WATCH THE TRAILER HERE
“City of Ember” and “Monster House” director Gil Kenan takes the reigns of this remake to the 1982 classic tale of a suburban family having a bit of a haunting issue to deal with. This take introduces family man Eric Bowen (Sam Rockwell), who’s recent loss of employment has caused him and his family, including wife Amy (Rosemarie DeWitt), teen daughter Kendra (Saxon Sharbino), young son Griffin (Kyle Catlett) and youngest daughter Madison (Kennedi Clements) to move to a new neighborhood to start over. While Eric and Amy are thrilled, the kids exhibit their own approvals/hesitations about the new residence, but especially fear-ridden Griffin and innocent Madison, the latter of whom takes to talking to unseen “friends”. It isn’t too long before strange occurrences begin to unfold, initially played off to the house’s age, but then become more frequent and alarming as the not-so-pleased spirits from the development’s former “occupant”, a graveyard, decide they’ve had enough of intruders. Not wanting to listen or believe any of the events could possibly be supernatural in origin, it only takes the one primary happening to convince Eric and Amy to call in paranormal experts Dr. Brooke Powell (Jane Adams) and her team. Realizing quickly that the entity they’re facing is beyond just their assistance, they call in renowned ghost hunter Carrigan Burke (Jared Harris) to take on the nasties and regain possession (if you will indulge the pun) of Madison. All of their belief and courage is tested as they wage war against an unrelenting foe.
Honestly, folks, this film really didn’t stand a chance. Up against the much larger (and much more well done) shadow of the original, especially with that film’s writing and production being provided via some guy named Spielberg, it would have been a daunting task for anyone to tackle. While the initial stages of this newest take do contain some fun bantering from Rockwell, along with tangible emoting shining through from the two youngest stars, Catlett and Clements, the overall execution simply falls flat and short of the goal. The commencement of the poltergeist’s arrival into the home is still creepy as heck, and the modern visuals do assist with instilling that anticipatory fear in the viewer. But funny enough, by the time the full on invasion comes about, it just cannot escape at “been there, seen that a LOT” trap. Even the adventures into the poltergeist’s realm is, at best, mildly strange. For the material given, DeWitt, Sharbino, Adams, and Harris do fine as well, but one cannot help but feel a little sorry there wasn’t a story more akin to “The Conjuring” for them to take us into a real dimension of terror and edge-of-your-seat, tension-filled build up to the payoff. So as we already know remakes are the new trend and most certainly a hit or miss prospect, “Poltergeist” 2015 is going to have to be relegated to the “it was the best of tries, but not a successful one” category for this reviewer.
As always, this is all for your consideration and comment. Until next time, thank you for reading!
