Review #40: American Poltergeist (2015)


This review was originally written in October 2017.

Horror Movie October day 11: American Poltergeist

I don't have a ton to say about this movie; it was really bad. Low budget, terrible acting, the dialogue was stilted and unlike anything anyone would ever say in real life, and for being called "American Poltergeist" you'd assume a poltergeist would be the main antagonist of the movie, right? Instead, I guess there's a poltergeist present, but virtually all of the kills (more on that in a moment) are done by a woman who's working with the poltergeist, not the poltergeist itself. Notice I didn't say she was possessed; she wasn't. As far as I could tell she was in full control of her faculties, and when all of the kills occurred the poltergeist was standing nearby just... watching, I guess? And for that matter, is it really a poltergeist when it has a physical form? I don't think so. This movie unravels more and more as you study it.

The kills in this movie were some of the tamest I've ever seen. You never see anything actually happen; you just see the killer run up with a snarl on her face and then it cuts to another scene. (Sometimes, you don't even get that much.) And whenever a body is shown, the only damage is some red paint on their cheeks made to look like they were bleeding from their eyes. It should also be noted that this movie has an incredible amount of jump scares; I'd say probably 95% of the intentional horror in its entire runtime were jump scares. There were a few spots that were genuinely creepy, though I don't think they were all intentional.

I only chose this movie because it was on Netflix and had a relatively short runtime. It has a sequel as well, which I might watch tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Final rating: 2/10 Oddly Wholesome Horror Movies

Number of Movies I've Watched So Far Where Tenants Are Wholly Unconcerned About Discovering a Locked Door In Their House That Has Never Been Opened: 2

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review #181: The Evil Dead (1981)

Image
This review was originally written in 2022. Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #36: The Evil Dead (1981) As much as I'm trying to make these reviews as standalone as possible, I feel the need to tie this one (at least a little bit) into the last one (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) and the next one (Evil Dead II). So, bear with me I guess. I'm a huge fan of the Evil Dead series as a whole. Evil Dead II was one of the first horror films I ever saw, and for many years was my favorite movie of all time. However, I was never a very big fan of the first movie; I only saw The Evil Dead a couple times and when I did, it felt "lesser" than Evil Dead II in every way. I'll save most of my comments about EDII until the next review, but I just want to say that in this particular rewatch, I came out liking The Evil Dead WAY more than I used to, and liking Evil Dead II a little bit less (though I still love it). If you aren't familiar with the series at all, The E
Read more

Review #153: The Endless (2018)

Image
This review was originally written in 2022. Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #8 - The Endless (2018) A disclaimer: Most of this review is going to be me complaining about the logistics and mechanics of this movie, and it's going to be full of spoilers. I'll try to summarize my non-mechanical thoughts as concisely as possible. The Endless is an interesting film created by writing/directing duo Benson and Moorhead. Apart from Spring (which to my knowledge doesn't fit into this film's universe, though I could be mistaken) this was the first Benson & Moorhead joint I'd seen, and I was instantly intrigued by the premise: two brothers escaped a cult ten years ago, and after hearing that the cult was seemingly getting ready to kill themselves, they go back for one last visit to get some closure. When they get there, they realize that the cult's supernatural beliefs seem to be true, and they get caught up in a strange web of timey-wimeyness under the u
Read more

Review #179: It (2017)

Image
This review was originally written in 2022. Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #34: It (2017) I read It about twenty years ago; it's probably the longest book I've read in full. I think the book is very, very good (though also very, very Stephen King, which means there's a lot in its pages that makes it quantitatively worse than it could be) and for the most part this movie is a faithful adaptation... of half of it. I'll save most of my book vs. movie complaints for later on, but I'll just say that the book itself is two very important and very intertwined halves of a story, and while I understand the reasoning to cut it in half (doing the whole book justice would take well over four hours' worth of screentime), I really do think it does the whole story a disservice when this entire film starts and ends with the characters as kids. The book is constantly jumping back and forth between the child half of the story and the adult half, to the point where
Read more