Poltergeist III

I've probably mentioned this before. I have not seen a TON of truly bad movies. Because of streaming I am able to watch movies I would never pay money for either in the theater or on DVD. This is one of the worst films I can remember seeing in a long time. And truthfully I probably have seen very FEW films as bad as it before I started streaming in earnest three or four years ago.

This review will be challenging. Because I hated every inch of the film and it feels like if I itemize everything wrong with it, I'm Comic Book Guy and you shouldn't take my loathing seriously. In fairness to my inner Comic Book Guy, I will probably be talking about all the little things that annoyed me in the second half of the review. But I think I could possibly impress upon you how bad the film is if I point out the worst thing in it and prove with myriad examples why it doesn't work.

Before I do that, an observation. I have heard similar negative reviews for MOST horror films in the 1980's. I always half-dismissed them as critics being snobby and not appreciating the genre. But after seeing this, I'm wondering what if all horror movie of this era ARE this shitty? What alarms me about this (probably true) idea is if near everything in the genre is this horrible, there is NO fucking way this should still be a genre, even today. I am aware modern horror is not THIS anymore. But if I ever appreciated the horror genre back then, I would have thrown up my hands in disgust and never seen another one of these movies. And horror fans would be nonexistent if everybody had my same standards about this. I speak often about how poorly viewers of superhero fare allow the producers of those comics, movies, and show to basically mistreat and abuse their trust. Horror aficionados were the original shat upon fandom if I'm reading this movie's quality correctly. Why isn't the movie any good? I think the producers didn't think it HAD to be. Which is both depressing and damning.

Here is the main problem with the movie and why the movie cannot work, and why there is nobody to root for. It's Carol Ann's school psychiatrist. I understand the trope of the rational therapist trying to debunk the spooky goings-on, but the thing is the way the movie had him do it shows he is absolutely shitty at his job of counseling kids, is an actual child abuser (of the emotional variety), and should never be taken seriously.

The problem is his theory that Carol Ann puts mass hypnosis on people. As far as rationalizations for not believing weird stuff goes, it's telling that's the place his monstrous mind goes to. What the FUCK kind of child therapist goes around blaming the child for every single problem in the people around hers life? And what kind of shitty adults actually take him seriously?

Here is the problem in a nutshell. After the monster hand raises out of the desk, and breaks the mirrored glass with his mug, he triumphantly explains to the people behind the glass that Carol Ann made them BELIEVE there was a hand out there, and then he points into the group at a guy holding a mug and accuses HIM of breaking the glass. If I was that guy, I would be like "Then why is the mirror glass on THIS side of the partition if it was broken IN on THIS side?" Isn't it crazy the obvious shit badly written garbage misses that no sane writer ever would?

And her Aunt Pat is believing this pure horseshit and calling her a little brat and saying she couldn't wait to get rid of her while her husband is giving her smooches. She insists to the false Carol at the end that she loves her and considers her part of her family. But that's not what she was saying earlier. And if the writers wanted us to believe differently, they never would have had her say those specific things. Those things added no actual tension to the movie and seemed to me to be the writers' clumsy idea at a way to hand her unearned character growth, without having the basic writing skills or the adult emotional awareness to understand that's not how character growth actually works. Or people for that matter.

Also Trish is a way classier name than Pat. This movie is out of its mind.

I have read Heather O'Rourke was very sensitive about her puffy cheeks after her illness so I have to believe the producers of this film are pure monsters for putting her in monster make-up to make her deliberately visually horrifying. Keep in mind O'Rourke was fucking 12 at the time. How fucked up is it that Hollywood did that to her, and THAT is not the most tragic thing about her childhood?

Hey, at least they dedicated the movie to her. Which leads me to wonder why the last film didn't do the same for Dominique Dunne.

God, the second half of the film is just people wandering around the mirrored skyscraper. It's so fucking boring and the imagery isn't even that scary. Carol Ann is billed as the main character but she disappears halfway through and we're stuck with Tom Skerritt and Nancy Allen as his obnoxious wife.

Also, I take note that although Bruce's family was saved, the boyfriend Scotty was still lost in the void, never mourned, and completely forgotten.

People died in the movie (a first for the franchise) but it says something bad that the previous two films with NO deaths took death more seriously.

I mentioned in the last review Julien Beck was the ONLY person who could play Kane. I was right. This movie proves it. They had to put this new guy in heavy monster make-up to look even a tenth as scary as Beck did with just a little extra face powder. Bringing back the character was a huge mistake. Of course it was hardly the film's only one.

I'm wondering if this piece of shit was actually the norm for horror movies in the 1980's. If it was, horror fans back then had incredibly shitty taste and put up with too much. Story of a fandom's life. 0.