Sunday, May 31, 2015

Poltergeist star Rosemarie DeWitt has confessed she is scared of horror films


Rosemarie DeWitt has revealed how she is “terrified” of horror movies, despite starring in one herself.

The 43-year-old actress, who stars in Gil Kenan’s Poltergeist remake alongside Sam Rockwell and Jared Harris, said she changed her mind about the genre after seeing The Conjuring, which stars her husband Ron Livingston and Vera Farmiga.
Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP) “I’m terrified of horror movies and I don’t see them, and then I saw The Conjuring with my husband,” she said.
“It freaked me out. I was like, ‘Great movie’ but also, I saw it in a theatre with a ton of people, and I thought, ‘This is awesome!’
“Watching a movie with other people being scared, your popcorn spilling, (you’re) grabbing each other and then laughing because you can’t believe you were so scared, I wanted to do that. I thought it would be cool to be a part of a story where hopefully the audience has that experience.”
Rosemarie admitted she signed on for the new adaptation of the 1982 chiller after being jealous of Ron’s role in The Conjuring.
Rosemarie DeWitt and Sam Rockwell star in Poltergeist Rosemarie DeWitt and Sam Rockwell star in Poltergeist (Fox UK) “It made me really open to the idea of doing something in this genre, and then when this came along, it was daunting because the original is just brilliant,” she said.
“I wanted to work with Sam forever, I want to work with Gil and David Lindsay-Abaire who wrote the script, so it became hard not to do it.”
The Rachel’s Getting Married star said shooting it was a joy, and she threw herself into the action scenes.
“We slide down the roof. You get to feel like a bad-ass action hero when you’re grabbing people and sliding down and there’s fire all around,” she said, adding: “I fell down on my neck and Sam had to carry me.”
Rosemarie DeWitt in Poltergeist (Fox UK) Rosemarie DeWitt in Poltergeist (Fox UK) Rosemarie also said she helped protect her screen children, particularly Kennedi Clements, who played her young daughter Madison Bowen.
“There was a day when the youngest one had some fierce negotiations with the director,” she said.
“She would say, ‘I don’t like these corpses, can we CGI them?’ We changed the scene. I held her, covered her ears because she didn’t want to have bad dreams.”
Poltergeist is in cinemas now.

Saturday, May 30, 2015

The "New" Poltergeist Shoulda Stayed Dead

Categories: Movies

FILM565Poltergeist.jpg
Twentieth Century Fox & Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Inc.
"Take us with you, this movie stinks!"
I don't understand why this movie exists. There's no reason for it. I mean, I get the business reason why someone decided it was a good idea to cash in on a nearly 35-year-old movie that many critics (including me) and fans consider one of the greatest horror movies ever made. But no one on the supposed creative side of this "new" Poltergeist could be bothered even to pretend to have something to add, something fresh to say that wasn't said back in 1982 about the trials of a suburban American family whose house is menaced by nasty spirits. If you have any inclination to see this Poltergeist, just rent the original. (Or pull out the DVD — you probably already own it.) You will lose nothing, and you'll have a far better time.
I wondered, as I was waiting for the lights to go down on my screening, just what screenwriter David Lindsay-Abaire and director Gil Kenan were going to do to update the original film's use of television static as a medium for communicating with the Other Side. The first film did such a fantastic job of turning such an ordinary thing (as it was back in the olden days) into something deeply creepy. But with the advent of cable and now digital, TVs don't do static today. What would replace this now?
Turns out, nothing. The new Poltergeist just pretends that flat-screen digital TVs (and also cell phones and iPads and other modern electronic devices) receive and display static. This isn't only technically anachronistic, it's a narrative cheat. (Once again: Why remake this movie if there's nothing to add to it?) There are initial suggestions as the film opens that perhaps the idea that the maybe-danger of living too close to power lines was going to be a factor in this haunting, and indeed there is a bit of electrical weirdness in the house the Bowen family have just moved in to (you get a shock of static electricity when you touch the wooden bannister on the staircase). But that is a decoy. And the way this mysterious modern static is used isn't in the slightest bit eerie, partly because, you know, no one will ever see static on their smart phone. If you were a kid in the '80s after the original film gave us all the heebie-jeebies, I know you stood in front of the TV one night in the dark living room after all the channels signed off (yeah, that used to be a thing, too), touched the screen (and maybe got a little shock), and whispered, "They're here..." and gave yourself a little scare. You won't be able to do that with this movie.
This Poltergeist's biggest "innovation"? A box of clown dolls. I guess it figures that if one clown doll is scary, a box of 'em must be even scarier. Not so much, as it happens. (Was the original film the first to use a scary clown doll? I think it might be.)
The story is almost so much the same that, again, just watch the old film. Cute little Carol Anne — er, that is, Madison (Kennedi Clements) gets lured into another dimension by restless dead people, and Mom (Rosemarie DeWitt) and Dad (Sam Rockwell) bring in expert paranormal help to get her back, including Jared Harris as a reality-TV exorcist. And while Harris may have his charms, he is no Zelda Rubinstein (the weird and awesome medium from the first film).
The most upsetting thing for me about 2015's Poltergeist is Rockwell. He's a fantastic actor, and as usual, he's flip and funny and then also profoundly moving: He has one moment here in which he turns a simple, clichéd "We just want our daughter back" moment into something heartbreaking. It's nowhere near enough to make the movie worth your time, even for Rockwell fans, but if you want scary, consider this: How is it possible that this was the best script an actor of his talent has been offered lately? (Ditto for the amazing DeWitt, though we already know how bad Hollywood is for women... and don't even get me started on how this remake diminishes her character versus the original film.)
This Poltergeist is a depressing example of Hollywood's creative bankruptcy not only on a large scale but on small ones, too.
Poltergeist
Directed by Gil Kenan. Written by David Lindsay-Abaire. Story by Steven Spielberg. Starring Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Kennedi Clements and Jared Hess. Now screening at multiple theaters.

CINEMA REVIEW: Poltergeist (15)

10:24Tuesday 26 May 2015

They seem to be remaking everything these days.

