I don't understand why this movie exists. There's no reason for it. I mean, I get the business reason why someone decided it was a good idea to cash in on a nearly 35-year-old movie that many critics (including me) and fans consider one of the greatest horror movies ever made. But no one on the supposed creative side of this "new" Poltergeist could be bothered even to pretend to have something to add, something fresh to say that wasn't said back in 1982 about the trials of a suburban American family whose house is menaced by nasty spirits. If you have any inclination to see this Poltergeist, just rent the original. (Or pull out the DVD — you probably already own it.) You will lose nothing, and you'll have a far better time.
I wondered, as I was waiting for the lights to go down on my screening, just what screenwriter David Lindsay-Abaire and director Gil Kenan were going to do to update the original film's use of television static as a medium for communicating with the Other Side. The first film did such a fantastic job of turning such an ordinary thing (as it was back in the olden days) into something deeply creepy. But with the advent of cable and now digital, TVs don't do static today. What would replace this now?
Turns out, nothing. The new Poltergeist just pretends that flat-screen digital TVs (and also cell phones and iPads and other modern electronic devices) receive and display static. This isn't only technically anachronistic, it's a narrative cheat. (Once again: Why remake this movie if there's nothing to add to it?) There are initial suggestions as the film opens that perhaps the idea that the maybe-danger of living too close to power lines was going to be a factor in this haunting, and indeed there is a bit of electrical weirdness in the house the Bowen family have just moved in to (you get a shock of static electricity when you touch the wooden bannister on the staircase). But that is a decoy. And the way this mysterious modern static is used isn't in the slightest bit eerie, partly because, you know, no one will ever see static on their smart phone. If you were a kid in the '80s after the original film gave us all the heebie-jeebies, I know you stood in front of the TV one night in the dark living room after all the channels signed off (yeah, that used to be a thing, too), touched the screen (and maybe got a little shock), and whispered, "They're here..." and gave yourself a little scare. You won't be able to do that with this movie.
This Poltergeist's biggest "innovation"? A box of clown dolls. I guess it figures that if one clown doll is scary, a box of 'em must be even scarier. Not so much, as it happens. (Was the original film the first to use a scary clown doll? I think it might be.)
The story is almost so much the same that, again, just watch the old film. Cute little Carol Anne — er, that is, Madison (Kennedi Clements) gets lured into another dimension by restless dead people, and Mom (Rosemarie DeWitt) and Dad (Sam Rockwell) bring in expert paranormal help to get her back, including Jared Harris as a reality-TV exorcist. And while Harris may have his charms, he is no Zelda Rubinstein (the weird and awesome medium from the first film).
The most upsetting thing for me about 2015's Poltergeist is Rockwell. He's a fantastic actor, and as usual, he's flip and funny and then also profoundly moving: He has one moment here in which he turns a simple, clichéd "We just want our daughter back" moment into something heartbreaking. It's nowhere near enough to make the movie worth your time, even for Rockwell fans, but if you want scary, consider this: How is it possible that this was the best script an actor of his talent has been offered lately? (Ditto for the amazing DeWitt, though we already know how bad Hollywood is for women... and don't even get me started on how this remake diminishes her character versus the original film.)
This Poltergeist is a depressing example of Hollywood's creative bankruptcy not only on a large scale but on small ones, too.
Poltergeist Directed by Gil Kenan. Written by David Lindsay-Abaire. Story by Steven Spielberg. Starring Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Kennedi Clements and Jared Hess. Now screening at multiple theaters.
