If there were ever an example of sequels missing the point of the original film, Poltergeist II and Poltergeist III would be it. The original Poltergeist scared the living daylights out of me when I saw it as a kid. I mean, it terrified me. When I saw it again as an adult, admittedly it had lost its visceral pulse-pounding effect, but frankly, it still worked pretty darn well. The reason for that is that it's a nicely constructed story: it starts off low-key and innocuous, telling about some strange and slightly creepy events happening to a normal suburban family, and little by little ratchets up the tension level. The story focuses on discovery, as the Freelings gradually get pulled into a scary supernatural world and have to deal with it. The apocalyptic finale is spectacular precisely because it's been reserved for the end.

Fast-forward to Poltergeist II. Someone must have looked at the original film and decided that the magic ingredients were "cute kid" and "gross special effects"... because we get both of those right away. Right away we're given a bunch of ghostly effects and "scary" corpses, not to mention strange, "spooky" men following Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke) around. But since there's no buildup, it's all ho-hum. Oh, look, a gruesome corpse. Yawn. Look, a sinister man. Whatever. I don't get any feeling that the filmmakers understood what made the scary moments in the original film actually be scary; if they did they certainly didn't know how to do it again.

Of course, the hurry-up-and-show-the-special-effects approach isn't the only thing that makes Poltergeist II a lousy movie. Frankly, it's just plain badly paced, badly written, and badly acted... though on that last count, I suspect that the actors were making the best they could with what they had. The plot jerks and stumbles along, offering a retread of the spirit-invasion/temptation story of the original Poltergeist, but with a Native American "spirit guide" character tossed into the mix along with Tangina, the psychic from the first movie.

If Poltergeist II is bad, what about Poltergeist III? It's about the same level of quality. You won't actually want to rip your eyeballs out of your head or stick your head under the sofa cushion to avoid watching it, but that's about it. Let's face it, there's a reason why these two movies were put on a DVD together: it's the age-old temptation of "Well, they're both pretty bad movies, but hey... I can get two for the price of one!" (Helpful hint: two bad movies for the price of one is still a bad deal.)

Anyway, in Poltergeist III we get... ghosts in a skyscraper! Undoubtedly due to the refusal of most of the original actors to have anything more to do with this doomed franchise, here Carol Anne is sent off to live with her uncle and aunt in a Chicago high-rise. She's enrolled in a school for gifted but disturbed youngsters, because (gasp!) nobody believes in her ghost stories, and certainly not the hard-headed school psychologist. Any guesses whether, after some spectacular examples of general ghostly weirdness, this psychologist accepts that something weird is happening? Of course he doesn't! So we get a moronic "refusal to accept what's happening underneath his nose" aspect to the plot along with the predictable supernatural things that happen. And no, the script of Poltergeist III doesn't manage to come up with a single innovative or imaginative perspective on the whole concept. It's just a tired, lame retread of the same ideas, with cheesy special effects to boot.

The DVD

Poltergeist II and III are packaged on the same DVD, with one movie on each side of the disc. It's a flipper.

Video

The movies may be terrible, but they've at least received good treatment on DVD. Each film has one side of the DVD, and since only the correct widescreen version of the film is included, that means that there's a reasonable amount of space for the 91- and 98-minute films. Both films are presented in their original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and are anamorphically enhanced.

Both Poltergeist II and III look about the same: the print is clean, with a pleasing absence of noise and flaws. Colors are likewise good, with bright colors appropriately strong and clear, and contrast looking satisfactory. Some edge enhancement does appear, but it's not too much of a problem.

Audio

The Dolby 2.0 soundtrack included on both Poltergeist II and III is reasonable but not outstanding. The track as a whole is clean in both instances, but in both cases it's a bit flat. More annoying is the fact that in both films, "loud" is used as a substitute for "scary" (unsuccessfully, I might add). That means that if you have the volume set to hear the dialogue properly, whenever a "scary" scene comes along, all of a sudden the volume blasts higher and you'll be wincing and reaching for the remote.

Both films also include a French Dolby 2.0 and a Spanish mono soundtrack, along with English, French, and Spanish subtitles.

Extras

The original theatrical trailer for each film is included.

Final thoughts

The original Poltergeist is far from perfect, but it still holds its own as a reasonably scary, entertaining movie (especially if you have memories of it freaking you out as a kid). The same can't be said of the two sequels packaged here: they're just lame, tame retreads of the Poltergeist plot. Admittedly, if you actually do like either one of these films, this will be a reasonable purchase, since the transfer is quite good... but as for me, my recommendation is a resounding "skip it."