These modernised versions of classic films rarely live up to the original, begging the question, why did they even bother?
Generally speaking, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ should be the mantra of the film industry, but as far as remakes go, the new Poltergeist film is actually quite good.
Admittedly it’s been years since I’ve seen the 1982 original, but I can still remember the chills it sent down my spine.
This new release has been brought up-to-date and seems to include as much modern technology as it can, from iPhones to a mini drone.
It stars Sam Rockwell as Eric Bowen, who along with his wife, Amy (Rosemarie DeWitt) and their three children, move into a new home after money troubles mean they can’t afford the one they’ve been living in.

 Vicki Newman @VickiNewmanJP
They're remaking everything these days, but the new Poltergeist was actually canny good. Had a few jumps watching it @CineworldBoldon.

As the youngest daughter Madison (Kennedi Clements) talks to her ‘imaginary’ friends, her brother Griffin (Kyle Catlett), begins to notice spooky goings-on in the house.
And one night when eldest sibling Kendra (Saxon Sharbino) is babysitting, the spirits haunting the house take Madison, and the family must work together to bring her home.
The horror has all those jumpy moments that you’d expect, as well as mind tricks and special effects that are used well to create a tense atmosphere.
The 21st century remake also made use of 3D technology, but it was nothing too exciting and didn’t seem to make much of a difference.
Horror movie remake Poltergeist is out now.

Horror movie remake Poltergeist is out now.

It was never going to be as good as the original, and I wouldn’t be in a massive rush to see it again, but as far as a night at the flicks watching a scary movie goes, I did enjoy it.
I jumped with fright, there were those moments when I didn’t want to look, and I laughed with my friend about how scared we’d been – that’s exactly what I want from a horror.
Poltergeist is out now. See it at Cineworld Boldon. Click here to book tickets.
Twitter: @VickiNewmanJP

It was never going to be as good as the original, and I wouldn’t be in a massive rush to see it again, but as far as a night at the flicks watching a scary movie goes, I did enjoy it.

"Poltergeist" is a fine horror update haunted by its superior namesake

They're here ... and by "they're," I mean "it's" ... and by "it," I mean the "Poltergeist" remake, now playing.

"Poltergeist" is a fine horror update haunted by its superior namesake

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Silence your cries of ruined childhoods and crimes against cinemanity; the new "Poltergeist" remake is a fine movie. The acting is fine, the directing is fine and the scare scenes are … uh, well, we'll get to those. But overall, "Poltergeist" is a well-crafted, totally acceptable, totally fine horror flick. And if it was called something like "House Ghost" or "Spooky Town" or "A Creepy Thing Happened on the Way to the Suburbs," this divertingly eerie little summer haunt would be – you guess it – fine.
But it's not. It's called and modeled after "Poltergeist," and as it turns out, the beloved 1982 original is still a damn fantastic horror movie, featuring legendary scares – over 30 years later, it's still fabulously freaky that HOLY CRAP; THAT DUDE IS RIPPING OFF HIS OWN FACE! – and director Tobe Hooper doing the best possible Steven Spielberg impersonation (so much so that it's heavily rumored Spielberg actually did most of the job and Hooper was simply director in name).
Like calling your kid Jesus, it's going to take a whole lot of doing to live up to that name's past and expectations, much less surpass them or make your own mark (I strongly agree with Forbes' Scott Mendelson: If you're going to remake a movie, rip it off instead). And as you might unfortunately predict, new "Poltergeist" doesn't have the muster to pull it off. It's a – yes – fine, admirable attempt, but in the end, it's also one that never gets around to providing much of a reason for its existence.
The story is still much the same: A happy family (led by Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt) and their suburban abode are menaced by a noisy surplus of ghouls – all deservedly pissy about their cemetery getting moved but their corpses left behind. And after some relatively polite tomfoolery – rolling baseballs, pesky static, mumbling through the TV – it's time to send in the evil clowns, trees and … intricately stacked comic books? More pressingly, though, the poltergeist snatches up the family's youngest (Kennedi Clements) and sucks her through the closet into another dimension. Desperate for help, the family calls in a crew of paranormal researchers, who work together to yank their kidnapped little one back into the land of the living.
As expected, there are a few updates to bring "Poltergeist" into the zeitgeist. The first film's TV wariness expands out a touch to today's always on, always connected world (the fuzzy TV opening shot is now an iPad). The once easy-going, pot-smoking parents are still charming and fun, if weighed down a bit by economic worries – especially after Rockwell is laid off – and the final guru brought in as the cavalry (played by Jared Harris of "Mad Men") is now also a paranormal reality TV star, "The house is clean" serving as his hashtagged catchphrase. A toy plays a key role in the finale. Oh, and the biggest change: The ominously flickering TV is now an ominously crackling flat screen. Game changer.
Otherwise, Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire's screenplay mostly stays in line with its predecessor. Considering "Poltergeist" became the go-to template for 90 percent of the haunted house movies since its release, however, it's no surprise its remake refuses to stray too far from the formula either. What is a surprise – and a big bummer of one too – is how little the new "Poltergeist" maintains the special touches and soul that truly make it not just a great horror movie, but a great movie overall.
The original film had Spielberg's special sentimental warmth and emotional richness, finding something really sweet and tender about this family and their bond forged by supernatural fire. Here, the Bowens are just another pleasant modern horror family put through the wringer. There's some effort to hit those emotional notes, and it's kind of sweet … and pretty token. The new version pretty much jumps straight into the spooks menacing the family as well, whereas the original spends a surprising amount of time in awe "Jurassic Park" style, taking in the wonder and horror of the interdimensional tricks – and still impressive special effects – abound.
Harris' rough-and-tumble TV spook is amusing, but he can't really hold a candle to the delightful oddness of the elfin but wise Zelda Rubenstein in essentially the same role. The original had a bizarre skeletal monster lion thing, an evil tentacled tunnel to hell and coffins exploding from the ground. This has some CG ghouls. The funny, freaky introduction of the haunted room from 1982, featuring laughing books, a spinning bed and a flying compass? Now it's just a crashing chair gag.
No, it's not completely fair to constantly compare the two movies (though, by being a remake, it's really its own fault for naturally drawing the comparison). "Poltergeist" deserves to be judged on its own … but there's really nothing here of its own. It removes all of that feeling, weirdness and richness of its source material and replaces those things with little more than expediency (it clocks in at 93 minutes, while the original goes almost two hours). It's a specter of the original "Poltergeist," an outline but without almost any of the meat.
While we're on the topic of things removed: scares. There are none, or at best close to none. When it comes to rehashing the old recognizable scenes – always a poor idea since, even with tweaks, you're attempting to scare or surprise the audience with something they've seen before – Lindsay-Abaire and director Gil Kenan ("Monster House") seem like they're rushing to just get through them. The clown and the tree sequences, for instance, are combined into the first big attack scene, while the melting face scare is confined to a distorted sink reflection. And about the clown scene. In classic Hollywood thinking, it's now a whole box of clowns, with the lead clown apparently taking "I'm clearly a malevolent demon plotting your death" makeup and design lessons from Annabelle. Even still, it turns out the only thing really haunting this "Poltergeist" is diminishing returns from its predecessor.
The movie does slightly better with its original scary moments. They're still not particularly scary, as most of the creep-outs are a who's who of cliché horror jumps: characters violently dragged out of sight, empty-faced beings pretending to be familiar-faced beings suddenly turning around, etc. But there's also a decently freaky sequence involving a drill that works, and as silly as the comic book pyramid of doom is, it's a worthy jolt.
In fact, there's enough general eeriness and a touch of producer Sam Raimi's macabre ghoulishness that the lack of scares isn't a total buzzkill. Much of that is thanks to Kenan. He's certainly no Spielberg or Hooper, but he's got a good dynamic eye. His vividly deep blue and ember orange compositions add are compelling, and his moving camera, constantly tilting and hovering around corners and characters, adds some nice creepy vibe to moments like following a ghost slowly light up objects around the house or chasing a shadow on the walls in bursts of lights. Plus – and this is a complement I don't get to throw around much – the 3-D is actually quite good, using the frame and adding unsettling depth.
Kenan also has a strong crew of actors around him. Rockwell is still one of Hollywood's most underappreciated performers, and he brings his typically funny, charmingly sweet smart aleck routine to Craig T. Nelson's old role. Meanwhile, DeWitt (Midge from "Mad Men") plays off him nicely, adds her usual playful easy chemistry and sincere heartfelt soulfulness to JoBeth Williams' role. And a nice surprise is Kyle Catlett, pushed almost into the main protagonist part as the family's middle child, convincingly growing from fraidy cat to courageous.
These are three likeable performances – amongst a full cast of them, really – in a movie that (despite its inherent uselessness) is actually quite likeable. Judged on its own, "Poltergeist" passes 93 minutes divertingly and comfortably – though perhaps "comfortably" isn't exactly a raving word for a horror movie – and in grand echelon of horror remakes, this one is far from an insult like "Halloween" or "Friday the 13th." For those who haven't seen the original, it'll probably work pretty well, even if you may wonder what all the hubbub was about.
For those who have seen Hooper's film though (and really, do it; it's great) there's really no comparison. The new rendition will always be Tony Gwynn Jr. to Tony Gwynn. It's – one last time – fine, but when future Halloweens roll around and you recommend watching "Poltergeist," no one will ever think you're talking about this one.


