At this time, I think the studio is hoping to make a minor comeback and attempt to keep the franchise profitable. But Craig T Nelson didn’t want to return. He was interested in potentially returning for #4, but that was before Heather O’Rourke died before they finished filming. This is obviously her last film and was given the incorrect medications. They also cut a lot of her big scenes with dialogue due to budgetary constraints. How often have we heard that before? I have no info on JoBeth Williams not appearing. The thing is, in Poltergeist II, they did this whole thing about the females in the family being clairvoyant, so that seemed like a big thing. Hell if I know.
Gary Sherman was the director, and this may be the biggest film that he directed. Uh oh. Tom Skerritt is in this as Bruce Gardner. Nancy Allen (of Robocop fame) plays his wife, Patricia/Pat/Trish. Lara Flynn Boyle is Bruce’s daughter, Donna. Zelda is back and so is the character of Kane, but not the actor. Julian Beck, the actor who portrayed Kane, died. Part of the curse, I think. Oh my. I am not at all excited. I need to make food.
I made this microwaveable cookie/brownie thing from Duncan Hines. It was decent and quick. I can’t eat a full tray of brownies, so this is a fine alternative. Where was I? Oh yeah, this sounds terrible. I am not excited. Let’s get this over with. Sadly, I am even less excited about the reboot. Gonna be a long night.
Start Film
Ohhh, younger Skerritt. Always a treat. So we see multiple mirrors, Donna is obsessed with her appearance, and Bruce talking about Narcissus. Lex Luger didn’t drown though. Oh wait, he was the Narcissist. More mirror stuff. Even if you didn’t know that this plot involved mirrors, they have been pretty heavy-handed. Okay, this is one big ass building. I also hate escalators. Then I saw The Kiss from 1988. It used to play on Lifetime. I was big on Lifetime movies at the time such as: Not Without My Daughter, Flowers In the Attic, Stephen King’s IT, and Supermarket Sweep. Anyway, The Kiss has a scene where a girl falls down on an escalator and gets her necklace caught. It was badass. Donne wearing the classy hat, because that’s what girls did back then. It looked terrible then, and still looks terrible. More mirrors. Anyway, my point is, I hate escalators and don’t mind going up, but coming down is not my forte.
The kids at school make fun of Carol for having seen ghosts. Lame. Also, no station wagon and instead we get a minivan. Donna’s mirror is broken now. At the school, they have rooms to see into the classroom with double-sided mirrors. It reminds me of the Funzo episode of The Simpsons. Carol is starting to see Kane more often. Why did it have to be Kane again? Through hellfire and brimstone, bah GAWD. Sorry, I was channeling my inner Jim Ross.
Tangina senses that Kane is back. Poor Heather, her face does really look bloated at times and normally that is fine, but knowing the outcome just makes this incredibly sad. She wasn’t a bad actress. I have no idea if she would have had success as an adult, but I think she had a decent chance. Hahaha, I liked the mug-throwing scene. Dr. Seaton was doing therapy with Carol, and he can see a dead arm throw a mug toward him only in the mirror.
I am still disturbed seeing a loveable Tom Skerritt. Pat clearly has some money. I don’t really know why Steven was so worried about getting another car in Part II. Pat sees Bruce weirdly in the mirror. Carol has a lot of mirrors in her room. Ohhhh Pat’s outfit has some big shoulder pads. Kane sees Pat and Bruce leave and there are multiples of him.
There are so many people complaining about the heat in the building. I bet that won’t figure into this story in any way. Donna just had fake Carol Anne tell her that she looks great before the real one tells her. I am not Kentertained. Carol has talked Donna into going to a party so she can see her beau, Scott, I think his name is. Kane is excited that Carol is home alone. The party is a dud. Donna needs to use her dad’s keys to make this more fun. Bruce is like the property manager of this place, the Jon Hancock Center.
Kane has started his attack on Carol, and there is cold wind. Tangina is telepathically telling Carol to break the mirror. Tangina calls Dr. Seaton that Carol needs his help, and he thinks that it is a prank from Carol. Seaton is my favorite character in this one. There is no way Scott gets a girl like Donna. As a matter of fact, all 3 guys have way hotter girls than they deserve. This is why I always cast pretty girls opposite of me. It’s the Hollywood way.
This movie isn’t even halfway over. Damn. Carol Anne’s name is said 121 times in this film. I know that I have no life, but who sat down and thought it would be fun to count that?
Donna is abusing her privileges. I’m okay if she gets got. Yup, Carol keeps running away deeper into the depths of the building where it is so frigid. They need her help to guide the way to the light. Scott and Donna got some snacks, Coke and Coors. That’s a solid night. Donna messes with her friends who are in the pool. Donna is in the security room. She sees Carol running around. Yeah Donna, you really couldn’t be more irresponsible.
Carol is getting sucked down into a puddle in the parking lot by some arms. Scott gets pulled under, so does Donn, and finally Carol. I hope this goes somewhere cool. Hahaha, Bruce is told about the kids in the pool. Scott just launched out from the pool and he is covered in white goo. I wish I didn’t type that. Oh, it was ice, but not there is no ice. Why was Scott released? Pat, you need to work those shoulder pads. Bruce and Pat come home and Carol’s bedroom door is glowing and bulging. Pat’s arm gets trapped. Pat can get sucked in, I’m good with that. And then there was Tangina. Pat has Carol, but Tangina says to get away because that wasn’t Carol. Pat asks how Tangina knew, and Tangina is surprised that Pat didn’t know. Did Pat not receive the clairvoyance gift?
