Maybe you just can’t remake Poltergeist. See what happened with Carrie (1976) when Kimberly Pierce tried to reboot Stephen King’s and Brian De Palma’s classic: the result was a film that wanted to closely mimic the original and yet ended up being a lousy copy.
Maybe Steven Spielberg’s and Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist (1982) — the former produced it, the latter directed it, or so is credited even though some say Spielberg took charge of it all — is another case in point. Like Carrie, Poltergeist belongs to the time it was made. Its naiveté, the affectionate nature of its characters, the wholesome family, and its fable-like story is pretty much 1980s stuff. Even the poltergeist phenomenon itself was a typical topic back then.
So if you are to remake it, then you’d better go for a new version inhabited by new personalities with a different tone in different times. That would be one way to go. The only other possible way to go would be to preserve both the essence (as regards the contents) and the spirit (as regards the style) of the original, and make sort of an update, if you will.
The first huge problem with Poltergeist (2015), directed by Gil Kenan (Monster House, Ember City) is that it is neither a new version with new twists nor a worthy update that preserves the original. In fact, it’s nothing much of anything.
The storyline is somewhat the same: a loving all-American family whose suburban home is haunted by evil forces, that is to say poltergeist, must join forces in every possible way to rescue their youngest daughter from wherever it is the mysterious apparitions on the TV set had taken her to. And then get the hell out of the house.
Let’s not bother with the arbitrary changes — the characters’ names, the gender of the top medium, the family’s economics, no dog, no canary, no swimming pool — and instead focus on the major flaws.
For starters, the main and supporting characters are neither likeable nor dislikeable for they lack the minimum development to turn them into beings we can care for. These characters don’t suffer, don’t yell at the top of their lungs, don’t get desperate, and don’t freak out. So once again, why are we supposed to worry about them?
Furthermore, the tangible suspense and intrigue of the original film is never found in this remake. Things just happen out of the blue with no proper dramatic build-up, and even worse, they happen all at once. That is to say, you get to see a house with no haunting signals and then, overnight, all hell breaks loose.
Whatever happened to the sense of mystery? Why not lead viewers into a dark scenario little by little, just like the characters are meant to be introduced to it, and then slowly reveal what the scenario is all about?
Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist was not about shocking audiences, it was about surprising them with style and then dazzling them with state of the art F/X administered in the right doses. Gil Kendan’s Poltergeist is about CGI being shown as soon as possible so that more CGI effects can come up afterwards.
Tobe Hooper’s magical feature had a contagious sense of humour, both domestic and authentic. Gil Kendan’s mechanic movie has no sense of humour at all, and when it tries to be funny, it rings false.
And there’s one unnecessary change, which is, you get to see the other side of the TV screen, the other plane where the little girl has been taken. Leaving the fact it is one more chance to display more F/X, nothing really happens there. It’s not explored as a dramatic space, you just get to see it and that’s it. They are set pieces made with a big budget that have no weight whatsoever as regards the script.
So there’s no character development, no tension, no magic, and no humour. What’s left then? Well, there’s a different ending too. It’s so farfetched and trite — and also whimsical — that it can only prove that you’ve been wasting your time watching yet another lame remake. In turn, you also understand a simple truth you may have known before you entered the movie theatre: you just can’t remake Poltergeist and get away with it.
Production notes
Poltergeist, US, 2015. Directed by: Gil Kenan. Music: Marc Steritenfeld. With: Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Kennedy Clements. Distributed by: Fox Films Argentina. NC13.
@pablsuarez