Theaters and showtimes for Poltergeist
OnMilwaukee.com Rating:

Friday, May 29, 2015

Review: 'Poltergeist' redo should have stayed away from the light

UPDATED 9:14AM,CDT May 29,2015

20th Century Fox
DES MOINES, Iowa —Everything’s coming up 1980’s this summer. Last week we were treated to the mammoth return of action icon Mad Max. This week we are saddled with a weak retread of one of the best horror films to come out of a decade awash in great horror: “Poltergeist.”

Eric and Amy Bowen (Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt) are moving their family after Eric lost his job, and they have finally found a house within their price range. Their oldest daughter, Kendra, isn’t too excited to live so far from her friends and so close to power lines. Their son, Griffin, isn’t too thrilled about his attic room with its skylight looking up to a creepy old tree. Their youngest daughter, Maddy, loves her new room, especially the closet doorknob that can make her hair stand on end when held.

The occasional odd occurrence happens, including little Maddy talking to the “Lost People” in the staticky TV. One night, Eric and Amy go out to a dinner with friends and Kendra has babysitting duties. Griffin ends up attacked by not only the weird collection of clowns he found in a crawlspace, but the creepy tree, as well. Kendra is almost swallowed by the basement floor. Maddy follows some pretty balls of light into her closet and is grabbed by entities within its darkness.

The family seeks help from a parapsychologist, Dr. Brooke Powell (Jane Adams), and two of her students. After only one night in the house, Dr. Powell realizes she needs more help and calls in Carrigan Burke (Jared Harris), a ghost hunter with his own TV show who’s an actual psychic. Burke respects the family’s wishes and leaves the TV crew out of the proceedings. He helps them better understand what they’re dealing with as he tries to clean the house of its spirits.

I went back and watched the original classic a few days before seeing this remake. Director Gil Kenan (“Monster House,” “City of Embers”) does his best, here, but it’s not quite good enough. While he does conjure up some decent scares every once in a while, they tend to only be during the new fright material.

The rehashes of the classic scares fail to frighten nearly as well as they do in the original. The living tree was the only one that kind of impressed me, but only right as it grabs Griffin. All it ends up doing is swinging the boy around, which is far less frightening than a tree that tries to swallow someone.

There are some good things about the movie, namely the actors. Rockwell and DeWitt are decent substitutes for Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams, both possessing the humor and caring of a loving pair of parents. They also found a really good little actress to play Maddy. As with Carol Anne in the original, much of the film’s impact hinges on this character’s innocence and cute factor. Maddy has this, especially with a line she says to a realtor, but there’s still something even more arresting about the innocence of Carol Anne, especially the way she delivers her signature line. It still gives me chills to this day.

