I rented this movie because the back of the box said, "The sequel you've been waiting for." It even had the words, "It's heeeeere," which sounds like something Carol Anne from the Poltergeist trilogy would say.
The movie itself is good, but the plot and characters are so different that I wonder if it really is a sequel?
A great series...while it was on showtime anyway. Never caught it on Sci-Fi. But certainly not a sequal to Poltergeist. More like trying to capitalize on the name. Not neccesary. Was a good series in its own right.
shareNope, not a sequel. It's a frequent practice, when developing shows in Canada that might be marketed to the United States, to try to make a connection however tenuous to a successful movie series. Something similar was done with "Friday the Thirteenth: The Series", which had nothing to do with the "Friday the 13th" movie series. It's also common to "borrow" themes or characters from US TV series and movies and build new shows around them. This is what happened with "The New Airwolf" (very loosely based on "Airwolf" but produced by a completely different company), "Forever Knight" (same characters and situations as the US movie "Nick Knight" but with the action moved from Los Angeles to Toronto), "Kung Fu: The Legend Continues" (inspired by the US TV movie "Kung Fu: The Movie" but with different characters, situations and setting, though both starred David Carradine), and others including "The Magnificent Seven: The Series", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985)", "War of the Worlds (1987)" and "The Outer Limits (1995)", all of which were based wholecloth or with modifications on US properties. Other similar things have occurred such as "John Woo's Once a Thief (1996)", a Canadian TV movie and accompanying series loosely adapted by Woo from his own 1990 Hong Kong action movie of the same title.
I'm not sure how I feel about all this "borrowing" and pseudo-sequels, but it definitely sounds like the packaging for the version of "P:TL" that you saw delves into the unethical. About the only element of the "Poltergeist" movies that made it to the TV series was Zelda Rubenstein, but her character was significantly altered (in the movies, she was a Southern-born psychic, but in the TV version she is some kind of immortal extradimensional being who just happens to have the same name and be played by the same actress). Sounds pretty underhanded to me.
Well, Zelda Rubenstein was not playing the same character.
In the movie, she is Tangina Barrons and in the series it's Christina. Only a cameo apparition I think.
'I rented this movie because the back of the box said, "The sequel you've been waiting for." It even had the words, "It's heeeeere," which sounds like something Carol Anne from the Poltergeist trilogy would say.'
They trick you. It really has nothing to do with the first three movies at all. All they took was the title Poltergiest. It has less to do with Poltergiest than the movie Queen of the damned has to do with Interview wtih the vampire. (All they took was a character's name and a book title from the series).
To me Poltergiest: The Legacy is more or less The Talamasca of Anne Rice's books just with the name changed to The Legacy. The movie is really the pilot for what became a four season television series that aired on ShowTime and then The Scifi Channel.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he'll tell you the truth.