“Poltergeist” on IMDB (Horror, 114 Minutes, 1982)
“Poltergeist II: The Other Side” on IMDB (Horror, 91 Minutes, 1986)
“Poltergeist III” on IMDB (Horror, 98 Minutes, 1988)
I was 11 years old in 1982 when “Poltergeist” came out. Not only does that make me very old now, but it also means that that the MPAA hadn’t gone quite as monkey-slapping-crazy as they are now and gave this movie a PG rating. Tobe Hooper [IMDB] and Stephen Spielberg [IMDB] could have easily gone for a hard “R” (studios still hadn’t decided to be horribly afraid of it). Instead they tossed out one of the hands-down scariest experiences of my childhood and still brought it in with a PG.
Video game movies tend to be, to put things mildly, terrible. Generally, they’re rushed, low-budget, self-indulgent compromises. They’re incredibly adept at discovering exactly which elements makes people adore the game and then ignoring them completely. Like anything else, there are exceptions, but as a rule: run away from video game movies.
[This is the twenty-first through twenty-ninth selection in my irregular, “My Wife and Kids are Visiting Relatives and I’m Home Watching Movies” film festival. Yes, I watched all of these. In a row. In a day. More than 13 hours. Do you people see the lengths to which I will go to prevent myself from making an actual contribution to society?]