Review of Poltergeist (2015) by Jim222001 — 30 May 2015

What makes a Poltergeist remake unnecessary is that recently movies like the Conjuring and Insidious gave me some Poltergeist deja vu. In those films a psychic showed up to help a family with supernatural problems and brought a team along to record their findings. Despite both being good films I already felt like I was watching two Poltergeist remakes.

The remake is better than they say due to a good cast and decent enough acting. Besides the Conjuring and Insidious it seems like movies about ghosts targeting a family come out 2-3 times a year these days. So there's just nothing fresh this remake could give us that wasn't done in recent movies or especially the classic original.

The best thing about the movie is that Sam Rockwell (The Green Mile, Iron Man 2) for some reason is in this as the father. He is believable and makes a good replacement for the original father who was played by Craig T. Nelson. What's missing though is the smart humor of the original. The mom putting a football helmet on the daughter and then putting her on a spot of the kitchen floor that magically pushes objects across the room. Was funny in the original and yes bad parenting. This movie tries too hard to be scary and lacks the originals sense of humor.

I watched the original last week; the film still works and I can't say updated effects made this remake superior in anyway. Which goes for pretty much every remake these days. While it's hardly Poltergeist without Zelda Rubinstein who was great as the psychic in the original.