Review of Poltergeist (2015) by Carlos D — 29 Oct 2015

You know, I remember saying in my review for the original film, which I wanna see again, that the remake's only hope would be to do something completely different with the story, like The Karate Kid with Jackie Chan did.

While the remake for the Karate Kid had the same basic concept of a martial arts expert training this kid and having him compete in a prestigious tournament, how they went about achieving this endgame was different, and that's why, to me, I thought the remake to the Karate Kid was a really good movie.

It did something different and, therefore, it avoided the comparisons to the original. It appears that the people who made the Poltergeist remake didn't take this into consideration and it pretty much did exactly the same thing as the original so, obviously, the comparisons are gonna be more evident and justified.

I mean the film has a pretty great cast, from Rosemarie DeWitt, Sam Rockwell, Jared Harris, Jane Adams. So the core of the cast is definitely strong and the film, in its own way, does pay tribute to the original film's greatness.

But that's also exactly the problem. Part of me wants to blame the filmmakers, but part of me also doesn't want to do that. I realize that the filmmakers, if they could've, would've preferred to make their own movie and not, basically, tell the same story with the same scares as the original.

But, at the same time, I'm sure studio pressure, or even subconscious pressure from themselves, makes it so that you don't change enough of the movie to piss off the people you want to get to see your remake in the first place, and that is the fans of the original.

While I'm sure they wanted to get their own audience to watch this film, the fact of the matter is that, unless you got some Paranormal Activity-type buzz going, then this was never gonna really be a big hit.

And the only people I can see being interested in this, without a PA-type buzz, would be the fans of the original. So you wanna make sure that the film is similar enough to where they're not pissed off.

So, the point is, that doing a remake to a classic horror film is incredibly difficult. If this film had been unique, like there wasn't a prior Poltergeist, in existence, would it have been good? I don't know, I honestly do not know.

I don't think it would've been that good either way, but the original Poltergeist DOES exist. Did I mention that the cast is great? At least looking at it, I mean it's a horror movie so they wouldn't be doing much anyway, but the cast is, at the very least, good.

And it's not like I thought this movie was bad or anything, it was certainly watchable at best, but it just plays too much like the original film for it to be taken seriously as its own, "unique", film.

All this ends up doing is making you want to see the original more and more. This is a 90 minute trailer for the film that it is based on. It's the most expensive trailer in existence honestly. There's not that many scares here to be honest, like what's there is only present in the first half of the film, the second half drops off greatly.

It's like they forgot they were a horror movie, the first half was the exposition in order to finally introduce Jane Adams' and Jared Harris' characters, which is when the film really begins.

It's not that the first half is killing time, but it just feel that important or relevant, because you know nothing is gonna happen until these two are introduced. I do think, however, that the climax is perfectly solid, the best part of the film.

The house pretty much being destroyed is pretty cool to see, as is seeing the 'realm' the little girl is stuck in, I don't think they showed you in the original, as far as I can remember, so I thought that was cool and probably the only thing the film did that was its own.

Again, that's as far as I can remember, the original movie may have shown the other 'realm' but I don't remember. It's cool to see but, unfortunately, the CG isn't very good. So while the idea of seeing the other realm is cool, I thought the CG pretty much minimized the impact it could've had.

The problem is that, to me, as a whole, this doesn't really feel much like a horror movie. Like the original film was pretty much a relentless attack of horror. This one, eh, not so much. Like it doesn't feel like there's much of a threat going on here, despite the film pretending that there is.

I don't know, it's just a film that didn't do much for me except want to see the revisit the old version. I can't recommend this if you have see the original film. Hell, I can't recommend this even if you haven't seen it.

It's not terrible, or anything, it's serviceable enough, and the cast definitely elevates a lot of it, but this isn't a good or effective horror movie. It's not a film that you should avoid, but there's better stuff out there that warrants your attention.

It Follows is excellent, maybe give that a shot? Nothing to see here, move along.