Poltergeist
2 Waffles!

Don't stop me if you have heard this one before because we all know you have.

Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt star as Eric and Amy Bowen - a married couple who have fallen on hard times. He has lost his job, and they had to sell their home and move into a beat up old development full of foreclosures. To make things worse, they are moving into a house with a very creepy tree in the yard (yes, for those who didn’t see the original, that will become important later).

The Bowen family has three kids who have different reactions to their new home. Teen Kendra (Saxon Sharbino) knows it is a step down from what they used to have and is angry about leaving her friends behind.

Adorable 6-year old Maddie (Kennedi Clements) seems to be making the best of it as she discovers places to play and starts making conversation with some new, invisible friends.

However, the child having the hardest time of it is middle child Griffin (Kyle Catlett), who has all sorts of anxiety problems, so they stick him in the isolated, eerie room in the attic (complete with a skylight, so he can watch that creepy tree slapping the window all night long!).

Like any place, the new house gives off a series of bumps in the night, but little noises are quickly escalating because an evil poltergeist is taking possession of the house, screwing with electronics, bringing clown dolls to life and sucking little Maddie to the TV!!!!

Can the family find a way to bring back Maddie?

Will they be able to survive?

What does the poltergeist want?

Most of you reading this have seen the original, so you know the answers to those questions, and not much here will be a surprise. This Poltergeist follows the same basic plot as the original, updates the special effects, changes some details allegedly to improve it, and injects a welcome bit of snarky humor. Maybe that snarky humor is implemented like a defense mechanism to make the joke before the audience does, but it works.

Director Gil Kenan leaves in most of what you found so horrifying about the original and completes the picture with a mix of shocks and mild gruesomeness, but why is he in such a rush?

The pace flies much too fast as Poltergeist has action that leaps from strange, creepy noises to Hellfire, brimstone, apparitions and violence with very little build up. The action escalates too quickly to allow a certain mysterious atmosphere to prevail, which leaves us with a bare bones movie lacking the development and details that would enhance it and make it more than a basic story we have seen before.

Yet, Poltergeist has some bright spots. Jared Harris camps it up as Carrigan Burke – a ghost seeker famous for his cheesy TV show. His heavy British accent makes him seem weirder and more mysterious, which is what Poltergeist needs by the time he shows up. Sadly, Harris could have had a bigger role, which is hinted at in the late moments of the movie, but action gets in the way.

Then, Rockwell and DeWitt make the most of what could have been boring, inconsequential roles. Catlett is the lead in Poltergeist, but Rockwell is fantastic as the snarky Dad with the one-liners, while DeWitt delivers the honest motherly fear at the big moments, after having some wise ass fun early on.

Poltergeist should be less focused on special effects and more focused on atmosphere.

Poltergeist is rated PG-13 for intense frightening sequences, brief suggestive material, and some language.