Directed by Gary Sherman in 1988, Poltergeist III once again catches up with Carol Anne Freeling (Heather O'Rourke). This time around, she's sent off to life with her aunt, Pat Wilson-Gardner (Nancy Allen) and her new husband Bruce Gardner (Tom Skerritt) in their fancy Chicago high-rise apartment. Also hanging around is Bruce's teenaged daughter, Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle), who doesn't always get along with her somewhat self-obsessed new stepmother so well. Pat doesn't seem to be able to connect with the kids, or even really want to try, instead she focuses on her art business. Maybe not so surprisingly Carol Anne isn't super happy at her new digs.

The psychiatrist at Carol Anne's school, one Dr. Seaton (Richard Fire), starts poking around in her head and of course, her dealings with the spirits that have plagued her obviously get his attention. He suspects, however, that rather than to have actually experienced all that we know she has experienced, Carol Anne instead has the ability to project all of this using the power of her potentially telekinetic mind (which is some pretty questionable plotting and kind of a ridiculous idea by anyone's standards). What Seaton doesn't realize is that this same poking around in her head awakens, once again, the macabre specter of Reverend Henry Kane (Nathan Davis). Of course, as Carol Anne winds up in yet another bout of spiritual danger, medium Tangina (Zelda Rubenstein) senses this and heads to Chicago to save Carol Anne from Kane and his army of evil spirits.

Poltergeist III is the weakest of the original movies but it has its moments, enough so that fans of the series will at least want to check it out for themselves. There are some great ideas here. Setting the movie in a recently built skyscraper with all the modern accoutrements is a good idea, and the script from Brian Taggert (who wrote Dead & Buried for Sherman in 1981 and who replaces Mark Victor and Michael Grais, the writers of the first two pictures) does a decent job of exploiting this. The mirrors that make up a big part of the locations architectural appeal wind up serving as a sort of conduit for Kane and his demonic companions to travel in and out of the spirit world and the real world. The effects used to make this happen hold up quite well, as do most of the effects featured in the movie, period. Visually, the film works and technically it is quite well put together. Sherman has a decent grip on the film's pace and keeps things moving at a pretty good clip.

Of course, the obvious absence of series' stars Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams is a strike against the picture, particularly because the script really never bothers to properly explain why Carol Anne has been sent off to live with her aunt in the first place. It's also worth noting that Jerry Goldsmith's music is gone this time replaced by some noticeably lesser compositions courtesy of Joe Renzetti (who also worked with Sherman on Dead & Buried but is probably best known to horror fans for his scoring Child's Play).

The performances are pretty uneven. Tom Skerritt is his typically reliable self, he's fine here, while Nancy Allen plays the semi-narcissistic aunt without any issues. Neither of them would likely consider this picture a career highlight and no one is going to really and truly laud their work, but they're fine. Lara Flynn Boyle is pretty much one note here, however. Her character is fairly dull and she does nothing to change this. Zelda Rubestein is once again a lot of fun as Tangina and Heather O'Rourke pretty reliable as Carol Anne, though she was sick while this film was being made and would sadly pass away at just twelve years old shortly after it was completed. Nathan Davis isn't quite as effective as Julien Beck in the role of Kane, but to be fair to the man he is a worthy replacement.

Despite the plot holes and some of the less than inspired characters featured in the picture, there's enough about Poltergeist III that works in terms of set pieces, concepts and effects work to make it worth checking out. The ending is fairly goofy and you never quite feel that this family loves each other the way that the Freelings did, making it harder to connect with them, but if you don't overthink it and can appreciate the visuals you can have a good time with this, even if it is far from a classic.

Video:

Shout! Factory's domestic Blu-ray release of Poltergeist III, taken from a new 2k scan of an interpositive, looks really solid. The AVC encoded 1080p high definition presentation is properly framed at 1.85.1 and it typically speaking in very nice shape indeed. There are scenes where the optical effects understandably affect detail levels a bit, but those effects heavy sequences aside the picture is impressive. Texture and depth are also impressive here and color reproduction looks great. Black levels are strong, and the image is free of compression artifacts, edge enhancement or any obvious noise reduction. It's also a very clean picture, in that there aren't any problems with print damage, dirt or debris while the obvious grain that does appear seems natural enough.