask); and Poltergeist (hell, I still can’t look at clown dolls the same way). So when they announced a Poltergeist remake, I was completely against it. I am an unabashed fanboy of the original, and I figured there just wasn’t a snowballs’ chance in Hell of it ever working, or even coming close to the original.
Was I wrong?
Well, yes and no.
Overall, Poltergeist wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, but it didn’t come anywhere close to even sniffing the originals jock. Let me explain.
In order for any remake of Poltergeist to work, you really need to nail the casting. A lot of what made the original so memorable was its casting with JoBeth Williams (still my favorite movie mom of the 80’s) and Craig T. Nelson. They are replaced in the remake with Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt, who end up being suitable enough in their respective roles. I’m a huge fan of Rockwell, but here he plays things a bit straighter than what he is known for.
The kids in the original (Dominique Dunne (RIP), Oliver Robbins and Heather O’Rourke (again-RIP)) all excelled in their roles. In the remake, the kids were more of a mixed bag. Out of the three, only young Kennedi Clements, who plays Madison, really shines. She is an absolute doll, and you really feel it when the ghosts start messing with her. The other two kids are essentially just Bitchy Teenager and Paranoid Brother caricatures. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the great Zelda Rubenstein (Tangina) from the original. Here, her part is covered by the mucho talented Jared Harris, who does what he can in what is essentially an extended cameo, as Carrigan Burke, a TV personality who is called in to help the terrorized family.
So by now, you’ve hopefully gathered what the movie is about. A completely typical suburban family moves in to a new house that turns out to be haunted. The Poltergeist (a really pissed off and vengeful entity or entities) then proceed to make the family’s life a living hell. The youngest daughter is taken, ghost hunters get called, you know the deal. Let’s just say if you don’t know how everything goes, then turn in your horror union card right now. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Anyway, the movie plays out like a Poltergeist greatest hits collection. Most of the best scenes from the original get covered here. There’s the haunted tree outside the middle child’s window, a riff on the melting face bit (geared more for the PG-13 rating of 2015), there is the clown doll (still icky after all these years) and they even have some fun with the line “This house is clean” from the original.
Everything is updated from the technology of the 80’s. Now, the kids use smart phones and drones and the youngest does the whole “They’re here” from in front of a flat screen TV. It’s adequately shot, and you can tell the filmmakers have a fondness for the source material, but it really doesn’t add anything new to what was already considered a classic. I found myself mildly engaged for the brief 93 minute running time, but it quickly faded from memory. It wasn’t as offensive as I thought it might be, but it didn’t really accomplish much other than being a pretty standard ghost story.
- Poltergeist (2015) – Movie Review - October 6, 2015
