The original Poltergeist is widely considered to be one of the best horror movies of all time. It's ranked alongside films such as The Shining and The Exorcist for a reason: in an era where 'horror flick' meant 'someone with a knife,' Poltergeist flipped everything on its head. It wasn't about teenagers running for their lives, it was about parents trying to find their lost child - something far scarier than any man in a hockey mask.
It's been over thirty years since Poltergeist hit theaters, and for the first time, fans can catch a glimpse of what the remake will look like. Both the film's poster and the first trailer have been released online - so, what exactly are moviegoers in for?
If anything, the trailer follows the original story of a family moving into a haunted house fairly closely. Most trailers don't bother going for a flashback sequence within their short running time, but for the most part, it seems as if the original story has made it into the remake intact.
There are two major problems with the trailer as a whole: the first is that it shows too much. The original Poltergeist didn't really lay on the special effects until the end of the movie, and nothing even remotely similar was ever shown in the trailers. Here, the last third of the trailer is basically a CG light show - it shows off far too much of the supernatural element to be truly scary, and if you've seen the original film, it's easy to piece together exactly what's going to happen in the remake.
Secondly, the trailer relies far too heavily on jump scares. There are no less than three majors 'scares' in the trailer, and that's not even counting the smaller edits. There are only so many times that audiences can watch someone turn around and see something scary jump out before they get desensitized to it - for something like that to happen in the trailer isn't exactly a great sign.
It's still a bit too early to tell if the Poltergeist remake will be worth watching, but the trailer isn't the best showcase for the film. It somehow gets repetitive in just over two minutes, and it shows far too much of the film's plot and finale for returning fans to latch onto. It might be great for new fans (despite the decidedly B-grade acting), but for anyone that's seen the original, the trailer isn't going to inspire much faith.
Poltergeist is set for release on July 24, 2015.
Read more: Is The 'Poltergeist' Remake A Kids' Movie?
