MovieChat Forums > Poltergeist (2015) Discussion > Unnecessary lazily-made cash grab, infer...

Unnecessary lazily-made cash grab, inferior to original in every way

posted 9 years ago by !!!deleted!!! (12526472)
20 replies | jump to latest

A few bullet points I came up with within an hour of seeing it:

1. There's no likable characters. Not effort to establish them or reasons to sympathise with them. We get a few minutes of exposition about the schlub fathers bad career luck, that's it. "Hey, why bother writing a good story, everyone knows what Poltergeist is about already right?". The establishing scenes (moving in/seeing ghosts for first time/getting paranormal investigators in) is all done so quickly and uncreatively.

2. The dialogue is terrible, like the sceenplay was scribbled down in half an hour after a quick viewing of the original.

3. Did any of the writers actually bother to find out what G.P.S. even stands for? Or how it works? Let alone find out what cheap drones are really capable of. Apparently bluetooth can transmit between different dimensions, wonder what version they were on?

4. The parent's performances are perfunctory, the kids are all bad. The Irish ghost hunter is the only slightly-likable performance but that's barely enough and it's right at the end.

5. There's no attempt to put any interesting spins on the original story. Bolting on a (really bad) slightly alternative ending doesn't count. So damn lazy.

6. Absolutely none of the CG ghosts/effects are scary. The original succeeded in having effective scares when needed, but also effective humour too. This glaringly has neither. Hang on, i'm wrong....there were a couple of laughably-bad scenes, but not many of them either.

7. The whole thing has the cynical air of "Let's just get this over and done with as quickly and efficiently as possible so we can hopefully make a fair profit for minimal effort and expense".

8. Watch the excellent original and forget this rubbish ever existed.

[–] gotmyorangecrush 9 years ago

Honestly, I think your being too easy on the film. While everything you say is 100% true, you could have added a LOT more that was wrong with this film. Honestly, this is one film where its eaiser and much faster to just name the good parts about the film as opposed to pointing out the bad parts. The good parts of this film were:

1 - absolutely nothing.

end of story.

Still Shooting With Film!

[–] reggiecenteno-48001 9 years ago

Who forced your idiot's to watch it

[–] gotmyorangecrush 9 years ago

Here is a little advice, if your going to call people idiots, make sure you don't make yourself look like one in the process.

"Who forced your idiot's"???

And your calling other people idiot's? Hysterical, lol.

And to answer your question, nobody. Not sure what that has to do with anything but there ya go.

Still Shooting With Film!

[–] FizzyGillespie 8 years ago

I agree with you in spirit, and it pains me to say this...

but...

"And your calling other people idiot's? Hysterical, lol."

Your is possessive. You're is a conjunction for "you are."

You should have said "you're."

[–] Calimarina 8 years ago

Obviously you are an idiot as well. There isn't a regulatory body for the English language like there is for the other Germanic and Neo-Latin languages so he can write however he chooses.

[–] doctorcrimedog 8 years ago

Uh, yeah, he can, and he can be wrong. I can choose to type "cat" when I actually mean "wallpaper" and call it a stylistic choice, and it'll still be wrong.

Knowing how to use your native language does not make one an idiot.

-There is no such word as "alot."

[–] mec_os 8 years ago

it should be "if you are going to call people idiots"

so much irony

[–] Rena_Mahone 9 years ago

Only good part of the movie: Sam Rockwell.

🐺 Boycott movies that involve real animal violence (& their directors) 🐾

[–] gotmyorangecrush 9 years ago

I disagree as I thought his performance was horrid and I am actually a big fan of his. I LOVED Moon!

Still Shooting With Film!

[–] !!!deleted!!! (12526472) 9 years ago

I also don't see why people think Sam's performance was good. The best you could say is that he tried with what little there was I guess.

[–] patrick5020 9 years ago

Eh it wasn't the worst remake I've seen. That one would have to go to Point Break 2015. Seriously this was a fun movie. Was it better than the original? No not at all. I even own this on DVD along with all 3 Poltergeist movies.

