BA_Harrison
Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke) is sent to live with her Uncle Bruce and Aunt Patricia (Tom Skerritt and Nancy Allen) in Chicago so that she can attend a special school for gifted children. There, Dr. Seaton (Richard Fire) puts the young girl under hypnosis to try and deal with her emotional problems, but in doing so he releases restless spirit Kane (Nathan Davis), who needs Carol Anne to lead him into the light.Poltergeist III is a bad film: the crappy plot continues the downwards slide started by Poltergeist II, the talents of Skerrit and the lovely Nancy Allen are completely wasted, and the whole thing looks cheap and nasty, with risible special effects. To make matters worse, helium-voiced dwarf Zelda Rubinstein returns as psychic Tangina Barrons.But more than anything, Poltergeist III is a sad film, it's young star Heather O'Rourke clearly very unwell, her angelic face swollen by the steroids given to her for a wrongly diagnosed and ultimately fatal bowel disorder. Poltergeist III may be badly written, poorly executed trash, but Heather's tragic illness makes the film far more difficult to endure.
MaximumMadness
I recently have been going through a "ghost kick." I've been watching tons of ghost and haunted-house films. Everything I can get my hands on- from classics like "The Haunting" and "The Changeling", to foreign films like "Ringu" and "Ju-On", to modern films like the "Paranormal Activity" trilogy and "Insidious." So, naturally, when I saw "Poltergeist II" and "III" on Netflix, I started them up, intending to watch them back-to-back. I actually like "Poltergeist II"- it's silly, but is a fun sequel overall. I hadn't seen the third film, however, in years, and I wish it had stayed this way."Poltergeist III" is scary. Not because of effective jumps, a creepy atmosphere, or top-notch writing like the original. But because it is so bad. Just foul, awful. Tedious.This time around, Carol-Anne (Heather O'Rourke) has been sent to live with her relatives in Chicago, supposedly because she's been accepted into a school for gifted youngsters. The real reason is that the actors for the first two films probably read the script and refused to be involved.She is staying with her aunt Pat (Nancy Allen), her uncle Bruce (Tom Skerrit) and her cousin Donna (Laura Flynn Boyle). Bruce owns the high-rise building where they stay, and Pat apparently works in an art gallery in the same building.Carol-Anne has been tormented by memories from the first two films. At her new school, a doctor named Seaton (Richard Fire) believes that she isn't haunted by ghosts, but rather is a manipulator who can cause mass-hallucinations by using hypnosis... uh... yeah, the movie actually goes there. It insults the audience by suggesting that Carol-Anne may be a manipulative hypnotist. Of course, we know it's actually the vengeful spirit of Henry Kane who is haunting her. But the fact that the movie stoops this low by even suggesting this as a possible explanation is just pitiful.Blah, blah, blah- you know the drill. Kane catches up with Carol-Anne, and torments her, nobody believes her at first, and so on. Eventually, the family must come together (with the help of Tangina, again played by Zelda Rubinstein) to stop Kane once and for all.This movie... sucks.The plot is all over the place. The first two films at least had a logic to them. This movie starts up by adding new rules and layers to the "haunting" that make no sense. Kane just sort of hangs around inside of mirrors the whole time. I'm not kidding. Mirrors were never used like this in the first two films. But in literally EVERY SINGLE SCENE, there's a lame scare where Kane will appear in a mirror (mirrors line the halls of the building), and it actually becomes funny within 10 minutes, because you KNOW it's going to continue. They try to change it up later on, by doing other gags where the mirrors don't reflect things properly, but it's still the EXACT SAME "SCARE"... It happens at least 50 times in the movie, I'm not kidding. It gets old really fast. They sort-of try to explain it (I guess the mirrors reflect the spiritual world, or some such nonsense), but it doesn't mean anything.Also, whereas the first two films used special effects effectively, and had all sorts of monsters and creatures and skeletons, this film has none. Remember the giant skull from the first film? The "Vomit Creature" from the second? They are tossed out the window so Kane can randomly appear in a mirror and cackle before vanishing in every single scene. It's so uncreative that it hurts to watch.I also must say, the "rules" for this film have no consistency. Somehow, Kane can now "clone" people in the Mirror/Spirit world, so half the movie, you're not seeing the characters, but rather evil reflections of them that don't do anything in particular, just act evil at random. Like everything else, it makes no sense.The film is a mess. There is also a recurring "scare" where Carol-Anne will hear Kane calling her, but like the mirror gag, it becomes funny when we realize it never, ever stops. I was able to predict when it was coming and say it along with him in the movie, it was so blatant and over-used.The acting was pretty bad. O'Rourke tries, but can't work with the material, and seems more like a brat than an innocent little girl. Nancy Allan starts off nice, but her dialog makes her come off as a nasty, self-centered jerk even though she's one of our "heroes", and Tom Skerritt... he just seems creepy and unsettling, even though he's meant to be a nice guy. The actors simply have no good dialog or development to feed off of, and all suffer for it.The film is abysmal. I'm only giving it a 2 to honor the late Heather O'Rourke. But it's actually, easily a 1 out of 10. Avoid this, please, for your sake!
FlashCallahan
Carol Anne has been sent to live with her Aunt and Uncle in an effort to hide her from the clutches of the ghostly Reverend Kane He tracks her down and terrorises her in her relatives' apartment in a tall glass building.Will he finally achieve his target and capture Carol Anne again, or will Tangina be able, yet again, to thwart him?....We all know what the film is most famous for, so i won't really dwell on that, but the studio really cocked this up, being scared of offending viewers by changing what could have been a redeeming ending for an average movie.Plotwise, it's as if Kane thinks the only way he can get back into the light is to seek Carol Anne, and the fact that her name is mentioned over a hundred times, proves that the writers were on autopilot.But this is the epitome of eighties horror, all shoulder pads and style over substance.For the most part, the acting isn't too bad, and the use of mirrors and other such stuff is used to good effect, it's just the gaping plot holes and that awful ending really ruin the film.Where exactly did Scott go? It's a question that will haunt us until the original ending is finally released, and the guys from MGM will get off their behinds and dig it up from the vaults.The effects are good, and there are some quite uneasy moments, but one cannot watch this film for what it is, a horror, without thinking of the fate of it's main star.All in all, an average sequel, which could have been great if the studio had never interfered with the proper ending.RIP Heather
