Simply Perfect

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

"Poltergeist" to me was one of the most scary movies I have ever seen.". "Poltergeist II" however was a one the most disappointing movies have ever seen.Now this film was not exactly a money grab. It was made 4 years after the first film. However watching this film is like watching a film that ended too soon because the production ran out of money. The movie itself is about the "Freeling Family" and it's about a year later. The are living with Diane's mother. However the events of the first film has left major scars on the family. One of the residual effects is the fact they no longer have television. Also Carol-Ann nows seems to be clairvoyant and a scary man seems to be chasing the family now or is he a "ghost"?Also returning is Zelda Rubinstein who's role seems to have been shoehorned in. I know MGM cut 20 minutes or weeks before the film was released. I don't know if the studio ran out of money but the ending seemed to be abrupt and silly. You can tell this was not the intended ending. Something seemed missing! I just wonder if it was filmed?

The house is gone. Tangina Barrons is digging at the site and finds the Indian burial grounds. She is joined by Native American shaman Taylor. The Freelings have moved in with Diane's mother Jess in Phoenix (without the older daughter). It's been a year and their insurance claim is in limbo. Steve is struggling selling vacuum cleaners. The evil spirit of Rev. Henry Kane is after Carol Anne. Jess dies after telling Diane of Carol Anne's abilities. Tangina sends Taylor to help the family.The death of Dominique Dunne needs to be acknowledged. Her character vanishes as if she never existed. It leaves a big hole especially since her scream is such an iconic scene. This sequel is essentially setting up for a repeat with Taylor as the new outside help. I don't like Taylor and he's not really necessary. Kane has a nice creepy look but he would be more effective at night. I don't understand why his scenes happen in the daylight. It also rewrites the cause of the original. I really don't like the retcon. The original's idea of the cementary is far superior putting the cause down to greed. On the other hand, the best has to be the limb-less creature coming out of Steve. It's a very memorable creature design. Overall, this could have been a functional stand alone movie. The retcon is problematic. As a sequel, the sense of inferiority is never far.

While the sequel, "Poltergeist II: The Other Side", was never fully up to par with the original "Poltergeist" movie, then it has always been one of my favorites. And the reason for this was because of Julian Beck in the role of reverend Henry Kane. Man, that guy was spooky in that role, and he really carried most of the movie.Right, well the movie essentially picks up where "Poltergeist" left off, with the Freeling family, minus Dana, staying at the grandmother's house. Back at the original Cuesta Verde site, the foundation of the house has been uprooted, revealing a horrible tomb underneath, where people were lead to their deaths by a reverend who preached the end of days, and end that never came, but the reverend refused to release his congregation. Reverend Henry Kane is out to get the angelic Carol Anne and nothing can stop him.Story-wise, then "Poltergeist II: The Other Side" isn't as fully thought through as the first movie. But it was still entertaining and it does have its moments. My personal favorites are all the scenes with Julian Beck.The effects were adequate enough for a movie back from 1986, but for some reason they were outdone by the effects in the first movie. Which was a bit odd.The acting in part 2 was good, and it really carried the movie quite a long way, with most of the original cast making a return trip to the screen.Like the first "Poltergeist", I have seen "Poltergeist II: The Other Side" so many times that I have long lost count. And it will probably always be one of those movies that I keep making a return trip to, no matter how many years pass by."Poltergeist II: The Other Side" is an entertaining movie, considering it is from 1986. And it is a must watch alongside with the first "Poltergeist" movie, especially if you enjoyed the first movie. This sequel is a well worthy addition to the collection of any horror aficionado.

"Poltergeist II: The Other Side" is sound and fury signifying nothing, a good-looking special effects show that contains no less than a flying chainsaw, a set of killer braces and a creature excised from the human body through vomiting, yet it can't find a cohesive foothold to string any of those ideas together. Then again perhaps they couldn't. How exactly do you build a narrative that leads to killer braces? It isn't exactly news to report that "Poltergeist II: The Other Side" is a sequel to the hit 1982 thriller, but the surprising news is that this movie does everything wrong that the original film got right. Like "The Exorcist", key to the success of "Poltergeist" was that the characters were so grounded in reality that when the supernatural stuff started to happen, it leant the effects a degree of credibility. This sequel goes the other way around so we feel the effects but the characters are simply there to be knocked around.That's too bad because "Poltergeist" is one of the rare horror films that actually earns the right to a sequel by virtue of ending on a note so melodramatic that we might have been disappointed if someone didn't find a way to get that family out of their funk. That film, you will recall, ended with the Freeling family fleeing their house as dead bodies popped out of the ground before the house was sucked into oblivion. The family, now homeless, checked into the Holiday Inn.As much as "Poltergeist II: The Other Side" is valid enough to continue their story, it does not, however, live up to the original. The story is silly and the characters feel like cardboard cut-outs, with witty little jokey dialogue, when it isn't laced with supernatural hoo-ha. The supernatural stuff in the original was mounted on a semi-plausible idea: their house was mounted on the grounds of a relocated cemetery. Here there's some nonsense about protection from evil forces and the protective force of the family bond. This is filtered through Indian mystical nonsense and something about a 200 year old religious sect that wants Carol Anne's life force back on "the other side". Whatever.The story picks up a year later, which is a problem because the two movies were produced four years apart. That means that the little blonde Carol Anne, who was five years-old in the original is six now and played by Heather O'Rourke, who is actually nine. That gives us the agonizing sight of watching a nine year-old playing a six-year old. Why not just set the movie four years later? Anyway, the story deals once again with the Freeling family, Dad Steve (Craig T. Nelson), Mom Diane (JoBeth Williams), and the kids Robbie (Oliver Robins) and Carol Anne. The teenage daughter Dana is absent here and never mentioned even in dialogue. They have moved in with Grandma (Geraldine Fitzgerald) after their house was sucked into oblivion. Naturally, Dad refuses to buy a TV.The hole where their house once stood is under investigation by the medium Tangina Barrons (Zelda Rubenstein) and a Native American mystic named Taylor (Will Sampson) because "there's a presence." What that "presence" is steps on the premise of the original film. In the earlier film, it was explained that a real estate company made a strange decision to uproot the cemetery without moving the bodies.Now we learn that a 19th century cult sealed itself inside a cave at the urging of an evil minister named Henry Kane. Kane is alive and well and stalking around trying to capture little Carol Anne and take her back to the other side. It is hard to figure out exactly what Kane is, whether he's a spirit or some kind of satanic manifestation. We never know. There's some suggestion that he can manifest himself into a different forms but that is never really explained either. This movie is one long series of loose-ends.The movie is also one long series of special effects for their own sake. Hardly a scene in this movie isn't crafted without one. The back half of the movie is a strange venture into the mystical world that seems to be neither here nor there. Somehow the family does battle with the forces of evil by using their strong family lifeforce - nevermind the fact that one of their numbers, 17 year-old, Dana is missing. Somehow they enter the netherworld through a multi-colored Indian campfire, and I was never completely sure how they got out. I suppose I wasn't supposed to ask. It's a sad day when the only way to enjoy a movie is to stop questioning its overwhelming gaps in logic.The one thing that does work here is the performance of Julian Beck as Henry Kane. Dressed in the vestments of an 19th century minister, his face is skeletal with large teeth bared over curled lips. His voice is slippery and unnerving. There is something about his presence that, in a better movie, could have really come to something. He shows signs of what the movie could have been. More priest and less family bonding might have helped. You know what would have been a great sequel? This family in therapy.