Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)

A-Z Horror Movie of the Day..."Poltergeist 2: The Other Side" (PG-13 - 1986 - US)Sub-Genre: Paranormal/Sequel My Score: 6.6Cast=8 Acting=7 Plot=7 Ending=9 Story=6 Scare=4 Jump=5 F/X=7 Creep=8 Sequel=5The Freeling family have a new house, but their troubles with supernatural forces don't seem to be over. "Alright then! I'll sing you a song...until your mom comes back!" God can stay in his holy temple as I watch this awaited sequel. I still liked this, but the script wasn't as good. Reverend Kane was as creepy as all get out and it had a solid ending. The story had holes in it and the scares were lacking, but it's still worth seeing for the paranormal fan. One thing's for sure...they're gonna have to move again!

The house is gone. Tangina Barrons is digging at the site and finds the Indian burial grounds. She is joined by Native American shaman Taylor. The Freelings have moved in with Diane's mother Jess in Phoenix (without the older daughter). It's been a year and their insurance claim is in limbo. Steve is struggling selling vacuum cleaners. The evil spirit of Rev. Henry Kane is after Carol Anne. Jess dies after telling Diane of Carol Anne's abilities. Tangina sends Taylor to help the family.The death of Dominique Dunne needs to be acknowledged. Her character vanishes as if she never existed. It leaves a big hole especially since her scream is such an iconic scene. This sequel is essentially setting up for a repeat with Taylor as the new outside help. I don't like Taylor and he's not really necessary. Kane has a nice creepy look but he would be more effective at night. I don't understand why his scenes happen in the daylight. It also rewrites the cause of the original. I really don't like the retcon. The original's idea of the cementary is far superior putting the cause down to greed. On the other hand, the best has to be the limb-less creature coming out of Steve. It's a very memorable creature design. Overall, this could have been a functional stand alone movie. The retcon is problematic. As a sequel, the sense of inferiority is never far.

Having a taste for Carol Anne's life force the evil cult leader and his victims want their spirits freed. Made in a time when sequels were usually cheap cash ins and one if any of the original cast would return, Poltergeist II production values are welcomely high, with the majority of the main cast returning. The only family member absent from the film is Dana, (sadly actress Dominique Dunne was murdered in real life) the reason for her character's absence however is never explained. The late director Brian Gibson's Poltergeist instalment is more interesting when JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson reprising their roles as Dianne and Steve are acting the hell out of it or when creepy Kane played eerily by the brilliant late Julian Beck is on screen with the visual effects, floating chainsaws, possession and heroic spell castings taking a backseat. The special effects are nearly 30 years old and while some don't hold up they're still pretty effective for the narrative. That said, the practical effects are outstanding, notably a vomit monster scene where Kane comes out from Steve (Nelson) and begins to take form like something from The Thing or Hellraiser. There are some touching moments in the first half with the death of the Grandma but also oddities especially after she dies, they seem to get over the death quickly and the formalities involved, like arranging a funeral never happen.Writers Michael Grais and Mark Victor give a solid cult back story and the ghoulish Kane is more scary than some of the effects setups whether its wire braces attacking the family or desert scenes which could rival The Exorcist Heretic bizarreness. The late Will Sampson who plays Taylor the medicine man is notable. There's comedy littered throughout and many creepy moments, ghouls in mirrors, head tuning dolls, evil tequila worms, zombies and skeletons bursting out from nowhere which add to its appeal.While it does expand the mythology it's not a touch on the first, but to Gibson's credit part two is all aboveboard in a time when sequels weren't very good.

JAWS 2; HALLOWEEN II; THE RAGE: CARRIE 2—all of them horror film sequels that I can only label as "curiously frustrating", in that there's enough in them to like, but just as much to be skittish about. This is also true of POLTERGEIST II: THE OTHER SIDE, the 1986 sequel to the highly acclaimed and highly successful 1982 Steven Spielberg co-produced/co-written horror film classic that Tobe Hooper (of THE Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE fame) directed, and which ranks with THE SHINING as one of the few true horror classics of the 1980s.The film picks up one year after the events of the original, as the Frelengs, led by Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams, have now moved off to a desert suburb of Phoenix, Arizona while trying to get a new start, living with Williams' mother (Geraldine Fitzgerald). Nelson is having a rough go of it trying to be a vacuum salesman; he had been in real estate, but the Cuesta Verde incident left him out in the cold. When Fitzgerald passes on, however, it lets open the door for some literal ghosts of the Frelengs' past to haunt them. They become terrorized all over again; and this time, getting in contact with both the famous medium Tangina Barrons (Zelda Rubinstein) and an Indian (Will Sampson) well versed in the supernatural, they figure out why. Back in the 19th century, a group of White settlers were confronted by Indian warriors in what was to become the Cuesta Verde Estates, resulting in a horrific Sand Creek-type massacre that resulted in a mass graveyard that Nelson's former employers had built Cuesta Verde over. The spirits of those survivors, including especially a deranged preacher named Kane (Julian Beck), have come back to snatch O'Rourke and to lead them to the Light because they are still not at rest, but they seem to have no intention of bringing her back. Rubinstein and Sampson insist that the Frelengs must return to Cuesta Verde to confront Kane and his minions by entering the Other Side, that netherworld between life and death that Williams and O'Rourke crossed in the original. In between, though, they are confronted with a whole host of horrific things, including a "Vomit Creature", and a supernatural chainsaw that threatens to tear Nelson's station wagon apart as they head out for Cuesta Verde.Unlike a lot of horror films, POLTERGEIST II maintains a good solid position of having five of the principals from the original film (Dominique Dunne, however, had been killed in real life shortly after the original film had been released), plus the solid special effects work of Richard Edlund, who had worked on the original. What POLTERGEIST II lacks, however, is the effective and incisive direction of Hooper and both his and Spielberg's understanding of the genre and of family. Mark Victor and Michael Grais, though they co-wrote the original's screenplay with Spielberg, somehow fail to grasp those concepts of the original; and Gibson, who directed the 1980 film BREAKING GLASS and later did 1993's WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT, is not really in Hooper's, let alone Spielberg's, league. The mayhem may very well have been accelerated from the original, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's better.Two additions, however, do work quite well. Sampson, a real-life Native American who starred in films like ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST and THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES, is extremely good as the Indian shaman who, along with Rubinstein, assists the Frelengs in their confrontation with the ghosts. And Beck is incredibly grisly and frightening as the deranged preacher out to permanently possess O'Rourke; he comes off as a supernatural version of Robert Mitchum's role in the 1955 classic NIGHT OF THE HUNTER.The most welcome return on POLTERGEIST II, besides Edlund's special effects, is Jerry Goldsmith's intense orchestral score. These things do keep this film from being just another Hollywood exploitational sequel. But what is there is still strangely empty; and that, in the end, is due to the absence of both Spielberg and Hooper in the basic involvement of things.