Poltergeist: Not too scary

Starring: Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Jared Harris, Jane Adams
Rated: 5/10
Those who saw the original Poltergeist of 2006, may find this one collapsing here and there and quite frequently so at that. Though the idea of this remake has some amount of applaudable reality — a small girl being “taken” by spirits through her bedroom cabinet and she being trapped in the netherworld from where her parents can hear her through their TV screen — it is the execution and the lack of fear factor that does this one in.
Moving to a neighbourhood built on a cemetery without shifting the remains, the Bowen family of five walk directly into an eerie world where a willow tree looks violent at the gate and a cabinet keeps doing weird things to the children — like blowing their hair gently on being touched. And then there is also the inevitable joker with a scary face and a cherry nose.
Without creating too much fear, the film erroneously goes into the mechanics of working out the spirits through the metaphysical scientists, a TV show ghostbuster and a whole lot of joblessness issues within the Bowen couple. Not a patch on the original though not bad to rattle you out of a lazy Sunday.
Source: Sunday Pioneer, 24 May, 2015

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