Poltergeist III (1988)

I am so horribly sorry about the delay, but here it is. My review of Poltergeist III, yet again written by an entirely different staff. This movie is
rated PG-13 with no specified reasons. This is the worst of the three so far. It’s not that I’m saying they genuinely gave this movie effort, in fact
it’s a movie that seemed to even know that it would do so horribly that they stuck the credits toward the beginning in fear that no one would
bother to see the ending credits. This is a child film, plain and simple. Remember how “He” in the first one would never even show his face, and started
to look like Medusa by the end of the first sequel. There was some actual mystery toward this beast, but now he popped up in every other scene! I felt
like I was watching an R.L. Stine movie. He might have been a good writer, but not for screen writing. The family that worked so hard to be together in
the second are now separated and the little girl now lives with her aunt and uncle. Though they share that open door policy nonetheless, but without the
child mental scarring. There’s two main things I would like to cover before diving right into this mess. The movie possessed a side theme regarding
narcissism, which in itself is not a bad thing to cover seeing how it’s increasingly prevalent to this day. Toward the beginning the father makes a
comment to his oldest daughter about looking too much into a mirror and tells her the Greek myth of Narcissus who spent too long looking at his own
reflection until he eventually fell and drowned in the pond. The daughter retorted “only a boy would be so clumsy”. This part held promise. Of course,
I’m still a little sour over the fact that the movie decided to make a side theme for people to learn from seeing how this had the most real message.
However, it is so poorly executed when she herself falls into a puddle while trying to save her cousin Carol Anne. Look, if you want the message to be
about not loosing yourself to your own reflection than it should actually be about the girl interaction with her own reflection being a result of her
downfall. Otherwise, the message holds no ground. The next part I like to cover is the large budget going into Dried Ice and Mirror Hatred. “He”, being
the poltergeist from the same two movies, leaves cold spots wherever he goes causing a crack along stories of mirror as Carol Anne is in the elevator. Though
this also brings up the question of what sort of Hotel would have so many mirrors. Carol Anne’s uncle, Bruce, happens to be the management of the same hotel
which the family lives in this movie. Apparently, the amount of ice forming all over the place including the swimming pool, is a result of the poltergeist
absorbing energy. So, why has he never done this sort of thing before. The poltergeist has always feed onto youth for life force energy, so now he’s
change his diet to heat? This would have been an interesting concept on its own if you weren’t already stealing from a movie series to do this. Though,
it appears that this might be a result of being kicked into a different dimension altogether. Oh, yes. The poltergeist has been banished into the mirror
world which would explain why the poltergeist now want the child to show them the way back to light. This is actually the bulk of it.

Due to the events regarding her house, Carol Anne is taken to a school for special child where Dr. Sedan insists that she’s a master hypnotist. With his
rhythmic voice, it’s hard to say that he’s not a hypnotist himself, which explains the hypnotherapy with her. It’s during a demonstration with Carol Anne,
that she reveals that the poltergeist keep asking her to lead them into the light. Though, this is suppose to be looking back on the first movie, and
trust me, there was nothing about leaving them into the light in that movie nor the sequel soon after. To add to the effects, a RL zombie arm throws a
coffee mug in the mirror. Sedan insists that this is a result of suggestion to cause one of the people to smash through the window. I would severely
question that seeing how the person definitely didn’t place nearly enough force in a forward motion to break through that window. There really isn’t any
need for dramatic irony for this scene. A person simply cannot be suggested to place enough force to break through a window. I still wonder why Tengena
calls him Rasputin when she first meets him face to face. Yes, Tengena’s in this, and she makes just as little sense as ever. I seriously question just
how strong Sedan thinks Carol Anne’s hypnotism is, seeing how he blames a screech through the phone on her. What you see or do is one thing. But controlling
what one hears without being present is another. I’m pretty sure that Bruce called him ‘Satan’, though that might be a misspeak. Seeing how for a psychologist
Dr. Sedan jumps straight to Hypnotherapy all the time, it’s no wonder that why someone might call him ‘Satan’. Though Bruce’s best line and quite possibly
the best line in the movie is “Nothing Sedan said made sense of tonight.” I would make that “Nothing Sedan said made sense of anything,” but I’m happy with
that line.

You have absolutely no idea how much I would like to call plagiarism on this movie for how many stereotypical RL Stine trumps have been placed into this movie.
The delayed reflection is a classic pseudo-subtle start for the movie. Then there’s Kane, aka “He”, who is constantly creeping. Honestly, do we need to say
“Creeper, Stop Creeping!” Though the silliness of Evil Carol Anne says about all of it. I fairly certain that the door she first popped out of is cardboard
with dried ice effects. Oh, the oldest daughter’s name is Donna, who happened to come back to life from a death touch on Tengena. So, what can you say? Can
we trust the Donna that just crawled out of Tengena rapidly decaying corpse? Well, she killed Sedan, and it turns out that her boyfriend, Scott, is no
different after coming back from the other side. Even the reveal, I’m-freaking-evil laughter scene took place after she kills Sedan. Then comes the strangest
part yet where Scott just rips a part of her face off for absolutely no reason what-so-ever. The disdain in her face is quite justified in that. What was
going through your head, “Here, let me just rip a bit of your face off for you”? Though, Tengena happens to still be alive as she returns from a watery
entrance in a frozen room with really lively frozen animals. Seriously, it was beginning to look like Animal Farm on Ice. Though the dialogue in the
garage really speaks for itself when we see a hybrid of “He” and a car. “What do you want?” “YOU!” I really don’t know what else you would expect. It’s
amazing how all the cars blew up in the wintry garage only brought them back to the same garage with the cars’ worst fear being rust damage from the
sprinklers. So, what? None of the cars actually went through any of that? Though there’s Tengena sacrifice toward the end that follows the sort of plot
you’d already expect by the time you have 20 more minutes to endure.

What teen would go to watch it at this point? Did they really just give up on even trying? I could actually say for the first Sequel, there was some
entertainment in the amount of creativity, but there was nothing but the same old over and over again in this. I would not so much as recommend watching this
movie. That’s right, we have another addition to my stink tank.