[–] gotmyorangecrush 9 years ago

Honestly, its the worst one I have ever seen. Didn't see Point Break and have no desire too. I honestly can't think of a single remake I have seen that was worse than this.

Still Shooting With Film!

[–] jbaker1-2 8 years ago

I take it you haven't seen Rob Zombie's butchery of the 'Halloween' franchise, then....

[–] Scape (527) 6 years ago

Touché.

[–] kaydie-fee 8 years ago

I'm surprised it was as bad as it was tbh, It was all really phoned in, like nobody involved had any enthusiasm for the movie at all .
it didn't feel cinematic at all and there was absolutely no atmosphere. It felt like a cheap made for TV movie to me, the cinematography was ugly and flat, almost the whole film takes place in that boring fugly house - I thought the kids were OK acting wise but everyone one else seemed like they couldn't be bothered- really blah movie with really blah characters, 'insidious' was a better attempt at updating Poltergeist imo

[–] TalesfromTheCryptfan 8 years ago

Agree with the OP

"Unicorn, mermaid, vampire,sorceress! No name you'd give her would surprise me i love whom i love"

[–] drfunk-18075 8 years ago

Your memory seems a bit off. I usually loathe remakes but i thought this was a decent adaption. The original Poltergeist was a great movie but not because of the acting. The acting was decent but not exactly citizen kane. The reason the original was sucessfull because it had a fantastic story and amazing special effects. I think you are looking at the original with rose colored glasses.

[–] doctorcrimedog 8 years ago

I think you are looking at the original with rose colored glasses.

I think this is true for the reaction to some remakes, but not here. This film had so many problems it's hard to know where to start. Aside from never really being scary, there's the fact that its pacing was really incompetent. There were basically four big set-pieces of horror in the original: the closet, the tree, the clown, and the bodies under the house. This film includes all four of those in the first appearance of the ghosts, when Maddy is taken. I was wondering what they were keeping for the end, and it turns out the answer was nothing, really. They don't even keep the revelation that the bodies weren't moved until the end-it's just sort of tossed off about two-thirds through. The view of the tunnel made of writhing bodies was a creepy image, but wasted by virtue of not having a single shot of any of the observers reacting to it, or even commenting off-camera. If the people living in the house which boasts a cavern made of corpses can't get spooked by the sight of it, why should I? For that matter, Sam Rockwell asks an excellent question early on: Why is there a huge collection of toy clowns in the attic? Beats me. The film never says. And in the end, they try to wring some humor out of the end, as if mere days later, the family is just laughing off the whole thing. I have no idea what they were thinking.

-There is no such word as "alot."

[–] drfunk-18075 8 years ago

I had no issues with the original story. It is one of my favorite movies. I was speaking more to the acting in the original.

[–] klawrencio 8 years ago

I agree with your post entirely, and in particular this:

6. Absolutely none of the CG ghosts/effects are scary. The original succeeded in having effective scares when needed, but also effective humour too. This glaringly has neither. Hang on, i'm wrong....there were a couple of laughably-bad scenes, but not many of them either.

The CGI scares are just woeful, and your point about the lack of humor is spot on. This is often my biggest gripe with poorly written movies - the lack of humor. Now that doesn't mean that all movies need to be comedies or even "funny" per se, but an injection of humor vis-a-vis some realistic human interaction makes the story more believable, it makes the characters more grounded. When people speak in stilted, nonsense, B-grade script-speak, it sinks the entire thing. When they speak to each other like actual human beings, it elevates everything into a place where everything else can seem organic to the story. It becomes more real. The original excelled at this. Steve and Diane speak to each other the way an actual married couple would talk to each other - they bicker, they laugh, they discuss their children, they love each other, they aren't perfect. It's all there, it's organic to the story and it makes everything else around it work.

Here, nothing was real. The tacked-on dinner scene were they ham-fist the graveyard concept from the original into the story was one of the most poorly written scenes I can remember from the past year. Everything was forced and the result is a highly forgettable effort that wastes a handful of otherwise good actors.