Tangina finds Dr. Seaton. All the security monitors are down, of course. Seaton puts Scott under hypnosis. He has questions about what happened to Carol. Tangina puts Seaton in his place and proves her powers. Tangina encourages Bruce and Pat’s love as a powerful tool. She keeps rubbing this necklace that she got from a powerful medicine man, which is Taylor from the second film. Oddly enough, I think this film would have been fun as hell in the theater.
The special effects are quite good for this era. This was something the director insisted upon. He wanted the special effects to be live on stage. Tangina, Seaton, Bruce, and Pat are all in Carol’s room and can see her. Tangina is talking and Bruce grows impatient. At that moment, Tangina gets taken and Donna is returned through the shell of Tangina’s body. Yeah, that happened. Donna keeps screaming that Carol is drowning.
Pat can’t deal with this and just wants to leave. But Carol is her niece. Geez, lady. Bruce cares more than she does. Bruce and Pat go after Carol, and so does Seaton a few minutes later. He sees her in the elevator. Then Donna shoves him down the elevator shaft. Hahaha. Scott and Donna reunite and laugh. Okay, so they’re evil now, or just her? okay he ripped off part of her face. They are ghosts or some shit. Interesting. I’m still sad that Tangina got got, or is in the other dimension. One can never truly know in these movies.
Wow, Pat is calling Carol a brat. Are we sure that pat isn’t a ghost or is she just a cunt? Please only say that word while thinking of the Hound in Game Of Thrones saying it. Bruce and Pat are now stuck in a freezer with water flowing in. That will be cold. Hey, there’s Tangina!!! She tells them “Outside In” and gives Bruce the amulet. And they teleport elsewhere. I think Tangina is still dead. I hate Pat. I want her dead. Everybody else can live, even boring ass Kane. Just not Pat.
In Iceworld as I am calling it, we get frozen growling cars. This is silly as shit. But in a good way. Where’s the truck from Maximum Overdrive? Kane says that he wants Bruce. The cars keep coming after Bruce, and one of the cars is leaking fluid, so Bruce lights them up. Bruce, why even save Pat? They kinda escaped and are in the real-world parking garage and the sprinklers are going off, but no car attacks or explosions. So why are the sprinklers going off? Am I not supposed to ask that? About 15 minutes remain.
Bruce and Pat think that they are victorious. Idiots. A car comes screeching in. It is the art lady from before that I didn’t like enough to even mention her. I wish I didn’t mention her now. I don’t think that she was real. Ya know, Bruce is trying to be romantic, and Pat is like, I can’t wait to pack up everything that belongs to that little brat and send her home to my sister. Why is she so awful? Bruce says it wasn’t her fault. Kane then says it is, and makes the elevator that they are in start to plummet, then rise. They are stuck between floors 97 and 98. I wouldn’t be trying to escape this way. That’s a good way to get cut in half. Did nobody see Speed? Oh yeah, it hadn’t been made yet. Hey, there’s Seaton’s dead body atop the elevator. Weak jump scare attempt…I think. I can’t tell.
Bruce realizes that Kane controls the inside, but not the outside. Thank you, Tangina. Time to get the window washing lift thing. They actually filmed 100 stories up. I wouldn’t have agreed to that. I don’t care how safe it was. It’s an unnecessary risk.
Bruce hits the window to get to the other side. Pat sees “Carol” who is manipulative and trying to get the necklace. Screw you, Pat!!! Suddenly, pat is all loving. Time to go into Iceworld again. This is still easier to write about than any single Phantasm film.
Nancy Allen isn’t a bad actress, but her character sucks. I wish Kane was played by Angus Scrimm. She just knocked his head off. But what good does that do? And there’s Kane again. There’s Tangina now too. She offers to lead Kane to the light. Pat asks how to use the necklace, but Tangina says that this is how it has to be. She sends her best to Carol and this will end Carol’s nightmare. I wish I had a spiral ham right now. Bruce, Carol, and Donna find Pat and hug it out. YAWN. I mean, hooray, everybody is saved now. Thanks to the sacrifice of the short psychic. And then lightning surrounds the building as we hear Kane laughing.
End Film
So that was how they were gonna give us a part 4, with even more Kane? Did anybody even like Kane? It wasn’t a great role despite the good acting. Also, this music during the credits, it is very timely but I don’t know. Really, we could have used a silly joke at the end, something to leave us a little happy. But we didn’t get that. This music is like something you would get at the end of an RPG video game in the ’90s.
Tom Skerritt did a great job here, and I am usually harsh on him. I liked his performance here and his character. Richard Fire as Dr. Seaton was another good performer. I didn’t hate Nancy’s acting, but couldn’t stand her character. I almost feel like she should have been killed and never given a redemption arc. It kinda ruined it for me.
Why didn’t Pat have clairvoyance? I wish that would have been addressed. I wish they would have addressed more with Carol’s parents. Even a quick phone conversation would have worked. Speaking of which, I missed Carol being on her toy phone. I know that she was too old by then, but they could have done a phone scene with her as a callback.
This one was less fun than the previous one. If Heather doesn’t die, does this do good enough at the box office to make a 4th? I think so, especially since Craig said he’d be open to returning to the franchise. Now that I have seen this franchise and the direction it took, I’d only want a fourth film if the Kane story ceased and maybe went in a different direction.
It wasn’t a bad film. I missed more of the spectral stuff. The mirror scenes were good, but too much at times. There were also several pacing issues, which is due to cuts of scenes. the editors were left having to try to string what was filmed into a competent movie. They did their best. But studios are stupid more often than not.
I don’t think I’d ever watch this again. I didn’t have a great time
Edit: Richard Fire not only was a writer for Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer, but was in Maximum Overdrive in an uncredited role. I knew that I liked that guy!!
Final Rating: 4.2 – That seems fair based on the amount of fun I had plus the creative scenes that I did enjoy.
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- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
- Star Partners (in association with) (as Star Partners, Ltd.)
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