Poltergeist (2015)

"A family whose suburban home is haunted by evil forces must come together to rescue their youngest daughter after the apparitions take her captive."

Oh God, here we go with the unnecessary remakes again! 'Tis the season! Not that I'm opposed to every remake. Some of them have been better than the originals, particularly in nearly every case of the Asian horror movies which I once collected.

Yeah, some of those remakes are on the Ghost House Pictures label, the same company who are the producers of this movie, so you'd think that they would know what they were doing by now. You'd be wrong, of course. So very wrong.

Look, I'm sure that you know exactly what I'm going to say about "Poltergeist" before I even write it, so let's cut straight through the chase here.

The remake of "Poltergeist" is
complete and utter shite!

Print that on the eventual Blu-ray slipcase!

I don't feel the need to back this up with any reasons. It's already bad enough that I wasted my time and money by watching this soulless piece of crap, and I don't want to torture myself more by writing about it. And no, it has nothing to do with nostalgia.

I've always disliked the original 1982 version because it only has one scene in it which even resembles real poltergeist activity, i.e. the stacking chairs one, and thus even the title of the movie was a bait and switch con job. Fundamentally, the rest of "Poltergeist" is a padded and updated ripoff of the "Little Girl Lost" episode from "The Twilight Zone" TV series anyway.

I can't stand the dope-smoking parents, or the irritating kids, and jump scares don't work on me. On top of that, the smug ghosthunting team and that awful Tangina thing grip my shit. The only two things which I care to remember fondly from the whole ordeal are JoBeth Williams' beautiful shiny legs. That's it.

In my opinion, the original "Poltergeist" is a stupid but fairly harmless, family-friendly Spielberg fantasy in everything but the director's name. I have no idea if Tobe Hooper really directed it or not. I don't care. I simply don't like "Poltergeist". I'm not an American, I don't connect with the suburban situation or the characters, and I have absolutely no nostalgic feelings about it whatsoever. Just waves and waves of bitter disappointment that it isn't actually about poltergeists.

And you know what? I don't like the sequels either.

"Poltergeist II: The Other Side" (1986) seems like an inferior ripoff of John G. Jones' genuinely terrifying "The Amityville Horror Part II" (1982) novel to me, and "Poltergeist III" (1988) is nothing but a badly made final cash grab which isn't worth piss. Back in the day, I only got through that mess of a movie because I didn't want to completely waste the VHS rental fee. It then turned into a waste both of money and part of my life. Fuck that movie too!

As for this "Poltergeist" remake. I've said all that I want to. If you need further validation, I recommend that you read round the other independent reviewers rather than the "big name" sites carrying those enormous "Poltergeist" advertisements. We all feel much the same way. There's probably nothing different on any of the free blogs which I wouldn't have said about "Poltergeist" myself if I even gave two shits about it, but the most condemnation that the shill sites will dare to write is "Well, it's not bad for a remake..." Fuck that noise!

Just watch the IMDb score drop over the weekend as more people find out the truth for themselves. It's only on 5.8 now! The comments on the official Facebook page are hilariously illuminating too. "Poltergeist is bad, it's really bad. It's "A Nightmare on Elm Street" remake bad! It's too modern, truncated, the ending is rushed, the acting/characterisation is horrible, there's no chemistry, no emotion, it isn't scary... Oh, you nearly got me there. No, I'm not doing this anymore. No more negativity!!! I'm outta here!

If you're really that desperate for a "Poltergeist" remake, try "Grave Secrets: The Legacy of Hilltop Drive" (1992) or "Insidious" (2010) instead. I haven't reviewed them either.