One of the worst character makeovers is Jared Harris as Burke, the psychic. Zelda Rubenstein had a good career, but no matter what she did after she was always “The weird lady from ‘Poltergeist.’” She put a stamp on that role. You looked at her and believed she could commune with the spirit plane. Making Harris a TV ghost hunter undermines the fact that he actually can talk to spirits. They try hard to cement his validity through a scene discussing the scars on his body from angry ghosts, but we in the real world have an ingrained disbelief of TV ghost hunters that is hard to overcome.

What this remake is sorely missing, that the original had in spades, is heart and magic. The original takes its time to bring us to the worry point. It first pulls us into the average life of this loving family, showing us how they deal with mundane things like the death of a pet or having your remote on the same frequency as your neighbor. Heck, they show and interact with the neighbors, who are practically non-existent in the remake. There are only small hints here and there that something’s hinky, and they even embrace it for a little while, like letting Carol Anne get pulled across the kitchen floor. They’re happy people whose lives get turned upside down.

That’s one thing that hinders the remake: They don’t begin so happy. The movie starts with a cloud hanging over everything due to Eric’s unemployment. Sure, it’s a way to make it relevant to a wide section of the audience, but if you start in a semi-dark place, the darker places aren’t as scary.

Another thing that hurts the remake is showing too much. I had heard that Kenan was eager to go past the barrier and show us the other realm where Maddy gets trapped, and I admit it was one idea that intrigued me about this remake and made me more receptive to it. Unfortunately, it only serves to prove something I’ve said a few times about this CGI era: Just because you CAN do or show something doesn’t mean you SHOULD.

After viewing this movie, it made me appreciate the original more because it let me use my imagination about what was in there, and that makes it much worse. All you really need is sweet, innocent Carol Anne’s scared little voice to inject terror into your bones about what she might be facing on the other side. Show me what Maddy’s going through and I’m kind of creeped out, but I’m nowhere near the shivering point. Same goes for hearing sounds and showing shadowy hands press up against the TV screen as Maddy talks to the “Lost People.” When a little girl talks to “nothing,” it’s way more freaky.

While some decent performances and a couple of creative new scares are contained within, this “Poltergeist” only proves that more is definitely less.

Med City Movie Guy: The horror! Remake massacres 'Poltergeist'

Posted: Thursday, May 28, 2015 7:48 am | Updated: 2:14 pm, Thu May 28, 2015.
I blame Jose Feliciano for this fiasco. The smooth-crooning Puerto Rican guitarist appropriated the iconic Doors anthem, "Light My Fire," and, well, ruined it. Nonetheless, its commercial success gave license to every artist who sought to modernize or speciously pay homage to a work that was already a fixture of our pop culture — acts akin to adding arms to Venus do Milo or fixing the gap in Jewel's teeth. To borrow from a Beatles song massacred by everyone from Tennessee Ernie Ford to Meat Loaf, they all should just "let it be."
And so goes the central theme of the "Poltergeist" and the unavoidable question, "Who the hell thinks they can do better than Steven Spielberg!?"
Spielberg, of course, wrote and produced the 1982 classic and though horror-headmaster Tobe Hooper ("Salem's Lot," "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre") claimed the director credit, rumor is that Spielberg was at the helm.
Dubiously credentialed director Gil Kenan ("City of Ember") and Pulitzer Prize-winning (re)writer David Lindsay-Abaire took on the unnecessary task of rebooting the suburban nightmare of an idealized family moving into a home that is a vortex for mischievous spirits. Not sure how the home inspector missed that.
The plot remains intact. The family's youngest daughter is lured into a portal to another dimension (fundamentally Richard Matheson's "Twilight Zone" episode, "Little Girl Lost") by spirits who're disgruntled because the subdivision cemented over their cemetery. Now someone has to go in, rescue her, and clear the path for the poltergeists to find their way to the next life and the franchise's sequel.
Kenan's copy manages to cut and paste the attributes essential to the original's cachet — the clown, the foreboding tree, "They're here," etc. — without any value-add. Worse, these come-off like anachronisms. His idea of updating adds an iPhone, drone, and TV ghost-chaser (Mad Men's Jared Harris) whose catchphrase, "This house is clean," is poseur alongside Zelda Rubinstein's Tangina delivery.
Casting is also unremarkable. Sam Rockwell (typically a favorite of mine) stands in for the original's Craig T. Nelson, and Rosemarie DeWitt for JoBeth Williams. Neither feels authentic or comfortable in the roles.
A better re-imagination for contemporary audiences (see sidebar for others) might have been more hip, not ridiculous like, say, Seth Rogen and a bewitching succubus, but stylized like the "Scream" series.
Or just, you know, let it be.
Med City Movie Guy: 1 Honk
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Coming soon, "Schindler's List" in 3D
I tolerated the recent remakes of "Fame" and "Footloose." Their progenitors were not exactly classics or revered material. But "Poltergeist" crosses a line. What's next? How about re-imagining these sacrosanct Spielberg icons:
#JAWS
Opens with Police Chief Brody (originally Roy Scheider) shooting the scuba tank inside the great white's jaws to protect Amity Island revelers. But when PETA launches a hashtag campaign questioning whether Brody unnecessarily killed the giant beast, his actions come under scrutiny. Sample dialog, "We're gonna need a bigger grand jury pool."
Looters of the Lost Antiquities of Other Sovereign Nations
Shamed by a student-led social network movement, a university caves to pressure and forces a tenured professor of archaeology (Indiana Jones) to return every museum artifact to its country of origin. Plenty of action as tons of paperwork are heroically navigated. Followed by the sequel, "Indiana Jones and the Nondenominational Temple of Doom."
Thoracic Park
John Hammond, you created a new world of prehistoric creatures but neglected to develop a healthcare system to care for them. He's got podiatry and dermatology covered but when his Monster.com post for a dino-cardiothoracic surgeon goes unanswered, he does the next best thing. He creates one from a drop of Michael E. DeBakey's blood preserved on the edge of an old razor.

