Poltergeist (2015) Recipe Card Movie Review
Poltergeist (2015)
2015-05-22 00:53:50
Released May 22, 2015 / Horror / PG-13
Cook Time
1 hr 33 min
Ingredients
- Stars: Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Kyle Catlett, Saxon Sharbino, Kennedi Clements,
- Jared Harris, Jane Adams, Susan Heyward, Nicholas Braun
- Written by: David Lindsay-Abaire
- Directed by: Gil Kenan
Instructions
- Legendary filmmaker Sam Raimi (“Spider-man”, “Evil Dead”, “The Grudge”) and director Gil Kenan (“Monster House”) contemporize the classic tale about a family whose suburban home is haunted by evil forces.
- When the terrifying apparitions escalate their attacks and hold the youngest daughter captive, the family must come together to rescue her before she disappears forever.
Notes
- I think the point in remaking a movie should be to improve upon an inferior produced film which has the potential to be made into a better film. Unfortunately, that’s not the reason films are remade today. The main reason would be to capitalize upon a well-known property for financial gain. So making a better film doesn’t always factor into it. I mean, why else would you remake a classic like “Poltergeist?” It not only still holds up great today, but the film itself doesn’t really give much room to improve upon it.
- In regards to this new 2015 version, they changed all of the character’s names, but the story structure stays pretty much the same. We have the little girl communicating with poltergeists through the TV, the freaky clown doll, the scary-looking tree outside the window, the entrance and exit to the ghostly portal, and the psychic that comes in late in the film to help exorcise the house.
- One of the main problems that I had with this new version was that I found that very little chemistry existed between the actors. I didn’t believe for a moment they were a real tight-knit family. I felt they were actors playing characters. In the 1982 version, you could feel the love between the parents and the kids. When the parents lost their little girl, Carol Anne, you could see the panic in their eyes. You felt their pain. I just didn’t get with this new version. Though capable actors, there just wasn’t a connection between them. The casting was off. And it hurt the film.
- Also, I found the whole look of the movie to be a bit drab. For some reason, in horror films today, they suck all of the color out of the picture and keep the whole tone of the film dark. That’s why I find most of today’s horror films to be lifeless – because there is no life in them. The characters and the settings are always dreary. The world that these people inhabit just doesn’t feel real. If some of these films injected a little color into their settings and life into their characters, then maybe we as an audience would form a tighter connection to the story and really care when a character was in danger from a specific threat.
- But on a positive note, I thought the film’s special effects looked great. I did like that we got to journey into the world of the poltergeists. That was definitely creepy. Plus we had both Sam Rockwell and Jared Harris in the same movie – so that never hurts. And I did like that they changed up a few of the plot elements so that the film wasn’t a complete clone. And I thought the 3D (I saw it in 3D) worked very well. But ultimately, the movie just wasn’t as much fun as the original.
- So in summary, it wasn’t a bad film. It’s just that I didn’t see a point in this remake. And every time a character read some of the same dialogue that appeared in the ’82 version, I just felt like I was watching a stage production based on that original film. It just didn’t feel right. Even when that iconic movie line “They’re here” was finally uttered, it was said in a very non-ominous way. It didn’t nearly have the same weight attached to it as when Heather O’Rourke said in 33 years back.
- So my advice is this… if you want to see a good “Poltergeist” film, watch the ’82 version. You’ll have a good time. But if you insist on seeing this one, you’ll probably walk away thinking… ‘Eh, it was okay.’
Know It All Joe https://www.knowitalljoe.com/