LogFAQs > #979903909

Evilordexdeath - I saw this one once before, with family, and we all thought it was really cheesy and hard to take seriously, but that was years ago and a lot of my family is like that with every movie so I knew I had to rewatch. I was worried if I didn't I would underrate a well-known classic, but the second viewing mostly just solidified all the reasons I don't like this movie. The early family scenes are kind of cute, providing a decent buildup for a horror flick, and JoBeth Williams' and especially Zelda Rubenstein's performances are compelling, but once the plot begins to unfold everything just becomes so overdone. So many scenes are just every character screaming at the same time for like 10 minutes, every "scare" prior to the stupid paper mach skeleton monster at the end is just this visual clutter of flashing lights and objects flying around, and if all that isn't enough the score will make damn sure you know that what's happening is scary. I hate the music in this movie, it's always either overstating how spooky events are or just sounding likeStar Wars when it's completely out of place. This also has one of those false horror movie endings that annoys me so much when I'm not enjoying a film. They get their daughter back and the funny little medium lady says "this house is clean," great, give me a couple minutes of falling action and take me to the credits. Instead the haunting starts up again for another 20 minutes of the most visually and auditorily noisy action of all. It really feels like a precursor to the kind of CGI-fueled Hollywood mediocrity that defines so much of cinema today.

Fortybelowsummer - Is Poltergeist the best haunted house movie ever? Probably so, but I have to admit I think its kind of overrated. It seems like youll hear nary a bad word spoken about this movie, but for me its just tooSpielberg-y. I know its Tobe Hooper, but it has Spielbergs fingerprints all over it, to the point where he was accused of secretly directing it. Dont get me wrong, I like Spielberg as a director and producer, but I just dont care for his style in muh horror. There are things to like, mainly the idea of taking the haunting out of the traditional old creaky mansion and putting in a modern home right in the middle of idyllic suburbia. That idea does have a lot of appeal, and coupled with the believable performances and script make it scarier because its something that could take over the very home youre sitting in. The last twenty minutes or so are actually amazing and right up my alley, the chaos and dread ratcheted up, presumably more under Hoopers influence. Poltergeist is definitely not bad, but as far as haunted house stories go, there are a number of others that resonate more with me.

Rockus - Now this is a modern (for its time) haunted house film with its 1980s suburban setting and the way it utilizes modern (for its time) technology by using a television as a means of interacting with its paranormal entities. The film is a little tame by Tobe Hooper standards but is still ultimately pretty solid. A handful of iconic moments give it a bit of a kick, mostly involving the little girl. Who could forget the theyre here moment? Good movie, but maybe not great.

Karo - Greedy real estate developers build a subdivision over a cemetery and nothing bad happens.

The story is kind of slow to start, focusing on the day to day life of an ordinary suburban family with some of the most questionable parenting practices ever, I mean who buys this horrifying clown doll and then sits it up in a chair so it can watch their children sleep, jesus fucking christ.

Anyway the furniture starts moving of its own accord so they have to call the ghostbusters to deal with the titular poltergeist. Except that's not what it is. The medium clearly states that a poltergeist is a spirit tied to a specific person, as opposed to a haunting being based on a location. This is clearly the latter, so good job giving a your movie an inaccurate title?

Also. the desecration of burial ground narrative does not even match up with the mythology presented, where all the people at rest would have long since 'gone into the light' before the graveyard was bulldozed.

This film is a prime example of nothing but cinematic fluff, most things happen without rhyme or reason and seem more just a vehicle to showcase a lot of stupid looking special effects, while the tone is inoffensively commercialized to the point of being completely soulless and lacking any bite.

Bitto - Rating: D+

This is an interesting family-friendly horror movie. I dunno if child abduction is family-friendly, but most of the scares here are minor, the main cast is generally likable, and there's no on-screen or even off-screen murder. I appreciate the horror of losing a child and the parents sell that pain really well. I feel like most movies would make the paranormal investigators some degree of comical, but again, there's an earnestness to them. I feel like I should like this more, considering I really appreciate sincerity, but this movies feels too.......Christian. The plot also feels really thin, like...there's a lot of scenes about really nothing. Every character introduced afterwards feels like they could inject something in the plot and they just...don't.

Seginustemple - Competently made but relatively tame, with scares ranging from bright light/large fan to Ghostbusters fare - I get the sense this has been defanged by parody over the years, and if I had been around to see it in '82 I'd have probably been blown away. But once the paranormal crew shows up dressed in tan the rest of the movie goes down tasting like ecto cooler. You what really resonates though, is the underlying conflict about real estate. Naturally, the developer built the house on a former cemetary and the haunting merely indicates the entitlement of the dead to the land, skeletons popping out of fancy luxury coffins to protest new occupants. Nothing better to do in death than covet property, so lame.