Poltergeist (2015)

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Gil Kenan/Starring: Sam Rockwell, Rosemary DeWitt, Jared Harris, Jane Adams, Kennedi Clements, Saxon Sharbino and Kyle Catlett

I never saw the original Poltergeist so I can only offer an assessment of this reboot or remake (the distinction puzzles me). I was never really frightened or even mildly creeped out watching director Gil Kenan's version; I only felt inclined to stretch and wait for the predictable procession of conventional scares to exhaust themselves and believe me, you could easily trip over all the stylistic cliches littering the screen.

Sam Rockwell and Rosemary DeWitt play Eric and Amy Bowen; he just laid off from a good job with John Deere and she a stay at home writer-mom who is on a sure track to being published. With their put-upon teenage daughter Kendra (Saxon Sharbino), son Griffin (Kyle Catlett) and other daughter Madison (Kennedi Clements), the Bowen's pull into their prospective suburban home after having seen several other candidates. Though not an ideal home, Amy persuades Eric the house is the least sucky place they've visited.

After the Bowens purchase the house and begin to settle in, Griffin notices Madison is behaving strangely; talking to the closet doors and more peculiarly, their flat-screen T.V. But Griffin encounters weirdness of his own when a small door in his bedroom wall reveals a cache of creepy-looking clown dolls (always dolls and always clowns! Why couldn't it be a trove of Etch-a-Sketches?). We can intuit from their very presence that the unpleasant little things will sooner or later become agents of supernatural hostility. And they do.

One night, while Eric and Amy dine with friends, the host informs them their home is built on a burial ground, though the bodies were supposedly relocated (note to realtors: I hope your home-selling code of ethics includes disclosures about houses smothering legions of the dead). At that same moment, the Bowen residence becomes an ectoplasmic rave when black sludge oozes from the garage floor, the clown dolls harass Griffin (no, really?) and worse still, the cute-as-a-button Madison is sucked into a void-like dimension that forms in her closet. On arriving home, Eric and Amy find their son dangling from the branches of a tree in their yard. Only minutes prior to their arrival, the tree became an evil operative of the force besieging the house. Eric and Amy, finally convinced their new house is home to malevolent things from beyond, consult a team of paranormal investigators at the local university in hopes of enlisting their help (do colleges and universities still fund such programs? Hmmmm.).

The team leader; Dr. Brooke Powell (Jame Adams) and her two assistants become acquainted with the Bowen home before setting up their elaborate array of ghostbusting equipment. Before long, they too are startled by the ferocity of the spirit's assaults on the Bowen home furnishings. Dr. Powell explains to the Bowens that the otherworldly baddies that have abducted Madison are not ghosts but poltergeists; violent, aggressive entities from beyond the grave. Daunted by the encounter, Dr. Powell decides to contact a man named Carrigan Burke (Jared Harris); the host of a sensationalized T.V. ghost-hunting program who carries a whiff of a charlatan and shameless showman in his show. We learn Burke and Dr. Powell were once married and share a shaky, post-marital relationship.

The manner of Burke's arrival recalls Father Merrin's in The Exorcist. The similarities in appearance are striking and unintentionally comical. Only Burke's silly hat serves as any kind of contrast.

When Burke learns Madison is being held captive in the other world, he explains that the bodies that were supposed to have removed from the property probably never were (Yeah, thanks realtors, for that critical omission!). He also sheds light on why the poltergeists have targeted Madison.

As Burke begins his poltergeist-cleansing ritual, he removes a rope from his bag, which he attaches one end to the wall in Madison's bedroom, while the other end stretches into the ghostly abyss (or her closet, whichever you prefer). The plan is to have Madison use the rope to find her way back to our world but her voice, which they hear emanating from beyond the walls, informs them she can't find her way back. Griffin, feeling responsible for his sister's predicament, plunges himself into the poltergeist world before anyone can stop him. On the other side, we see Griffin wander among the seemingly limitless expanse of the dead; their writhing bodies entwined with one another in a continuous mass. Occasionally, the bodies reach for him.

As Griffin and Madison are eventually ejected from the world of the dead, Burke, Dr. Powell and the Bowens are lulled into a false sense of victory, for the spirits decide they haven't had enough of the family. Burke heroically returns to the house for a final confrontation though he discreetly avoids the opportunity to tape a segment for his show.

Rockwell and DeWitt lend the film some dramatic credibility with their presence but it isn't nearly enough; nor is Jared Harris' turn as Carrigan Burke much help. At moments, the film aspires to near-creepiness but it fails to depart from horror movie conventions: menacing clown dolls, a baseball rolling across the floor by itself, a child talking to something we can't see, etc., are insufferable cliches, even by the low standards of Hollywood horror film-making.

As I watched Griffin wander among the dead, I asked myself, who is charge here? Shouldn't the poltergeist El Presidente be aware of his presence?

I found Rockwell's Eric to be strangely passive. At times he seems almost to regard his daughter's abduction as a joke. Nevertheless, Rockwell brings some whimsy to the film. Jared Harris, who played a paranormal researcher in last year's The Quiet Ones, is well on his way to becoming Vincent Price's successor. We may see him in more horror films in the coming years. I did enjoy his character, as I did Jane Adam's Dr. Powell. We almost never see Adams in films these days, which is too bad; she always brings a touch of the idiosyncratic to her roles.

There are repeated shots of power line towers in the film though I'm not sure what kind of metaphor the images serve. Is director Gil Kenan making some comment about energy consumption? Is he drawing a parallel between the malign spirit world and unsightly power line sprawl? If so, the association is rather weak because no symbolic link is ever established.

I saw the film in a theater that was mostly patron-free (only an elderly man shared the space). One would think that being mostly alone in the dark would make for ideal conditions for watching a horror film but no, Poltergeist made me fidget.

On my way out of the theater, the elderly man asked me what I thought of the movie. I sleepily shrugged my shoulders and asked him for his opinion. He told me he thought it was quite scary. I didn't know how to respond but if he thought this weak effort was frightening, what would he have made of It Follows and The Babadook; horror films that actually were terrifying and/or creepy? Oh well, everyone is entitled to their reaction. Who needs my drowsy indifference?