Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)

Poltergeist II is one of better ghost/horror sequels I've seen, a story where the Freeling family moves to a new house, but followed by the supernatural, in the form of Reverend Kane.

Being a movie made in the early 1980s, like its prequel, it still holds a great amount of horror, as its elements will grip you and send chills down your spine. This movie doesn't rely on gore and violence to make it entertaining, but rather relies on the ghosts' presence and their frightening powers that they are able to unleash onto the unfortunately family, highlighted also in very polished and keen special effects.

The screenplay and story by Michael Grais and Mark Victor were well-written, giving us a captivating and exciting plot, and the direction by Brian Gibson is solid and thrilling like the original. The cast of characters gave another superb and heartfelt performance.

Overall, it's a good continuation of the original Poltergeist, but also works great as a sequel with its unique storyline superb acting.

Grade B+

Fmovies: This second installment concerns about the young Freeling family(Jobeth Williams, Craig T Nelson, Robbins, O'Rourke and no Dominick Dunne but was suddenly killed) again, various months later and in a new house. Then appears the otherworld Beast in a ghostly apparition as the evil reverend Kane(Julian Beck.)It seems all of his supernatural powers have just about sent over the edge. The nasty reverend back from the other side and he wishes the good Carol(Heather O'Rourke), but with help her family, united to psychic Tangina, an Indian American(Will Patton) and the Granma(Geraldine Fitzgerald)confront against the weird being.

This inferior sequel from original (produced by Spielberg and directed by Tobe Hooper) contains spooky scenes, intrigue, suspense and dazzling special effects by Richard Edlund. The performances are uninspired and is badly paced with flaws and gaps which cause lack common sense and no coherence . Spectacular music score by the master Jerry Goldsmith and colorful cinematography by Andrew Lazslo. The complete project collapses under a regular direction by Brian Gibson(1944-2004). He was a director with no much success, and a biographies expert, such as : 'The Josephine Baker story and Tina Turner' ,and also directed 'The Juror, Still crazy and Camarena story'. Followed by a third sequel starred by Heather O'Rourke who surprisingly deceased, Tom Skerrit, Nancy Allen and Zelda Rubinstein, usual in the tree parts. The motion picture is classified PG-13(Parents guide) for violence, tense events and intensity. This pointless sequel and occasionally plodding will like to strange deeds buffs and Poltergeist trilogy fans.

In this follow-up to Poltergeist, the Freeling family call on the big Native American fella from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to help them once again defeat evil malevolent spirits that seem to not like them very much.

As with virtually all sequels this one is inferior to the original. However, the first film wasn't all that great and this one isn't a complete washout either. The story is modified somewhat from the first episode so that now the source of the poltergeist unrest is attributed to the dead followers of a cult leader, as opposed to the dead disturbed by unscrupulous property developers. The change has really only been made so that they can have a sequel to be perfectly honest, however, it does mean that the series is able to introduce the evil Reverend Kane. Kane is probably the best character in the series and his scene where he confronts the Freeling family on their front porch is the scariest and most well-crafted moment in any of the films. Julien Beck is excellent and unforgettable as the skeletal preacher. The rest of the cast play it strictly by numbers, although once again Heather O'Rourke is fab as the little girl. The other daughter is completely written out of this film with no explanation. Although it's a well documented fact that the actress who played her, Dominique Dunne, was murdered shortly after the first film was released, I still don't think it would have trashed her memory to have explained her absence; quite the opposite in fact.

The Poltergeist series was perhaps most famous at the time for its spectacular visual effects and this film is no exception. The demon Kane is a well rendered creation, and there are a number of cool 80's effects throughout. Unfortunately, though, it all ends in a somewhat underwhelming finale where the family enter some vortex or something. I think it would have been better if they had cut back on the special-effects here and simply re-introduced Reverend Kane, as he was much scarier. But I guess having a big effects-laden ending is one of the in-built rules of the Poltergeist movies sadly.

Overall, there's good stuff in this sequel but it's ultimately squandered on a rubbish ending.

Poltergeist II: The Other Side fmovies. "Poltergeist II: The Other Side" is a mostly average sequel to the superb 1982 horror movie about unfriendly ghosts terrorizing a suburban family. This movie is not real bad like most people say it is (I did like some of it), but it's not real good either.

"Poltergeist II" takes place in Arizona, which is where the Freeling family now resides. But no matter where you go you can't keep a nasty ghost down, and those pesky spirits are back to terrorize the family once again. Where the first film was scary with a great sense of humor, the second film comes off more funny than scary. Not a good sign for a horror film where you're expected to be scared. And there isn't much scares this time around. Plus, the special effects this time around aren't as effective as they were in the first film. Nevertheless, the effects received another Oscar nomination, which to me was surprising.

