Movie Review: ‘Poltergeist’

Whenever I see a horror film, I want it to be smart and scary. Granted, I’m usually willing to settle for one or the other, but it’s preferable to have both elements. Unfortunately, Gail Kenan’s update of 1982’s Poltergeist has neither.

After being laid off from his corporate job, Eric Bowen (Sam Rockwell) and his aspiring author wife, Amy (Rosemarie DeWitt) move to a large home in a suburban area with their three children: angsty teen Kendra (Saxon Sharbino), overwrought middle child Griffin (Kyle Catlett), and youngest daughter Madison (Kennedi Clements). The family’s financial struggles are a big source of tension in the household, and everyone seems to be on edge – except for Madison, who spends an awful lot of time talking to the closet in her bedroom.

When Griffin starts hearing creepy noises in the attic and seeing objects move on their own, his parents chalk it up to the boy’s anxiety and don’t give it another thought – they’re too busy worrying about money, anyway. But when they return from a dinner party to find Griffin being thrown around by a tree and Madison stuck inside the television, it’s time to call in the professionals: paranormal researcher Brooke Powell (Jane Adams) and her former colleague, Carrigan Burke (Jared Harris), a reality show host with a legitimate gift for communicating with the dead.

From this point, Poltergeist doesn’t stray far from the source material, but tries to amplify the thrills and chills with plenty of CG-laden effects. The results are almost universally terrible, with the glimpses of the spirit world and the escalating destruction of the house feeling more silly that spine-chilling. Even more off-putting are the all-too-frequent attempts at humor, as the family finds time to crack jokes while they’re being tormented by malevolent spirits. Every genuine scare – and there aren’t many – is undermined by the overall lack of commitment to a consistent tone.

There’s a talented cast assembled here, but none of them are really given anything to do beyond inhabiting familiar archetypes. Except for the two youngest children, everyone seems to be pissed off at the poorly written roles they’ve been saddled with, and Harris comes across as the only person onscreen that actually wants to be there.

But even though his swaggering Irish bravado is a welcome respite from Rockwell’s brooding and DeWitt’s wailing, Poltergeist is already well past the point of salvation by the time Harris makes his entrance. It’s yet another entry in a long succession of unnecessary remakes that no one really wanted, and Tobe Hooper’s classic has much more to offer than this transparent attempt to cash in on the name recognition.