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Thursday, May 28, 2015

The Poltergeist remake is a reminder of what makes the original unique

The 2015 reimagining of Poltergeist is mostly what we've come to expect from horror remakes -- a passable if tedious display, hitting a lot of familiar beats from its source material but dressed up in the current horror fashions. In fact, the one thing that's brought into sharpest focus by the new Poltergeist is that the original has held quite a bit of influence on modern horror.
Insidious, Sinister and The Conjuring all have one unifying theme in common -- family. At the heart of each of their stories is a family struggling to deal with the supernatural. It's a theme that has served each franchise well enough to merit lucrative theatrical sequels.
There is an important distinction between those films and Poltergeist, though. Poltergeist isn't just a movie about a family; it was designed to be for family viewing. Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper actually fought the MPAA over the film's initial R rating until it was lowered to PG. Granted, we're talking about a time before PG-13 existed, but the result is no less noteworthy. Poltergeist went from being briefly considered a largely adults-only affair to a rating that told parents "Yeah, bring the kids along, too."
Although Poltergeist does have its fair share of scares, that PG rating is earned, because the focus of Poltergeist really isn't the scares -- it's the family. That is at the heart of what makes Poltergeist stand out. But much like the Freelings' home, this film has many hearts.
The closest modern-day comparison that can be drawn to Poltergeist is not its own remake but 2013's The Conjuring. (Note: this article will discuss plot elements from both films.) Both feature a family in distress due to a supernatural disturbance within their home, and both seek the aid of gifted paranormal investigators. Both also place the mother in a central role, but that is exactly where the two films diverge, and where Poltergeist's uniqueness once again comes into play.
Whereas Carolyn Perron in The Conjuring is the focus of the haunting and eventually becomes possessed, Diane Freeling is consistently the one person strong and wise enough to protect her family from the titular poltergeist. This distinction is essential in understanding why the storytelling in Poltergeist is unlike any other horror movie ever made.
Although every member of the family plays their part, Poltergeist is largely Diane Freeling's story. While Carol Anne may be the first to discover the disturbance, it's Diane, portrayed by the luminescent JoBeth Williams, who seeks to understand it. The film even makes a point of telling the audience that Carol Anne's gift of seeing beyond what most humans do comes from Diane. 
As a result, once Carol Anne is taken by the spirits inhabiting the Freeling house, it is Diane who is most capable of remaining in communication with her. Placing a maternal figure at the heart of Poltergeist has a profound effect on the way we experience its brand of horror. Take, for example, this sequence, in which Diane communes with Carol Anne for the benefit of Dr. Lesh and the other paranormal investigators:
You can see from that scene how Poltergeist's scares are tempered by Diane's strength as a woman and as a mother. Her energy makes it so we can see something larger than just the scary parts of Poltergeist. And her energy is strengthened by two other strong female characters -- Dr. Lesh and, of course, Zelda Rubinstein's career-defining Tangina. Each, despite their own fears, treats the situation they find themselves in as something not just frightening but wondrous.
Meanwhile, the audience throughout the film are treated like children, struggling with all the big questions they don't yet have the experience to understand. That is the role that the Freeling's son Robbie plays -- he asks the questions we want answers to, not just in the film, but in life. Take this scene, for example, in which Dr. Lesh tries to explain to Robbie what happens after people die:
Both this and the earlier clip form the backbone for Poltergiest tonally, and so much of Poltergeist uses this tactic in dealing with the supernatual -- not only with jump scares or dread, but with wonder and compassion.
Ultimately, Poltergeist has much more in common with Spielberg's other film of 1982, E.T., than it does with The Conjuring. In fact, it could be argued that if it weren't for the one malevolent spirit in the Freeling house, Carol Anne's relationship to the other spirits in her home would have probably been much more similar to the one between Elliott and E.T.
There are so many aspects of Poltergeist that people talk about. Whether it's ILM's effects work, the conflicts between Spielberg and Hooper, or the supposed curse surrounding the franchise, Poltergeist is one of those horror movies that appears on every best-of list. But plenty of movies have great effects and scores, most have creative conflicts galore, and stories of "real-life" curses crop up in myriad horror movies.
All those things combined aren't what makes Poltergest distinct. What does make Poltergeist so genre-redefining and singular is that, despite the scares along the way (and there are lots of very memorable ones), the story of Poltergeist isn't as simple as one of good defeating evil -- it's a story of reuniting lost souls, be they living or something beyond. It's a story that isn't just scary, it's one that reminds us that it's OK to be scared sometimes.
Poltergeist takes the most ordinary of family lives and makes them extraordinary, not just through dreams or nightmares, but through the spaces in between. Not only does the Poltergeist remake fail at doing any of the above, but it stands in such stark contrast to the original Poltergeist that it serves as a reminder of just how truly unto itself the 1982 classic remains.
Poltergeist was a true original when it came out, and even with the obvious nods in decades' worth of filmmaking since, it remains wholly unlike any movie that was made before or since -- a horror movie that tugs at the heartstrings of the whole family.