If there's anything to like about "Poltergeist II", it's the acting. JoBeth Williams, Craig T. Nelson, Heather O'Rourke, Oliver Robins, and Zelda Rubinstein are all back reprising their roles from the first film, with a few new faces add to the cast. The new cast members add some spark here. Will Sampson is very good as the Indian medicine man who also happens to be an exorcist, and comes in to help out the Freelings; Julian Beck makes a strong presence as the evil preacher who happens to be the leader of the ill-mannered ghosts (Beck was reportedly very ill when he made this, and it shows on the screen; he died right after filming completed); and the great veteran actress Geraldine Fitzgerald has a nice small part as Grandma Freeling. So to sum up this film: good acting, bad story, so-so effects, which makes for an average movie.

*** (out of five)

Here we have yet another belated, completely unnecessary sequel that only barely gets by. After their otherworldly encounters, the Freeling family has relocated and are now living with Dianes' (JoBeth Williams) mother (Geraldine Fitzgerald). They don't get much of a breather before supernatural forces again begin to plague them. And these forces still want to get their hands on little Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke). Diane, Steve (Craig T. Nelson), Carol Anne, and Robbie (Oliver Robins) this time receive assistance from a wise Indian (Will Sampson), while Tangina (Zelda Rubinstein) makes an encore appearance.

Technically, "Poltergeist II: The Other Side" is reasonably well made. But it's so lazily conceived that it's very hard to care what happens here. Making things tolerable are a still very likable bunch of actors, but they have some pretty bad material to work with this time around. A lot of the dialogue is simply abysmal. Attempts at humor largely fall flat. Director Brian Gibson is no Steven Spielberg, or Tobe Hooper, and can't generate any suspense or excitement at all. The efforts of a very talented visual effects team (supervised by Richard Edlund) can only do so much to help. It's hard to believe this was written by the same guys who wrote the first film.

This is not to say that this sequel is devoid of highlights. One pleasure is in watching the supremely creepy Julian Beck as a malevolent "reverend" who puts a human face, of sorts, on the antagonistic spirits. One ingenious moment involves Robbies' braces; the other is a sequence many people do enjoy about this sequel. That would be the "vomit creature" sequence. It turns out there are consequences for swallowing the worm at the bottle of a tequila bottle.

The family is still worth rooting for; young O'Rourke is as adorable as before. It's just too bad they're stuck in such a blah story.

H.R. Giger ("Alien", "Species") is credited with conceptual design.

Sadly, the final film for both Beck and Sampson.

Five out of 10.

JAWS 2; HALLOWEEN II; THE RAGE: CARRIE 2—all of them horror film sequels that I can only label as "curiously frustrating", in that there's enough in them to like, but just as much to be skittish about. This is also true of POLTERGEIST II: THE OTHER SIDE, the 1986 sequel to the highly acclaimed and highly successful 1982 Steven Spielberg co-produced/co-written horror film classic that Tobe Hooper (of THE Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE fame) directed, and which ranks with THE SHINING as one of the few true horror classics of the 1980s.

The film picks up one year after the events of the original, as the Frelengs, led by Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams, have now moved off to a desert suburb of Phoenix, Arizona while trying to get a new start, living with Williams' mother (Geraldine Fitzgerald). Nelson is having a rough go of it trying to be a vacuum salesman; he had been in real estate, but the Cuesta Verde incident left him out in the cold. When Fitzgerald passes on, however, it lets open the door for some literal ghosts of the Frelengs' past to haunt them. They become terrorized all over again; and this time, getting in contact with both the famous medium Tangina Barrons (Zelda Rubinstein) and an Indian (Will Sampson) well versed in the supernatural, they figure out why. Back in the 19th century, a group of White settlers were confronted by Indian warriors in what was to become the Cuesta Verde Estates, resulting in a horrific Sand Creek-type massacre that resulted in a mass graveyard that Nelson's former employers had built Cuesta Verde over. The spirits of those survivors, including especially a deranged preacher named Kane (Julian Beck), have come back to snatch O'Rourke and to lead them to the Light because they are still not at rest, but they seem to have no intention of bringing her back. Rubinstein and Sampson insist that the Frelengs must return to Cuesta Verde to confront Kane and his minions by entering the Other Side, that netherworld between life and death that Williams and O'Rourke crossed in the original. In between, though, they are confronted with a whole host of horrific things, including a "Vomit Creature", and a supernatural chainsaw that threatens to tear Nelson's station wagon apart as they head out for Cuesta Verde.

Unlike a lot of horror films, POLTERGEIST II maintains a good solid position of having five of the principals from the original film (Dominique Dunne, however, had been killed in real life shortly after the original film had been released), plus the solid special effects work of Richard Edlund, who had worked on the original. What POLTERGEIST II lacks, however, is the effective and incisive direction of Hooper and both his and Spielberg's understanding of the genre and of family. Mark Victor and Michael Grais, though they co-wrote the original's screenplay with Spielberg, somehow fail to grasp those concepts of the original; and Gibson, who directed the 1980 film BREAKING GLASS and later did 1993's WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT, is not really in Hooper's, let alone Spielberg's, league. The mayhem may very well have been accelerated from the original, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's better.

Two additions, however, do work quite well. Sampson, a real-life Native American who starred in films like ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST and THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES, is extremely good as the Indian shaman who, along with Rubinstein, assists the Frelengs in their confrontation with the ghosts. And Beck