Home Invaders

Poltergeist (2015)

Well everyone, I’m gonna do it again. I am not going to waste your time with fluff to try and polish a turd. Like I have done in the past with the last two Hobbit films, I am going to just tell you how it is and try to make sense of whatever chaotic mess that I have just watched. Hopefully I can find the words to describe the pile of crap that I have just subjected myself to. So please take this journey with me as I begin to rant on about this summer’s remake of 1982 classic, Poltergeist.

For those of you that don’t know me very well, I am going to start off by saying…I despise remakes. To me this goes to prove that originality in Hollywood is barely alive and that studio CEO’s just want to make money (this part I am sure is obvious). People love the originals and want to see an updated version or that some studio wants to bring a movie into a new generation to love. STOP IT! First of all, if you want to see an updated version than the version you fell in love with didn’t mean that much to you. Would you want to take a beloved object from your past and trade it in for something shinier? Second of all, if studios want to bring the movie back for a new generation to appreciate, then RERELEASE THE ORIGINAL! Get kids to see why the original was so loved in the first place. So when I heard that some genius had decided to remake yet another horror film, my eyes began to roll. What flared my temper was when I learned that that same genius decided to remake Poltergeist. The scariest PG-rated movie ever was being updated with flat screen TV’s and iPads. Now I know what you are thinking, I did this to myself and I agree with you. I just didn’t realize that it was going to hurt this bad.

If you haven’t been privileged to watch the ’82 version let me give you just a brief background on the premise of both films: All-American family moves to Small Town, USA into a remarkably affordable spiffy new home. Shortly after moving into said spiffy home, the family starts to experience strange things around the house and quickly learns why the house was so cheap. In both versions, the youngest daughter is targeted by the spirits and is sucked into another plane of existence. This in turn freaks out the parents and is forced to call in the reinforcements that consist of some paranormal experts and a kooky ‘ghost hunter’.  

Since this is a ‘review’ of the 2015 version, I will try and not use profanity while describing the film. This is a polished, yet crappy, literal remake. While changing a few details here and there and updating the technology, I really felt that I was watching the original all over again. With this version though, I was watching a bunch of overpaid D level actors trying to carry an A listed movie; which upset me very much because I so like Sam Rockwell (Seven Psychopaths) and in this movie he seemed bored or that he just didn’t care about how he was doing. The two youngest actors (Kyle Catlett and Kennedi Clements) were the only decent performers in this film.

As for the direction and the script, this was a lazy attempt at a remake. I know that I have just gone on about how I hate remakes, but come on…at least put some effort into trying to make the new version your own. Don’t change little bits and call it your own. That should be illegal somewhere. Gil Kenan (Monster House) and David Lindsay-Abaire (normally a Broadway playwright) are the director and screenwriter respectively. They both can do better than this piece of garbage. Kenan did a wonderful job with the children’s horror movie Monster House and Lindsay-Abaire received a Pulitzer for Drama in 2007 and has been nominated multiple times for Tony Awards (Broadway’s Oscars if you don’t know). So Lindsay-Abaire can write, so I am a little confused on what the hell happened with this movie.

This version of Poltergeist will be added to my ever growing laundry list of reasons on why remakes, especially horror movie remakes, are a bad idea. The movie was boring and the characters were even more uninteresting. Please just watch the original, save yourself the time and money to go to the movie theaters and essentially watch the same movie. I’m sure it is in a bargain bin somewhere and you will spend the same amount of money on the Blu-ray as you would at the theater. You’ll thank me later.

The Verdict: Not Worth It.