Poltergeist (2015) – A Review

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by Mark Salcido

‘THEY’RE HERE…zzzZZZ’

‘Poltergeist’ is the 2015 remake of the 1982 classic. It’s directed by Gil Kenan of ‘Monster House’ and ‘City of Ember’ fame. It stars Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Saxon Sharbino, Kyle Catlett Kennedi Clements, Jared Harris and Jane Adams. It tells the story of a family who moves into a house where a poltergeist has taken resident.

Now of course in this remake frenzy world we live, there will be some comparison to the original which is considered a horror classic. But I promise to judge as bestMV5BMjIzNTI1ODgwM15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMDYwODA1NTE@._V1_SX640_SY720_ as I can solely on its acting, visual and story. Before I continue let it be known that I have no problem with remakes. I loved Zack Snyder’s take on ‘Dawn of the Dead’. ‘The Crazies’ was serviceable. ‘3:10 to Yuma’ was definitely a good one. Scorsese’s ‘The Departed’, for god sake. Those are good ones. ‘Poltergeist’ is not one of those.

Alright let’s get to the biscuit. Let’s start with the story. It’s simple but adds nothing to justify a remake. Normally you might get a deeper story to go with the reasoning the presence of a ghost, or why the killer is on that killing spree, or just something to make you go “hhmm, so that’s why the victims are victims.”  Now, I know not everything needs a back story, but come on; give me a justification for my ticket purchase. That being said, I only saw this film because it was uncle and niece night and horror is usually a shared interest of ours.

The acting: yyyeah about that. It’s there, people act in it because it isn’t exactly a documentary. The folks try to make what they have, work, but it wasn’t enough. I will give it to my man Sam Rockwell. Always enjoy seeing him anything. I’ll go and see him read out loud the names out of phonebook because he’ll bring his Sam Rockwell touch to it.

There is one scene in the film that I almost cringe of the thought of it. (Spoilers) When Jared Harris informs the family what they got themselves into, he and Rockwell go back in forward in a, I guess was suppose to be an emotional moment. I mean, you see Rockwell poltergeist2015turning on the “water works” to let the audience know that he is suffering on the inside the most at the possibility his daughter might be lost on the “other side”.  That scene just fell flat. Even the famous “They moved the headstones but didn’t move the bodies” landed on a thud.  Am I cold hearted?  No. I just think it didn’t work. I would like to mention Kennedi Clements as she takes over the role of ‘Madison’ who went by ‘Carol’ played Heather O’Rourke. Clements had some big shoes to fill, although she doesn’t steal the role, you can tell she’s got a future in acting.

The scare: Oh boy. It follows the same formula of a typical jump-scare flick that’s been the go to for most horror movies of the past decade. A loud bang here, a surprise grabbed from an unseen entity there, just a lack of creativity to frighten. The budget was naturally bigger than its predecessors and we live in the fantastical world of CGI but I just couldn’t find anything scary. The director went as far as to give us a tour of what was on the “other side”.  I’ll give it a plus for helping us picture what Madison was witnessed to, but I’ll still give it a negative because it gave us little to the imagination. Even the famous “face melting” scene was done too quickly of a throwaway. I’ll admit the original doesn’t deserve high marks in effects, but I still remember it to this day.

So, I would say that this one is a definite skip. I get the urgency for the cash grab in the market of horror but if you want your film to continue to be talked about for more than a day, you got to bring something that’s going to stick with you. I even caught myself laughing in the last 15 minutes as everything was drawing to a conclusion. Now excuse as I dust off the original and pop that bad boy into the VCR.