I had huge reservations about watching this remake, which I felt was completely unnecessary. It wasn't as bad as I had anticipated, and that the bad reviews at the time gave me the impression I should fear or avoid watching it. The special effects were pretty good, and Sam Rockwell, Jared Harris and Jane Adams (how wonderful it was to see her again, after her exceptional work in 'Happiness'!) sold the film for me. I knew what to expect after liking, but not loving, director Gil Kenan's earlier animated 'Monster House', but I was intrigued how his energetic directing would transfer to live-action work.
I think they could have made it more suspenseful and scary, but I'm not really sure that was their intention. I think they were going for a family experience with some thrills, chills and laughs...such as the recent 'Ghostbusters' remake was going for. If that was the case, then in that regard it was quite successful. I'm looking forward to re-watching this eventually with my 13-year-old son, horror-film aficionado, Julian, who like me adored the original.
If I was to make the perfect 'Poltergeist' film, I would have taken the same exact Steven Spielberg script and simply updated the special effects. I think that would have been a more successful approach.
The movie blurb is written by some 20th Century Fox representative. I would guess that the person in question has not even watched the original movie. “Legendary film makers”? What a load of bull! These people have not produced anything really worth watching and this movie certainly do not improve on that score. I mean, how dumb are these people from 20th Century Fox? I certainly hope the audience are not dumb enough to fall for this obvious lie. Judging from the, well deserved mediocre score on various review sites I guess they did not.
Anyway, as for the movie. It is a bleak (cheap) shadow of the original. It has absolutely zero of the charm that the original movie had and, most importantly, none of the characters had anything of the charisma that the original characters had. The father is a total dumbass and an irresponsible at that. The mother could by just any Hollywood style housewife.
When you finally think that something interesting would happen, that is when the ghost hunter enters the scene, it just falls flat again. He is just totally lacking in appeal. He is neither a bad ass nor is he mysterious or anything else that makes him worth watching.
There are just so much things wrong with the story as well. How can this guy afford and get a one for a house when he apparently do not seem to have a job? He even manages to go for another house in the end after his original one apparently got shredded. How bloody dumb is the script writer? In the original it was a new neighbourhood which explained the “troubles”. In this one it is not which means that the script writer obviously had zero understanding of the original plot which brings us back to the same question again. What the f…?
There are some half decent CGI scenes in this movie but the same can be said for a lot of things coming out of the movie industry nowadays (well with the exception of SyFy productions of course).
I would say that as a TV-movie it would have been above average. As a remake of a classic it totally falls flat. I am happy that I watched it at home and did not spend time going to a theatre watching it.
