Wow. It’s been years since I’ve seen the Poltergeist films, and I think that after re-watching them after all these years (8-10 I would assume), they can be summed up as follows:
Poltergeist = Still creepy and effectual, even some twenty-five years later.
Poltergeist 2 = Sort of like the first one, but much crappier.
Poltergeist 3 = Not at all like the first or second films, but much, much crappier.
To summarize, it’s been an all downhill crapfest since the first one. Poltergeist 3 finds little Carol Anne now shipped off by her parents to stay with her Aunt and Uncle in Chicago. I guess Jobeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson got sick of disappearing houses and kid eating trees, huh? Carol Ann is now seeing a shrink who’s introduced her to hypnotic therapy, unknowingly triggering memories from her haunted past which enables Kane, the creepy preacher dude from part two, to once again hone in on Carol Anne. Soon Kane starts haunting the new fangled apartment building Carol Anne’s uncle owns, and save for one or two neat ideas, it’s all rather predicable and boring. I suppose the lone highlight/unique aspect of the movie deals with the setting of the film, which is the high-rise apartment building. It’s almost entirely constructed of mirrors, in which the Kane character uses as a sort of netherworld where he can interact with the living. We’ve all heard the tales of mirrors being used as a sort of “doorway” for spirits, and director Gary Sherman does manage to generate some mild chills with this. Everything else however just never seems to work. Without the original cast (guess they had better things to do?) the “family unit” subplot is completely lost, as is any type of sympathy for the cast. There’s an idiotic teenage subplot that really does not need to be there, and if I hear someone scream “Carol Anne, where are you?” one more time I’ll fucking scream. All in all a rather lame ending to the series, and I’m not even going to attempt the various direct to video sequels that came out after.