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Review: POLTERGEIST (2015) Is a Lazy Cover of a Great Song

Posted by on May 24, 2015
Despite being what I’d call a hardcore horror “purist,” I have no problem with remakes in general. Any sort of movie, be it remake, adaptation, sequel, prequel, or (gasp) an original story deserves to judged on its own merits, which means that no matter how much I love the 1982 Tobe Hooper/Steven Spielberg horror flick Poltergeist, I’d always be open to giving a new rendition a fair shake. It’s been a long time since the one-two awfulness punch that are Poltergeist 2: The Other Side (1986) and Poltergeist 3 (1988), plus I’ve been known to have a good time with unexpected (and unasked for) remakes like Evil DeadThe Crazies and Fright Night, so maybe this “new” version of Poltergeist would turn out to be a good time.
Alas, no. Despite an impressive pedigree that includes director Gil Kenan (Monster House), screenwriter David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole), producer Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead), and a fantastic ensemble that includes Sam Rockwell, Rosemary DeWitt, Jared Harris, and Jane Adams, there’s very little on display that warrants anything besides a disinterested shrug. You can probably blame “remake fever” for this one, because if you wanted to produce a haunted house movie that is set in suburbia, you could do that and call it any old thing. But this movie wasn’t produced because anyone had a cool idea. It was made because “Poltergeist” is still a very popular movie title, so it only makes sense to exploit that title with, yep, a wholly pointless remake.
The original Poltergeist was basically a very old story in a very new setting: a haunted house in the suburbs. See? That’s how you do it: something old plus something new sometimes equals a great movie that people still talk about 25 years later. And then someone remakes it without even a fraction of the original movie’s wit, energy, or creativity. The new version of Poltergeist feels like it was patched together via vague memories of the original film’s better moments by people who don’t really like scary movies, and are certainly not interested in creating one.
So yes: a family of five moves into a new home, only to discover that there are evil spirits afoot, only the family doesn’t seem to care all that much until their youngest daughter is sucked into the TV and whisked away to a creepy netherworld. It’s all here. Again. Remember that creepy tree attack? That’s also recreated here, and rather lamely if you ask me. The freaky clown doll sequence? Also copied here, only not scary. Evil kid-sucking closet demon? Also check.
Given that the original Poltergeist runs 114 minutes and this new version clocks in under 90, you can logically assume that all that stupid character development and suburban locale humor has been tossed right out the window. This time around, the parents have precisely one character trait apiece. The dad is presently unemployed, and the mom is a failed novelist. The kids are (from youngest to oldest) A) adorable, B) anxious, and C) bitchy. Also, what used to take place in a vibrant suburban neighborhood now takes place in a depressingly low-rent development. (Not sure why, exactly.) So there’s your character development. Now let’s get to the digital ghosts and the pedantic recreations of sequences we’ve already seen over and over already, right?
Frankly it’s hard to tell who this movie was made for. Anyone who loves the original will be irritated by the lackluster writing and frequently slavish devotion to well-established sequences. And those who haven’t seen the original will walk away confused as to why the 1982 film is held in such high regard in the first place. Plus it’s not scary. Ever. Not even once. Mildly suspenseful, maybe, but completely lacking the mood, style, or intensity that every horror movie needs. Yes, even one that’s geared for the 13-year-old audience, as this one plainly is.
As far as what’s “new” in this version, get this: remember the big heroic moment for the mom? How she ventured into a ghost-filled netherworld in order to rescue her helpless daughter? That oddly touching moment of selfless, maternal heroism? Yeah, in the remake, a drone with a camera gets to explore the other dimension while mom just stands around holding a rope. That pretty much sums up the whole movie: get the humans out of the way so we can let technology handle everything.
Destined to be categorized (and hopefully forgotten) among both of the lackluster sequels, Poltergeist (2015) is a shining example of a remake that’s as uninspired as it was unnecessary. How you turn one of the most vibrant “mainstream” horror films of the modern age into such a dreary, aimless, and inert piece of cinematic product is simply beyond my comprehension. All I know is it made me want to watch the original film again, so I guess we can call that a silver lining, of sorts.
1.5 out of 5 remakes of a delicious burrito from 1982
1.5 burritos

