POLTERGEIST

Directed by: Gil Kennan

Starring by: Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Kyle Catlett, Kennedi Clements

MGM-Ghost House Picture

Poltergeist was one of classic horror movies that I love so much, that’s why when Hollywood makes the remake of this Spielberg’s movie, it became my  top list movie I should watch this year.

The plot hasn’t change much; it was obvious for remake movies to be compared with the original, that’s why it brought some spark for me to remember the previous movie. The Bowen, a nice family with their three kids, Kendra, Griffin, and Madison had move to their new house in some nice neighborhood but they experienced strange thing inside the house. It was Griffin who realized that first; he heard a noise in the night, finding a closet full of freaky doll, and saw his sister, Amy who speaks to unseen things in front of the closet and television. Well, I just love to see when the hairs of those two were raise when they put their hand at the closet knob.

The presence of unseen force broke Kendra’s phone and she asked Eric for a new one. Eric went to the mall then, but it was funny because on few scenes before Kendra gave comment that there was no mall near the neighborhood. And it doesn’t make me any sense when Eric, the father, bought so many expensive stuffed like cell phone and robot drone, just after he said that his family suffering financial problem because he’s being laid off on the earliest scenes of the film.

Eric and Amy Bowen found out that their house was built on the cemetery...former cemetery...from the dinner talking with some folks that...well, to be honest I don’t know what the meaning of the dinner event was, because there’s no explanation about it, whether it was dinner event to gather neighbors or business colleague? Logically, neither was right, if its business colleague neither Eric nor Amy were on work so they couldn’t be had one, but if its neighbor’s meeting I don’t think they could tell the story about cemetery with such ease. So, I think that scene was only something to inform the couples about their house history. I giggles because the writer put some dialog which mention the house of Bowen wasn't built on old cemetery, which is something to tease the writer of the original because he describes that the house was built on some ancient cemetery that belong to Indian.

The parent started to believe about noisy ghost that haunt their house when they saw Griffin grabbed by an old tree that pulled him outside and Kendra got hysterical about ghost in the basement. Further they found out that the youngest child, Madison, was trapped inside the television after she’s being dragged into the closet. It was cool to see the effect when the lights from the lamp’s bulb were flying out to the closet before the ghosts took Madison away.      

Desperate to get help, Amy visited the Paranormal Research Division from her campus. The staff set the house with electronic equipment to track the appearance and Amy helps them with calling at Madison. But it was Eric who found the hole to the other side when he tearing down the closet wall with chair and table after he got attack by the ghost that looked like Madison. The leader of the staff, Dr. Brooke Powell realized that the Bowen was attack by evil spirits call Poltergeist and they couldn’t handle that without the help from occult specialist and television personality Carrigan Burke.      

Eric begun to experienced the appearance as well when he took the drink in a sink which ends with the shoot, throwing up dirt liquid from his mouth and eyes, but funny how the bottle that he put next to the sink was moved few inches away from it after Amy woke him up from the hallucination.

Carrigan arrived and he became solution for the family’s problem. He set the rope from the Madison’s room upstairs to be a lead to the way out from the downstairs ceiling. The remake adding the technology which wasn’t invent yet on Spielberg’s era, the drone, to seek Madison who trapped in the fire hole upstairs but you had to do all thing by yourself if you want to get it done, so when the drone destroyed by the things inside the hole just when they’re about to found Madison’s location, Griffin decided to help his sister by entering the other side hole before Carrigan does and the big brother succeed to get her out.

This film is good thing to remember and I didn’t have any disappointment watching it. It amplifies to the new generation why Poltergeist became the legend of classic horror movie. I think they also choose the right girl as Madison Bowen because Kennedi Clements, who’s starring this film as her debut, has angelic face as Heather O’Rourke had. I hope the curse from the original movie doesn’t stay on this movie and the actor and actress who played the role in this new movie will be fine for the rest of their life.

As a reminder, Poltergeist was issued as a curse movie because there were several accident and tragedy happened several years after this film launched and became prequel, two actresses that played as the daughter, the youngest, Heather O’Rourke, died by cardiac arrest and septic shot caused by misdiagnosed intestinal issue while the older daughter, Dominique Dunne, was killed in brutal murdered by her boyfriend that strangled her to death. Some said it’s cause by the used of real human skeletons by the crew, with the pathetic reason that it were cheaper than if they make the fake skeletons for properties.