Poltergeist III Review

Review of Poltergeist III (1988) by screenqueeen: 👍 3.5/5

the thirteenth night in the lonesome hooptober day 24 film 21 cat: 0

73/100

i don't think a POLTERGEIST film could ever become transcendent in the way its mythology is decorated, even in the smoldering dud of THE OTHER SIDE it's handled as if every little development will have its audience awe-struck. as good as what Sherman can do here it's nothing near the kind of magic Hooper caught in the first film and i think it has to do with focusing too hard on a single aspect to expand on for a central gimmick. i'm talking about the use of mirrors in both the first and this third POLTERGEIST movie.

there's a shot with a character on a bed with an eerie light about it in the first film, where Hooper shot using small mirrors (or mirror shards) to reflect the lights into the shot in a somewhat ethereal way. Sherman's sequel is all about mirrors, primarily as the only way to really see what people or entities are on the other side. but i found this to be severely limiting the widespread power those restless spirits and even Kane could harness. the spirits never needed mirrors to terrorize the Freeling family and could easily have set up the expectation that the ubiquitous mirrors throughout the entire building were helpful only to pull the rug out from underneath anyone trying to use them as such a tool, like a poltergeist would do. i feel this commits a little too hard on the one aspect of treating something like mirrors as a single infallible tool that has somehow translated into how we see mechanical plot devices in stuff like the INSIDIOUS and CONJURING movies. that got tedious real fast.

here's where i throw praise towards the AMITYVILLE HORROR films (up to a point, of course) for never resting on something so static within a world it creates that would be far too unpredictable to trust any one element for too long. the forces of evil and spirits of the damned have too much time on their hands to leave something so obviously easy to bait untapped. this sequel is by far the best, foremost because of its performances (this cast!!!) and drive to deliver a story in the same vein as Hooper's project but it never pushes itself anywhere.

EVIL DEAD RISE