Chuck Koplinski: 'Poltergeist' a solid remake of 1980s horror classic



Unlike the unwanted, supernatural characters at its core, director Gil Kenan's "Poltergeist" does not overstay its welcome. Playing somewhat like a Cliff's Notes version of the Tobe Hooper/Steven Spielberg classic, this re-do recreates, and sometimes improves upon, the many iconic moments from the 1982 feature, wasting little time to deliver one round after another of effective scares. That they don't feel all that fresh is due not only to its remake status but also because so many other effective fright films in recent years have covered similar territory, making it difficult for Kenan and screenwriter David Lindsay-Abaire to bring anything new to the table.
The premise is a familiar one, so Kenan dispenses with it quickly — Eric and Amy Bowen (Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt, both very good) are in the market to downsize, as he's been recently laid off, and find a heck of a deal on a roomy house in a nice subdivision. Not wanting to look this gift horse in the mouth, they close on it, move in and the spooky shenanigans begin. Their youngest, Madison (Kennedi Clements), begins having conversations with someone or something in her closet, middle-child Griffin (Kyle Catlett) draws the short straw and gets the attic bedroom where he discovers a creepy clown collection, while their eldest Kendra (Saxon Sharbino) ... well, she's a teenage girl so she's too wrapped up in herself to be aware of things that go bump in the night.
Films of this sort live and die by their set pieces and Kenan is able to stage them in such a way that more than a few genuine scares are delivered. Utilizing computer graphics to their full potential, the director creates a sense of pervasive malevolence in the Bowens' home that is genuinely unsettling. Kendra's encounter with muck-covered ghosts in their garage is unsettling, while the infamous tree from the first film takes on a life, and indeed a personality, of its own here that prompted giggles of anticipation as to what it had in store for poor Griffin. As for the clowns, let's just say if you suffer from coulrophobia, dismiss any idea you may have of seeing this film thinking that in facing your fear you may be cured. This is a wrong-headed notion that should be abandoned at all costs. You've been warned.
With films of this sort, so much depends on the skill of its child performers, and Kenan is fortunate to have found Clements and Catlett. The former is key to our buying into the premise and that she's able to convey a belief in these malevolent intruders not only makes it easier for the audience to play along but raises the emotional stakes as well. Catlett is also very good, going from a tremulous child to one of great bravery and confidence, all of it done with nary a self-conscious gesture or line reading. Unlike most child performers, we look forward to their scenes as opposed to dreading them. As expected, Rockwell and DeWitt are solid while the script's one innovation — that of bringing in a rakish paranormal investigator as opposed to the minute elderly psychic played by Zelda Rubinstein in the original — is justified by the self-aware, humorous turn by Jared Harris as Carrigan Burke.
As well done as this ghost story is, it can't help but suffer in comparison to the Hooper original as well as recent entries such as "Insidious," "The Conjuring," "Sinister" as well as many others. While Kenan & Co. should be commended for a fine job, they're unable to scare up anything new where the haunted house genre is concerned.
Poltergeist ★★★ (out of 4)
Cast: Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Kennedi Clements, Kyle Catlett, Jared Harris, Saxon Sharbino, Jane Adams, Susan Heyward and Nicholas Braun.
Directed by Gil Kenan; produced by Nathan Kahane, Roy Lee, Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert; screenplay by David Lindsay-Abaire.
An MGM Release. 93 minutes. Rated PG-13 (intense frightening sequences, brief suggestive material and some language) At AMC Village Mall 6, Carmike 13 and Savoy 16.
Also new in theaters
Wiig struggles mightily to bring life to 'Me' (★★). Oh, if Eliot Laurence has only rewritten or had someone else take a crack at his script for "Welcome to Me," director Shira Piven and her game cast might have really had something special on their hands. Though running a scant 87 minutes, the film is brimming with worthy, timely ideas such as the realization of Andy Warhol's prediction that everyone would be famous for 15 minutes, the need for better services for the mentally ill and the very nature of the morality of modern media. Unfortunately, these ideas are referenced but never fully developed, being used instead as fodder for cheap, awkward laughs while the film's veteran cast is all but wasted.
From the start, it's obvious that Alice Klieg lives in her own little world, in a small apartment cluttered with meticulously categorized VHS tapes of episodes of "The Oprah Winfrey Show," various swan figurines and a very large bed. She struggles with depression, tries to work through her problems with the help of her kindly therapist (Tim Robbins) and looks to Oprah's oeuvre for advice at every turn. This is a daily battle for her but her routine is forever changed when she wins $86 million in the California Lottery, an event that allows her to realize her dream, for better or worse, of writing, starring and producing her own talk show.
Rich Ruskin (James Marsden), president of the struggling New Vibrance Channel, is more than happy to let Alice tilt at her windmill to the tune of $15 million for 100 episodes, much to the chagrin of his partner and brother Gabe (Wes Bentley), who not only has moral qualms about this but ultimately falls for the woman who soon becomes an Internet sensation. Her two-hour shows consist of segments like "You Got Everything, I Got Nothing," others that feature conversations between Alice and her mother with a scoreboard tallying how many times they insult one another as well as re-enactments of traumatic events in her life. These are always a highlight as they always end with our heroine in tears, yelling at the poor actresses who've been hired to play her and her adversaries, only to come to some sort of personal realization.
The script alludes to the fact that Alice's show becomes something of a sensation but never weighs in on how those in the media react to it or how it impacts those with a similar diagnosis as Alice. Equally frustrating is the lack of development where potentially interesting characters are concerned. Jennifer Jason Leigh is cast as one of Ruskin's veteran advisers and while we can tell she has a great deal of experience in the television field, she's never allowed to weigh in on what is going on; she simply looks frustrated once or twice and then quits. It's implied that Ruskin himself suffers from a crisis of conscience once libel suits start pouring into the station, but the opportunity to provide him with a bit of complexity is wasted as well. Joan Cusack as the show's director is given short shrift also.
Rarely do I wish that a movie were longer, but in this case an extra 20 minutes devoted to looking at the ripple effect of Alice's show as well as providing time for character introspection would have been time well spent. Unfortunately, much like its main character, "Welcome to Me" is far too insular for its own good.
Good intentions can't overcome faulty 'Tomorrowland' script (★★). If good intentions were all that was necessary in making a good movie, Brad Bird's "Tomorrowland" would be considered an instant classic. As written by Damon Lindelof and the director, the film is an earnest plea for the renewal of the sort of national optimism that fueled the space race, an unabashedly optimistic look at the potential we have as not simply a species but the planet as a whole. No cynics are allowed here and while the sincerity Bird and all involved bring is commendable, it all works in the service of a faulty script that tries to get far too much mileage out of its flimsy, albeit noble idea.
Ironically, things get off on a rather sour note as one-time boy genius, now full-time curmudgeon Frank Walker (George Clooney) recounts for an unseen audience his experiences at the 1964 World's Fair, which he attended wide-eyed with wonder, presenting his homemade jetpack to Dr. Nix (Hugh Laurie) in the hopes he may be able to help with its design flaws. Instead, he's rebuffed but a precocious little girl named Athena (Raffey Cassidy) takes an interest in him, giving him a pendant that, when touched, transports him to a magical, futuristic land where geniuses and visionaries reside, all striving to make the world a better place.
Flash forward 50 years and we meet Casey Newton (Britt Robertson), a young woman as bright and eager as Walker once was, whose unbridled enthusiasm is squashed at every turn by a constant stream of dire environmental and political events as well as the attitude of jaded adults. She too comes to the attention of Athena, who passes on her last magical pendant to her, something that sparks her curiosity, so much so that she sets out to find out more about it, a journey that eventually takes her to Walker's doorstep, who wants nothing to do with her or her questions.
For a movie with such an urgent agenda it takes far ... too ... long ... for it to get to what it really wants to say. Casey's journey for answers is delayed and detoured by one artificial narrative roadblock after another as car chases, series of needless questions and far too many silly misunderstandings keep the film from gaining any traction and alienates the audience as a result. (Perhaps the most irritating diversion is Casey's stop at a memorabilia shop that contains one Disney/Star Wars/Marvel product placement after another. Make a drinking game out of spotting these and you'll be out of booze in three minutes.)
Clooney and Robertson both do a fine job but their labors are for naught. Once the final conflict is revealed the film's ending proves to be the very definition of "anticlimactic." And while the ultimate message in "Tomorrowland" is worthwhile and necessary, the sort of optimism it subscribes to is a bit too nearsighted and naive to truly take to heart.
For DVR alerts, film recommendations and movie news, follow Chuck Koplinski on Twitter at @ckoplinski. Koplinski can be reached via email at chuckkoplinski@gmail.com.

