Finding The Wrong Words: ... FOR "A TALE OF TWO 'POLTERGEIST'(S)"
That creepy clown doll, for instance, played so memorably 33 years ago, here gets a postmodern upgrade:
This shot, too, of a television set as gateway to another dimension:
Or this shot (you have to look fast for it) of a prepubescent boy almost swallowed up by a possessed monster tree in his backyard:
Even the patented youngest-daughter-gets-sucked-through-her-bedroom-closet trick gets a replay...
...as does this shot, of the family's house (presumably) getting sucked into who-knows-where:
Some of director Gil Kenan's callbacks to the 1982 version are a little more subtle, however. This scene, for example, in which Griffin Bowen (Kyle Catlett) and his sister Madison (Kennedi Clements) encounter supernatural goings-on outside their closet door...
...echoes this scene from the earlier film, in which Steve and Diane Freeling make a similar discovery in their kitchen:
The switch in characters seems to jibe with this statement Rockwell gave to Collider.com, about the new movie being told from the children's point of view. But is that really an improvement over the original film, in which the Freeling family functioned as a single protagonist? At least Kenan and company have the good sense to give away the movie's Big Twist in the trailer (SPOILER ALERT - in the original Poltergeist, the house is built on top of a cemetary). Jared Harris, meanwhile, as much as I love him, can't hold a candle to Ms. Zelda Rubenstein:
Is there a statute of limitations on the movies of our childhood? Had is now become common practice to take the classics of yesteryear and remake and reboot them every thirty years? We've seen it happen already with Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Psycho in 1998, Footloose in 2011, and RoboCop in 2014; and we'll see it yet again with Paul Feig's all-female Ghostbusters come 2016. What's next, Top Gun? E.T.? Back To The Future? (Purists may take solace in the fact that Poltergeist is the first remake of a Steven Spielberg production [so far.])
Time will tell if this "revisionist" Poltergeist actually honors the memory of the original movie or trounces all over it. In the meantime, it's comforting to know that the trailer's three (count 'em) concluding money shots rip off not only Poltergeist '82 but two other Horror "classics" as well. After the bit with the creepy clown doll, we get this "homage" to Alejandro Amenábar's The Others:
Or how does this one grab you, from Paranormal Activity (2009)?
Look closely at the screenshots for Poltergeist, and you can tell that little girl isn't even human, she's a CG special effect - straight out of Kenan's own animated Monster House, it would seem. Ah, well. All's fair in love and remakes, is it not?
Finding The Wrong Words: ... FOR "A TALE OF TWO 'POLTERGEIST'(S)"
That creepy clown doll, for instance, played so memorably 33 years ago, here gets a postmodern upgrade:
This shot, too, of a television set as gateway to another dimension:
Or this shot (you have to look fast for it) of a prepubescent boy almost swallowed up by a possessed monster tree in his backyard:
Even the patented youngest-daughter-gets-sucked-through-her-bedroom-closet trick gets a replay...
...as does this shot, of the family's house (presumably) getting sucked into who-knows-where:
Some of director Gil Kenan's callbacks to the 1982 version are a little more subtle, however. This scene, for example, in which Griffin Bowen (Kyle Catlett) and his sister Madison (Kennedi Clements) encounter supernatural goings-on outside their closet door...
...echoes this scene from the earlier film, in which Steve and Diane Freeling make a similar discovery in their kitchen:
The switch in characters seems to jibe with this statement Rockwell gave to Collider.com, about the new movie being told from the children's point of view. But is that really an improvement over the original film, in which the Freeling family functioned as a single protagonist? At least Kenan and company have the good sense to give away the movie's Big Twist in the trailer (SPOILER ALERT - in the original Poltergeist, the house is buil
t on top of a cemetary). Jared Harris, meanwhile, as much as I love him, can't hold a candle to Ms. Zelda Rubenstein:
Is there a statute of limitations on the movies of our childhood? Had is now become common practice to take the classics of yesteryear and remake and reboot them every thirty years? We've seen it happen already with Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Psycho in 1998, Footloose in 2011, and RoboCop in 2014; and we'll see it yet again with Paul Feig's all-female Ghostbusters come 2016. What's next, Top Gun? E.T.? Back To The Future? (Purists may take solace in the fact that Poltergeist is the first remake of a Steven Spielberg production [so far.])
Time will tell if this "revisionist" Poltergeist actually honors the memory of the original movie or trounces all over it. In the meantime, it's comforting to know that the trailer's three (count 'em) concluding money shots rip off not only Poltergeist '82 but two other Horror "classics" as well. After the bit with the creepy clown doll, we get this "homage" to Alejandro Amenábar's The Others:
Or how does this one grab you, from Paranormal Activity (2009)?
Look closely at the screenshots for Poltergeist, and you can tell that little girl isn't even human, she's a CG special effect - straight out of Kenan's own animated Monster House, it would seem. Ah, well. All's fair in love and remakes, is it not?