The lack of Tobe Hooper’s direction and Steven Spielberg’s pen clearly did a number on this, the narrative is almost completely devoid of emotion while having a Friday the 13th level of sequel/remake laziness and the filmmaking was a step-down in almost every area, I’m sad to say it because of how much I loved the first movie but this is really one of the biggest regressions I’ve ever seen from a first to second franchise entry. Without Spielberg’s influence on the dialogue this family has no charm to it whatsoever, JoBeth Williams and the kids gave it their all but the character writing, beyond the family to the supporting characters as well, was so so stale. Where this wasn’t an embarrassment to the first entry was in the visual experience, they brought in cinematographer Andrew Laszlo who’s shot two beautiful films I’ve seen in Southern Comfort and Star Trek V and while his work doesn’t capture the same magic as Leonetti’s from the original it still looks pretty damn good through the whole runtime. It also kept the same or at least a very similar quality in the vfx work, from the climax scene in the garage to the returning weird gray TV people gas that along with the cinematography definitely did the heavy carrying of my enjoyment. That’s about all I’ve got for Poltergeist II, it’s not bad enough to stop me from back-to-backing it with the third (although my completionist heart could overpower the worst of movies) but it’s certainly a disservice to the magic of the original and sadly ends up as the worst movie I’ve seen all month, at least until I cap off the trilogy.
The lack of Tobe Hooper’s direction and Steven Spielberg’s pen clearly did a number on this, the narrative is almost completely devoid of emotion while having a Friday the 13th level of sequel/remake laziness and the filmmaking was a step-down in almost every area, I’m sad to say it because of how much I loved the first movie but this is really one of the biggest regressions I’ve ever seen from a first to second franchise entry. Without Spielberg’s influence on the dialogue this family has no charm to it whatsoever, JoBeth Williams and the kids gave it their all but the character writing, beyond the family to the supporting characters as well, was so so stale. Where this wasn’t an embarrassment to the first entry was in the visual experience, they brought in cinematographer Andrew Laszlo who’s shot two beautiful films I’ve seen in Southern Comfort and Star Trek V and while his work doesn’t capture the same magic as Leonetti’s from the original it still looks pretty damn good through the whole runtime. It also kept the same or at least a very similar quality in the vfx work, from the climax scene in the garage to the returning weird gray TV people gas that along with the cinematography definitely did the heavy carrying of my enjoyment. That’s about all I’ve got for Poltergeist II, it’s not bad enough to stop me from back-to-backing it with the third (although my completionist heart could overpower the worst of movies) but it’s certainly a disservice to the magic of the original and sadly ends up as the worst movie I’ve seen all month, at least until I cap off the trilogy.