Review: 'Poltergeist’ solid remake of haunted house classic

It’s infrequent and particularly satisfying when the remake of an especially memorable film equals or exceeds the experience of the original. In 1982, “Poltergeist” saw the brilliant pairing of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s” low-budget horror director Tobe Hooper with far more mainstream screenwriter and producer Steven Spielberg for an effects-laden event movie that earned its place as a contemporary benchmark among supernatural thrillers.
Leaving behind the youth-skewing perspectives of “Monster House” and “City of Ember,” director Gil Kenan not only delivers on the promise of Hooper’s “Poltergeist,” but significantly raises the stakes for similar PG-13 fare.
In setting the scene, Kenan and the filmmakers take their cue from the first film in the trilogy, as Eric (Sam Rockwell) and Amy (Rosemarie DeWitt) Bowen, crippled by the financial impacts of the Great Recession, look to downsize so that they can continue adequately providing for their three kids. They find what they’re looking for in a distressed but affordable home for sale that’s located in a nondescript development full of vacant properties on the outskirts of an Illinois town where Amy attended university. Youngest daughter Maddy (Kennedi Clements) is excited to move in following the initial tour after conversing with some new invisible friends who speak to her from a mysterious bedroom closet. Anxiety-prone middle child Griffin (Kyle Catlett) isn’t thrilled to be settling into an attic bedroom, however, where an ominous willow tree looms over the house through a rooftop skylight. Teenage Kendra (Saxon Sharbino) displays visible disaffection with her new situation, preferring to remain in touch with her old life and friends via phone, text and video chat.
On the first night in their new home while everyone else is asleep, Griffin discovers Maddy talking to the big-screen living room TV as it flashes and emits strange noises. “They’re here,” she says, referring to her friends, “the lost people.” Now Griffin has some solid reasons to feel worried, especially after noticing objects moving around the house of their own accord and discovering a box full of scary clown dolls stashed in a storage space. His parents just attribute these trepidations to his chronic anxiety and it isn’t until the next night when they’re out to dinner at a neighbor’s house that they discover some disturbing information regarding their new home that sends them rushing back to check on the kids.
By the time they arrive, Griffin and Kendra have suffered supernatural attacks and Maddy has vanished completely. At their wit’s end, Amy and Eric decide to seek guidance from Dr. Claire Powell (Jane Adams) from the Department of Paranormal Research at Amy’s former university. Powell agrees to assist, bringing in her staff to wire the Bowen’s home with video cameras and monitoring equipment in their search for the missing child.
As the film reaches its midpoint, all of the essential elements of the original are in place and in part this satisfying continuity is attributable to a screen story again written by Spielberg. In scripting the remake, David Lindsay-Abaire hews closely to the earlier template, replicating some key scenes with more contemporary flair while ratcheting up the pacing by cutting 20 minutes off the running time.
Although Rockwell appears capable of holding the Bowens together in the face of financial and personal peril, it’s a rather under-written part that lacks the frequent character tics he’s exploited more memorably in smaller-scale films. DeWitt is the predictably supportive emotional core of the family, eventually driven to extremes by her daughter’s predicament.
Kenan’s overall improvements to the movie’s visual style aren’t only attributable to advances in technology and a 3D update. While Hooper favored shock value and jump scares, Kenan and cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe construct far more fluid sequences as the camera glides and hovers over its subjects, reserving the most impactful shots for the climactic scenes, particularly a concluding sequence that’s particularly thrilling.
“Poltergeist,” a 20th Century Fox release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for “intense frightening sequences, brief suggestive material, and some language.” Running time: 93 minutes.
MPAA rating definition for PG-13: Parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.



Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Review: Poltergeist remake fails to deliver

Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt In 'Poltergeist' First Trailer

Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt In 'Poltergeist' First Trailer
Poltergeist (M)
Director: Gil Kenan (Monster House)
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Saxon Sharbino, Kennedi Clements, Jared Harris.
Rating: **1/2
Taking fright with the familiar
With Poltergeist, it all comes down to what you are more afraid of: things that go bump in the night, or remakes that might go kerplunk at any moment.
If you were alive in the 1980s, then no doubt you are aware of the original Poltergeist.
Horror remake ... Rosemarie DeWitt as Amy Bowen in Poltergeist..
Horror remake ... Rosemarie DeWitt as Amy Bowen in Poltergeist.. Source: AP
It was a blockbuster spooker of its time, a strange, stridently haunting flick with enough paranormal activity to power about 10 Paranormal Activity movies.
That first Poltergeist had a certain cinematic pedigree going for it as well. Steven Spielberg penned the story, and filmmaker Tobe Hooper (of Texas Chainsaw Massacre) brought the frights.
Watch out ... Nicholas Braun has a terrifying encounter with a poltergeist residing insid
Watch out ... Nicholas Braun has a terrifying encounter with a poltergeist residing inside a bedroom wardobe. Source: AP
Now, three decades later, Hollywood is hitting us with a generic second serving of this once-disturbing dish.
While the recipe remains more or the less the same, fresh ingredients are scarce, and the flavour is on the bland side.
This is not to knock lead actors Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt, who are their usual, unfailingly credible selves as the married couple who buy the wrong house at the right time for a haunting.
They’re back ... the Poltergeist remake features stunning special effects.
They’re back ... the Poltergeist remake features stunning special effects. Source: Supplied
Rockwell and DeWitt share an easygoing chemistry that can often make you forget the film is coasting along on autopilot. It would be great to see them together again in other, better circumstances.
The young actors who play their three children (a little girl destined to be lost to ‘the other side’, a middle-kid son who serves no apparent plotting purpose, and the obligatory surly elder sister) don’t really cut it by comparison.
Where the remake does surpass the original is in the special-effects realm. Director Gil Kenan assembles two very strong sequences (including a well-thought-out riff on the old film’s climactic rescue) that saves his movie from total oblivion.
However, the jury will remain out for some time on the new Poltergeist’s choice of spirit medium (a famous and crucial character in the original). Fans with long memories will shake their heads in disdain.