Poltergeist (2015)

I vaguely remember watching the original version of this on television many years ago. The only abiding memory I have is of a little girl mewling 'They're coming,' and a television screen dancing with static. So on that basis, I have nothing much to compare this remake to. It begins with that most frightening thing: the wholesome family unit!Dad (Eric played by Sam Rockwell) is initially something of a twit but we warm to him as time goes on; mum (Amy, Rosemary DeWitt) tolerates everything with a smile; the teen daughter (Kendra, Saxon Sharbino) is constantly bored, growing up to look perfect and is spitefully sardonic and unbearable unless she gets her own way; the young son (Griffin - Kyle Catlett injects a refreshing earnestness into his character) is the best of the lot: un-sporty, polite and reserved, and the little girl (Maddie, Kennedi Clements) is a typical drama student juvenile. No more, no less. The paranormal investigator Carrigan Burke (Jared Harris) called out to investigate livens things up.The encroaching possession elements are handled very well. Apart from the cartoon-ish CGI tree terrorising Griffin, most of the effects in the house are real and physical (the finale very much the exception). The camera pans round a bedroom full of everyone sleeping as all the electrical items crackle on and off of their own accord. There are loud bangs and musical stings. And not one of these things is remotely frightening. What is guaranteed to squash the effect is the almost constant accompaniment of screaming children - which may be something I might be in the minority having any kind of problem with.I would say this is as competent as it can be, with a spectacular finale. It doesn't appear to tarnish the high reputation of the original, but doesn't take any particular risks with the format either.

If you did not grow up with the original and are quite new to it, your going to like this new movie. The problem is : if you know the original movies very well, you start noticing this very quickly : they made a checklist of scenes from all 3 that they wanted to incorporate into this version. As if they feel obliged to include certain scene's to make it a poltergeist movie. And that makes this remake missed opportunity. Remakes...... never saw the reason to. Except making easy money.

So, I watched the 2015 Poltergeist with my sister tonight and it was pretty disappointing. It felt very rushed and it just took itself way too seriously. I felt the nervousness of the director, whoever that may be. I realize they were attempting to live up to the hype, as Poltergeist was a VERY big hit, but he/she needed to relax and take the time to get it right. I won't go into details in case anyone hasn't seen it by now because it took me this long to watch it myself, but the lighting and sound is everything. I liked the twist it had at the end and I liked the idea they had for the drone and the drill, but the rest of the movie doesn't add up to the greatness of those ideas. I really wanted to like it, but it was just trying way too hard and combine that with the budget, which I know they probably had issues with because of how iffy most directors are with one-time movies, it just didn't do well. It had potential, but it sold itself short. If I were to give advice to the director of this movie, I'd tell them to go back to basics and learn film and narrative aspects and to study the original a little further. I really do think if this director had more time and had relaxed a bit, it would've been a much better movie. Living up to Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper, that's up to debate(they're legends and legends are incredibly hard to surpass), but I could be proven wrong.

This was definitely not as bad as people said. When I started watching, I was waiting for the worst horror movie ever made, worse than all those cheesy horror films, like The Bunnyman Massacre, and things like that. What I found was actually a pretty suspenseful, decent horror movie. Okay, so they could have laid off the really tacky CGI a little more than they did, that was horrendous. However, the use of suspense was really well done. I had goosebumps, I was on the edge of me seat and I kept chewing on my nails. I shivered, and I was really quite scared.There was quite a lot that they could have done better, that is for sure. There was a lot of things that could be edited, and they could have done tons better on the CGI, as I mentioned before, things like the tree and the ghosts themselves were just really, really terrible. I laughed a lot at some of it, couldn't stop laughing really. It wasn't meant to be funny, but I just couldn't stop laughing.It could have been a lot better, but it also could have been a lot worse. It's really not as bad as everyone was saying, definitely watch this and make your own opinion on it.