True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The Victim of the Haunt, aka The Uninvited,(1996) was a made for TV movie. It was directed by Larry 'Shaw, and was written by Karen Clark, She gives us a decidedly feminist take on Poltergeist. Spoilers ahead, read on if you don't care. Even as The Uninvited I had no recollection of this I decided to give it a go,The, "Family moves into a house with a Dark past" genera was formulaic, even back then. The "made for TV" factor, rendered this project toothless. Not that the show ever lacked forward momentum and innuendo It was entertaining as it hit all the clichés, An observation; The rotary dial phone was still common. That was less then twenty years ago. Oh, the changes we've seen, but not in the plot.The young couple here, Patty and Charles, played by Sharon Lawrence and Beau Bridges with their little ones, Jonathan and Molly, played by Alex Linz and Emily Bridges, move into a new home. Daddy is always away at work, but Mom and the kids know that there is something not right with the house. Formula plot point ahead. Patty befriends a psychic reader, What is unusual here is the feminist slant. Since the men are too blind to see whats going on, as well as their intentions may be, they are in the background. It will be a woman's love that overpowers the forces of darkness,Favorite inevitable line, "Oh honey, I should have listened to you!" Six dreary stars out of Ten, the special effects must have seemed epic, not! a homage to Spielberg none the less. 

...but it was called Poltergeist and it really scared the bejeezus out of you and stuck with you for days.You probably understand the story line at this point from the other reviews here, but if not - here's a summation, with plot spoiler: Dad, mom & two kids move out into the burbs... Dad's gone A LOT for work... Mom & son are seeing "things" around the house (lights, movements, bloody water)... Dad doesn't believe her... Mom doesn't try too hard to prove her point... Mom stumbles across a psychic that tries to warn her of the harm coming her way... Dad has mom hauled off... 5 minutes later, dad's digging up gravestones in the back yard in the rain... Mom escapes from the hospital only to save her son in the last possible moment from the baddie while dad exclaims "I should've believed you!". Yawn.This completely undisguised and unnecessary retelling of the Poltergeist story flips and flops like a fish out of water. It's almost painful to watch, but for some reason it is just barely able to hold you for the duration of the movie although it's rarely startling and never frightening.Unfortunately, it's terribly clichéd and predictable from start to finish and it didn't have to be that way. The two main actors (although Beau is missing for long expanses of the movie (probably for reasons of salary)) hold this stinker together, and the supporting cast does a fine job of helping them along the way.For whatever reason, the producer or director tried to insert some amount of levity at completely inappropriate times, and you could only notice this by the musical score becoming suddenly very "Looney Toons"esquire when there was terror afoot (note: I keep putting e s q u e after Looney Toons but it keeps auto-changing it to "esquire" and my corrections don't stick). These failed attempts at wry humor were completely lost, and perhaps I'm the only one that noticed they even tried.Still, the special effects are well done and the music (aside from the unfortunate segues, above) is suitable if not sometimes sparse. If you've got nothing else to do and the couch is having a wicked gravitational pull on you, then watch it but be prepared to be unimpressed overall.

Beau Bridges,(Charles Johnson), tried his best to believe his wife, Pattie Johnson,(Sharon Lawrence), that their brand new house was having strange things happen in the bathroom and closets. Charles Johnson, was a truck driver and had very little time to worry about his wife's problems, having lost a child during her pregnancy. There is a tree in the film, that looks like a pretzel all bend out of shape, and I really think the director's brain was twisted just like it. The actors did their very best to carry this film on their backs, namely: Sharon Lawrence and Beau Bridges; they both must have had plenty of laughs making this film, because in some ways, it was comical and stupid. The name I viewed this film under, was called: "The Victim of the Haunt"! WOW

I saw this film for the first time recently and was amazed at the striking similarities between this movie and the original Poltergeist, made in 1982. "The Uninvited takes place in an affluent, Cuesta-Verde-like neighborhood. The family's house has a twisted old tree much like the one that the Freelings' have in Poltergeist. The story here is a tad different, with Sharon Lawrence's character having a baby that is stillborn. It is after this that she begins to witness strange phenomena in her house. At this point, the parallels begin: When the poltergeist-like phenomena start to happen, she is amused by it and thinks of it as a "playful supernatural force" that we don't yet understand. This also happens in Poltergeist: Remember Diane and Carol-Anne playing with their poltergeist in the kitchen. Later in "The Uninvited" the poltergeist, of course, turns menacing, posing a particular threat to Sharon Lawrence's young son, played by Alex D. Linz, just as the poltergeist targets Carol-Anne in the original. Sharon Lawrence soon enlists the aid of an older psychic woman to help her make sense of it all. She informs us that the "heart" of the house is in the child's closet. In a scene that mirrors the original poltergeist, the closet lights up and opens to reveal all of the toys (including wind-up toys) moving around on their own. Then comes an earthquake-like shaking followed by a shot of Sharon Lawrence clinging to the psychic with tears running down her face saying "Go into the light! Your mother is waiting for you in the light!" We also learn that the house is built on a cemetery where, surprise surprise, they didn't move the bodies. If you have seen Poltergeist, you will recognize the similar scenarios and camera shots throughout "The Uninvited:" The mother running down a moving hallway to reach her children to have the door slammed in her face and the door locked by the poltergeist; The classic "stacking" scene- here done with eggs rather than chairs; The father searching around a mud pit in the pouring rain discovers the remains of the cemetery; The confrontation between the mother and the poltergeist that, when it becomes visible, looks like the twin of the one in the Spielberg movie. Bottom line: Rent the horror classic "Poltergeist" and forget this unofficial remake.