Poltergeist (2015)

Directed by Gil Kenan. Starring Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Jared Harris, Jane Adams, Saxon Sharbino, Nicholas Braun, Kyle Catlett, Kennedi Clements, Susan Heyward. [PG-13]

Remake of the early-80s horror hit follows the same premise, and doesn’t look bad doing it, but is completely ineffectual at building dread or delivering shocks or providing a new hook or angle to explain its existence. Nuclear family moves into suburban California home that is haunted by a pesky poltergeist, the byproduct of upsetting the dead after the subdivision was built on a former cemetery where the headstones were moved but not the bodies. Homages galore, all of them just a reminder how much better those scenes and moments were the first time around; the scare tactics are outright laughable, like when they redo the “tree attack” scene and not only have the claw-like branches slowly drag over a window pane like it’s an actual hand, but then have the branches reach about fifty feet through a series of rooms, stairways and hallways to snatch up its victim. The filmmakers can’t even provide a likable enough family to root for, and weirdly waste a significant amount of time in the early-going stressing their financial struggles and patriarchal unemployment, issues that never come up again once things start going haywire. Fairly good cast is wasted. Only for those who like jeering at the screen instead of screaming at it.

34/100