Poltergeist III

(1988) **1/2

Carol Anne gets sent away from her family, halfway across the country to live with her aunt's family, and to attend a school for gifted but troubled children, and receive psychological care and analysis by <takes a breath> the most insufferable psychiatrist in the history of horror cinema. There's a few reasons why I'm rating this 2.5 stars ("no big deal if you miss it", per the Thonscore Rating System) and not 2 ("pretty lame"), and I'll enumerate some of them below, but I'd be lying a little if I didn't admit that part of it is as a reward to the rest of the characters for not liking him either.

Poltergeist as an entire trilogy, even at its best, is not a hill I would ever die on, and yet I would argue that there's at least something redeeming going on in each of the three movies (never saw the remake), and that includes this one. First, let's talk acting: Poltergeist III features workmanlike performances by numerous cast members -- the usual professionalism by Tom Skerritt and Nancy Allen, a promising debut performance by Lara Flynn Boyle, and an expanded role for Heather O'Rourke who, in her own youthful way, exhibits what could have eventually evolved into some solid acting chops. Zelda Rubenstein is such a monumental, walking x-factor that it doesn't really matter whether or not she's "good". She's like Bobcat Goldthwait; bringing something to the table that simply defies qualitative comparison to any other actor. Richard Fire, is probably perfectly fine as Dr. Seaton, but Dr. Seaton is such a bonerface that I can't separate my analysis of the performance from how much I don't want to have any memories that he's even there. Ditto Kipley Wentz as Scott whose earnestness and geniality and generally positive vibe are offset by his stupid rosy cheeks and his eminently punchable face

As for the technical aspects of the filmmaking you may fairly deduce from the screenshots I'm using that I'm a fan of the whole mirrors thing going on in this movie. All of it is practical effects (was CGI even really a thing yet?), and it was all so meticulously planned that, according the IMDb Trivia page, "the script was eight inches thick because it laid out all the storyboards, camera movements, and technical setups". Obviously, an independently moving reflection is a great opportunity for a jump scare, and there's a bunch in Poltergeist III that are rather effective if you haven't seen this before and aren't expecting them. But even the ones that aren't meant to be jump-scary are suitably eerie. Lay all that on top of otherwise pro-level cinematography and angle-selection, and there's really nothing to complain about on a technical level.

But there are too many pieces missing; too many plot points that we're left expecting that we're going to see a corresponding scene that never comes (like, hang on -- where the fuck did Scott go??); too little chemistry among the cast members (despite the professionalism behind individual performances). Maybe the most glaring problem is the replacement of Julian Beck with Nathan Davis in the role of Kane. There's a hill I will die on: Julian Beck is the best thing about *any* of the Poltergeist movies, and it's not close. You don't replace a performance like that. If the actor dies, you make another plan.

All told, this is probably not as terrible a movie as you remember, but there's not nearly enough good stuff to overcome the numerous flaws.