Poltergeist (2015)

There's really not much I can say about this. How can you possibly hope to remake one of the all-time classic horror films and expect to surpass it any single way? To do anything that stands out? I don't even know why they tried.

I understand that a shot-by-shot remake would have been kind of lazy, but they changed things for no reason. Why did they bother with changing the character names? Did the story gain anything from it? Did the added family drama make the audience more invested in the story? I probably would have been more entertained if they had just copied the original. At least it would have had updated effects.

They didn't even have the one scene that scared me most as a kid: the infamous skin peeling scene. I did take a bathroom break at one point though, so it's possible I could have missed it if it was there. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I still found the original clow and tree scenes more terrifying in the original version.

My biggest disappointment was the waste of such a great cast. I could watch Sam Rockwell in anything, but he, along with Jared Harris and Rosemarie DeWitt, are totally wasted here. The cast is the only real draw here. It's unfortunate.

The only way I can recommend this is to rent it, along with the original, and do a back to back watch and comparison of them. Otherwise, just rent the original again and forget this remake exists.

1.5 (out of 5) Death Stars