Movie Review #48: Poltergeist III (1988)

 

You know sometimes I feel like I'm too lenient on Hollywood films because I watch a lot of movies that were filmed in backyards and wooded areas by people who should have been put in a mental instutition instead of getting to film movies. Like films made by legit crazies. I've also seen an insane amount of movies that barely have endings. Like they ran out of money and had to have the most abrupt endings possible. A lot of fun can be had with cheesy B-movies but you do end up having to wade through a lot of junk. So a Hollywood movie comes along and the movie is coherent and has a beginning, middle and end and I'm like HOT DOG I'M EATIN TONIGHT! Sometimes I just feel like sometimes I'm too lenient. Sometimes I feel that people who trash some of these Hollywood movies haven't even seen them. I'm pretty sure the good amount of people that shit on this movie haven't even seen it. They just go OH CRITIC MAN SAID IT WAS BAD or IT DIDNT MAKE A BAZILLION DOLLARS. you know what did make a bazillion dollars, those fucking Transformers movies that just shit all over the Transformers. This is the worst opening paragraph I have ever written.

So yeah I recently rewatched this for the first time since I was a kid. When I was a kid I believe I saw Poltergeist and Poltergeist III. It took me quite some time before I could see Poltergeist II: The Other Side. The Video stores around here had a weird selection of stuff. It was pretty awesome at some times but pretty annoying other times. Anyway enough about that let's get into the many reasons I enjoy this film. First off the acting is really great. Sure we don't get Craig T Nelson any more but we get Tom Skerritt and Nancy Allan in return. I don't know about you but I think that's a pretty fair trade. They play Carol Anne's aunt and uncle. or stepuncle. or something like that. They have a teenage daughter. She has the hots for some dorky lookin' dude. Also that wonderful dwarf woman returns. I love her. The new change of arena from a regular house to a big ass apartment building is neat. There's also all kinds of wonderful 1980s effects. You can have your CGI they will never beat practical 80s effects!! The plot also moves at a good pace, never feeling to slow or to fast. So many movies feel like they don't know where they want to go and so many feel like they want to get the entire thing over with.

I do have some qualms with this movie. I know, I'm shocked too that Poltergeist III isn't a perfect piece of cinema. One has to do with Carol Anne's parents sending her to a school for troubled but intelligent children. The therapist is all NO SHE DIDNT SEE GHOSTS ITS ALL MASS HYSTERIA and I would have just liked a scene of him saying he contacted her parents after hearing about what happened and got them to think she really did know how to pull off mass hysteria or something. It just feels like they forgot about that one little thing. There's also later on in the movie where Nancy Allan just wants to give up Carol Anne to the ghosts to get back her daughter. I can get her shitty reaction because she's all in a damn ghost attack of sorts but I don't know if it's done the best way it could have been. Still I'll take a movie with some problems over a movie that has seventy seven trillion problems. 

FINAL VERDICT: Yeah, I think I might have ended up liking this movie more than Poltergeist II: The Other Side but I'd probably have to rewatch that one to find out. I know for certain I enjoyed this movie more than the remake of Poltergeist. I legit forgot they even remade Poltergeist and I saw the damn remake. That's never a good sign.