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First reviews for the poltergeist remake

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SCULLIBUNDO

Banned
A disappointingly tame and unimaginative effort, which throws away much of what was best-loved about the original and fails to find worthy replacements.
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Nick De Semlyen, Empire Magazine

Leaving behind the youth-skewing perspectives of Monster House and City of Ember, director Gil Kenan not only delivers on the promise of Hooper's Poltergeist, but significantly raises the stakes for similar PG-13 fare.
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Justin Lowe, Hollywood Reporter

This has more in common with slick, audience-goosing modern spookers like 'Insidious' than with Hooper & Spielberg's imaginative original.
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Tom Huddleston, Time Out

[A] professionally executed yet bloodless film ... an act of homage that hews reverently to its source material while missing the essential spirit and vitality that once powered it.
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Andrew Barker, Variety

Very tame, but saved from the remake scrapheap by Sam Rockwell's surprisingly touching performance and a final reel that - briefly - takes the material somewhere new.
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Matt Glasby, Total Film

This new spooky-house chiller never escapes the shadow of its predecessor, but it also pales next to the scores of subsequent movies - "The Conjuring," "Insidious," and "Paranormal Activity" - that already stripped the original "Poltergeist" for parts.
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Alonso Duralde, TheWrap
 
C

cacildo

Member
This has more in common with slick, audience-goosing modern spookers like 'Insidious' than with Hooper & Spielberg's imaginative original.
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see?

[A] professionally executed yet bloodless film ... an act of homage that hews reverently to its source material while missing the essential spirit and vitality that once powered it.
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"Bloodless". Every movie is bloodless nowdays. Even mad max was bloodless. Even what they call "horror" movies today is bloodless

(but to be fair i dont remember the original poltergeist being bloody.... was it?)
 
D

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
The ads are hilariously awful. It looks like an unintentional parody of modern horror tropes.

Sudden movements are scary, right? Let's just make stuff and people suddenly fly around without reason. That's the ticket!
 
R

Ridley327

Member
Sounds like it's pretty much what the trailers made it look like: a too-faithful remake where there are too few new things beyond adopting the aesthetic of modern moneymakers like Insidious. I was a teeny bit optimistic with Raimi's involvement, given how well the remake of Evil Dead turned out, but I guess this was just easy money for him after all.
 
Wag

Wag

Member
YgKgnYy.gif
 
J

jwk94

Member
So what was the original movie like? I found it weird that the trailers made it look like another Insidious movie.
 
Wag

Wag

Member
Back to the Future remake, they go back to 1978 Hollis, Queens and meetup with Run DMC and inspire rap.
 
T

Toxi

Banned
cacildo said:
(but to be fair i dont remember the original poltergeist being bloody.... was it?)
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There's one really gory scene when
the guy rips off pieces of his face in the mirror, and that's it.
jwk94 said:
So what was the original movie like? I found it weird that the trailers made it look like another Insidious movie.
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Lots of surreal imagery. Very unique for a horror movie.
 
S

SCULLIBUNDO

Banned
Ridley327 said:
I can't imagine it even being a fraction as good as the original. Joe Dante's perversion of Frank Capra made that film so damn fun and evil.
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Gotta say... Gremlins doesn't hold up AT ALL. I watched it again a few months ago. Just awful. The only great thing about it is that creepy as fuck Christmas music.
 
D

Delta Assault

Member
Scullibundo said:
Gotta say... Gremlins doesn't hold up AT ALL. I watched it again a few months ago. Just awful. The only great thing about it is that creepy as fuck Christmas music.
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Critters was the superior creepy-monsters-take-over-a-town 80s flick.

In fact, the Critters films are one of the greatest quadrilogies in cinematic history.
 
C

cacildo

Member
Scullibundo said:
Gotta say... Gremlins doesn't hold up AT ALL. I watched it again a few months ago. Just awful. The only great thing about it is that creepy as fuck Christmas music.
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What? I watched it 3 weeks ago and it was great!!!

Bright light!

(sorry, it was the first time i could watch it in english....)
 
I

Infernostew

Member
I can't remember the last time I saw a horror remake and thought is was good. This obviously changes nothing. Looked cheap and unimaginative.
 
M

Mr. Sunny

Banned
Will watch for Sam Rockwell, dude brings a genuine relatability and earnestness to his performances. I don't even like horror movies and haven't even seen the original, but it could be a fun theater experience.
 
R

Ridley327

Member
Oersted said:
The Thing? Body Snatchers? Is a long time ago, mind you.
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If you want something recent, Maniac is deeply respectful of the original film while going off to do its own thing, and is quite successful on managing both aspects. It helps that it was an independent production, which aren't so beholden to needing to appeal to large audiences.

Speaking of, outside of the Hellraiser remake that will likely continue to be in development hell by the time everyone involved with the making of the original has been dead for at least 30 years, I think Poltergeist was the last big mainstream horror film that had yet to be remade, so we're about to enter some interesting territory if the studios want to keep scraping away at 80s horror nostalgia. We may be closer to a found footage reboot of Without Warning than we think!
 
Neff

Neff

Member
jwk94 said:
So what was the original movie like? I found it weird that the trailers made it look like another Insidious movie.
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It's quite unusual for a 'horror' film. It's in equal parts scary, funny, wonderous, thrilling, and magical. It's more like a high-concept family entertainment movie which also happens to be a horror movie and probably not suitable for kids. It also leans more heavily towards the established science of ghosts than the spiritual. In that sense, it literalises the concept of the supernatural. It's fantastic.

The sequels blew though.

Also I just watched the trailer and it never occurred to me that the ghosts would make contact through a flatscreen TV, which I suppose is obvious. It's hard to feel the same otherworldly curiosity about digital 'static'from a LCD as analog static through a CRT, though.
 
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