POLTERGEIST (2015)

Directed by Gil Kenan, Starring: Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Jared Harris. Horror, US, 2015, 93mins, Cert 15.

“They’re heeeere...” (again) inside the damn telly – but this time it's a Sony flat screen. Unfortunately, despite the upgraded technology - including post-conversion stereoscopy 3D – their return ultimately amounts to little more than a disappointingly ‘flat’ experience.

Tobe Hooper’s original 3-ring circus of special effects and Spielbergian saccharine is hardly the untouchable modern classic that rose-tinted 80’s apologists make it out to be. But at least it felt like an ‘event’ experience at the time: and the skeletons were more convincing (although the fact they were real perhaps helped). In director Gil (MONSTER HOUSE) Kenan’s 2015 reboot/regurgitation, the restless CG spirits resemble bargain basement House of the Dead video game cast-offs. It’s a shame producer Sam Raimi couldn’t have dusted off a few of the original Deadites from ARMY OF DARKNESS to try and salvage the ending.

The plot follows the 1982 blueprint faithfully, albeit with a few tokenistic contemporary upgrades: iPhone; drone and Dad’s (Sam Rockwell – criminally underused) redundancy forcing the family to up sticks and move to a less desirable neighbourhood.

To be fair, the early scenes are reasonably effective and do achieve a promising frisson of foreboding: ‘Carol Anne’ stand-in Madison (wide-eyed Kennedi Clements) pushing a stick into the flowerbeds only to watch it repeatedly pop back up (presumably courtesy of the buried corpses seething with rage under the earth); and the bedroom closet door knob that provides (literally) hair-raising static fun for Madison and her brother Griffin (Kyle Catlett). There’s also a couple of nice 3D jump scares (one of which references the stacked table set-piece from the original) and a squirrel attack to rival NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION. 

But the clown scene is a let-down; a squandered opportunity given that there’s an attic full of the creepy things this time, and unlike ANNABELLE these can actually move. The other iconic sequence, the tree attack, is technically impressive, with the camera seamlessly gliding after the spindly CG branches pulling Griffin out of the house. But the tree lacks presence (no, I'm not going to say it's performance was wooden - have I just typed that?) and more closely resembles a de-needled Christmas leftover than an arboreal arbiter of the dead.

The team of paranormal investigators called in to retrieve Carol Anne –whoops, I mean Madison, barely register as characters (clearly the screenwriter didn’t give much of a hoot for them either) – apart from one frustratingly promising hallucination involving a power drill - during which I fleetingly entertained hopes of a Fulci-like CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD/GATES OF HELL 3D splatter gag. (Alas, no such luck).

And by the time Jared Harris shows up as professional ghost-whisperer Carrigan Burke - reprising Zelda Rubenstein’s line: “This house is clean” whilst wearing a silly hat - all hope is lost for the film as it’s sucked into a half-hearted CG light-show and the nasty damp patch of mould on the ceiling spits out ectoplasm and children (probably in disgust at how underwritten it feels its part is).

They were here in 1982. They were here again in 2015. On the basis of this lacklustre return I sincerely hope that’s the last we’ve seen of them.

**(out of 5*)

Paul Worts