Rebooting movies from the Scifi and horror franchise seems to be the way that Hollywood does things nowadays. Poltergeist, the latest, is a 2015 American supernatural horror film directed by Gil Kenan, written by David Lindsay-Abaire and produced by Sam Raimi. A reboot of the 1982 film of the same name, the film stars Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Jared Harris, and Jane Adams.

The story is basically the same – the Bowen family has moved into a house that fits their price range after dad Eric gets laid off. Amy wants to write, while Eric looks for a job, and also take care of their 3 kids: eldest daughter teenage, Kendra; their son, Griffin; and youngest daughter, Madison. From day one Griffin feels that there is something strange about this house and on their first night strange noise are heard and Griffin finds a box of toy clowns in a hidden compartment in his room. In the middle of the night, lights and electronic devices start turning on and off, as some unseen force appears to move through the home. Griffin sees his sister Madison talking to o an unknown presence inside the television. She tells Griffin someone is coming, and he attempts to unplug the TV, causing the lights to go out of control. Madison then tells the family they are here.

Amy & Eric write it off as Madison talking to her imaginary friends but when they are out to have dinner at a friends house one night they learn that their house was built on an old cemetery, but the bodies were moved to a better neighbourhood. Kendra is attacked by black goo coming out of the basement when she investigates strange sounds and is grabbed by hands from a corpse. Griffin is attacked by the clowns but he destroys one and escapes from his bedroom. He finds Madison in her room, scared, crouching at a corner, and tells her to stay while he goes to find Kendra. Madison is then lured into her closet and becomes lost in an unending void. As she sees her bedroom drifting away further, she is dragged into the darkness by ghosts. Griffin, while running around the house, is grabbed by the branches of the old tree outside their house, which pulls him out to be hanging on the tree. Eric & Amy come home to find him in the branches of the trees and a frantic Kendra who can’t find Madison.

After hearing Madison’s voice coming from inside the tv Amy and Griffin visit the Paranormal Research department for help. The staff sets up equipment in the house, and install GPS locators on everyone in the house. While trying to contact Madison, Eric is ambushed in the closet by a ghost resembling her. Angered, he breaks down the closet wall, throwing a chair into the darkness inside the closet, and as the chair falls back into the living room of the house, it reveals a possible portal Madison can escape through. The investigators realize that this haunting is a poltergeist. Dr. Brooke, calls her ex-husband, an occult specialist and television personality Carrigan Burke. Carrigan explains that Madison is a possible psychic, able to communicate with spirits. He reveals that the poltergeists are trapped and are angry because only the headstones were moved to the new cemetery, but the bodies remained, and plan on using Madison to free them from their purgatory.

Using a rope that they toss into the vortex they try and use a toy drone to guide Madison back to them but when it is destroyed inside the vortex, Griffin decides to enter the realm and bring his sister back. When he finds Madison, the poltergeists attempt to destroy the rope to trap them, but they both escape. The family get in their car and begin to take their leave from the house, but the poltergeists drag them back into the house and attempt to abduct Madison again. The family saves her from being sucked into the portal, and Carrigan decides that as the only other psychic, he must go into the vortex and lead the spirits into the light. The Bowens flee as the house is torn apart by a giant light. The investigative team run to their equipment, looking for a sign that Carrigan managed to get back. As the Bowens look for a new house, the realtor shows them a house with lots of closet space and an old tree in the backyard; the Bowens drive away laughing. During the end credits, it’s revealed that Carrigan survived the incident and is back filming his ghost program, now hosting the show with Dr. Powell.

The movie does not offer anything new to the story, other than perhaps some awesome updated CGI and special effects. The movie lacks the charm of the original and fails to be memorable. 6.5 outta 10!