I've reviewed the POLTERGEIST remake for Frame Rated, ahead of its release on DVD/Blu on 26 October, just in time for Halloween. Please have a read by clicking here!
Tobe Hooper's original Poltergeist is a great film and the story of its production has become legend, so even a good remake’s doomed to sit in its shade. Apocryphal tales of producer Steven Spielberg taking the film out of Hooper's control have never been fully discredited, and don't forget how real corpses were used for the flooded pool sequence. That bad decision helped stoke rumours of a curse surrounding the Poltergeist trilogy (also, four cast members died in a relatively short space of time during its making), and thus a PG-13 ghost story is now mentioned in the same conversation as The Omen. But, besides all that nonsense, 1982's Poltergeist is just a damned good family-in-crisis scare-fest. Continue reading...
