They say that it’s darkest before the Dawn. That may be the case for Poltergeist as this film was pretty terrible, but the next one is supposed to be even worse. Int his case, it may just stay in darkness for a while. Poltergeist II was a bad idea from the start, but I feel like it didn’t even try. It had a humorous moment or two during the film, but that’s about all that I can say for it.

Steve and Diane are still trying to get over the death of their old house via the Poltergeist monsters. It’s been a while and they’ve mostly settled into the new place. After the mother dies, the Poltergeists decide to make a return. One of them impersonates the lady for a while, but Carol figures out that it’s a trap and warns the other characters that they’re back! One of the ghost busting professionals arrives to help out, but is he really a hero?

Where to start with this trainwreck right!? Well, let’s go into the positive part first. I do like how Steve reacts to some of the situations. For example, the Indian known as Taylor went to the family and said that the house was okay after the heroes had nearly been destroyed. Steve then answers that Taylor can stay there since it’s so safe as he dashes off in the car. They really have no reason to trust Taylor after all and the guy is pretty suspect at times. Steve tends to take things in stride and he’s always got a sarcastic comeback for when the going gets tough. That’s the kind of skills that I expect to see from someone like him. Unfortunately, that’s the only real positive in the film.

Let’s go back to Taylor. This guy’s a truly pointless character who is full of himself and doesn’t actually help the others. He helps one of the kids try to become a man by giving him scratches with a sharp twig or something of that sort. It was pretty bad and just shows how crazy he is as Taylor talks about how kids fight in wars and such to justify these decisions. Taylor always hides when the villains appear as he prefers to let Steve do all of the fighting. He hangs out in the background until the coast is clear. He also continually lies to the main character about his car being angry so that he can steal it at the end. I don’t see why this character was called int to help at all as he was one of the worst characters.

Next up on the cringe worthy checklist is the main villain. Kane is an old pastor who was delusional and thought that the world would end so he buried everyone in a cave and forced them all to die. They apparently lost their minds as nobody thought to try and attack him so they could get out. They outnumbered the guy like 20-1 and they just let themselves die from hunger and thirst? You’ve got to be kidding me. He got supernatural powers somehow and can turn into a giant monster. The monster form looked decently cool I suppose, but its first form was a grotesque looking skeleton that hatched from its worm form. It was pretty repulsive the whole time. Just to make sure that the viewers didn’t like the villain, the movie decided to make him depraved as well.

In one of those scenes that added nothing to the film except a death warrant on its overall score, Kane tries to force himself on Diane and the scene is just sooooo terrible. We don’t need more Sword Art Online scenes folks, this is really what doomed Poltergeist II to a 0 although it would have only been a 1 at best otherwise. The focus on the actual ghosts was basically forgotten in this film as Kane was the only true villain. When Taylor talks about Kane, he almost hinted that the guy was the devil incarnate at first, but later on he just turns out to be your average loony. No amount of character development could have made him a compelling villain though.

Did I mention that Steve is also very weak when it comes to strength of will? All Kane needs to mind control him in this film is to make eye contact and Steve was instantly unable to do anything about the whole situation. He nearly let Kane in at that point and it’s good that Carol was around. None of the characters seemed to know what they were doing when faced with supernatural threats. It’s also intriguing how the insurance companies acknowledge that the house is missing without actually coming through on the insurance. Really…?

Let’s elaborate a little more on how the characters are terrible. Steve knows that Kane could show up at any minute so instead of preparing his will for round 2…he decides to go and have a beer. He’s so drunk that he doesn’t see Kane (Now in the form of an insect) inside of the bottle and swallows him. Kane messes around in Steve’s body for a while before Steve finally spits him out, but why would he be drinking at all in such a situation? Carol constantly freezes with fear whenever the villains appear. You’d think that after the first film she would be a little more used to dealing with supernatural forces right? There’s not much to say about Diane, but she can be a little unreasonable when the heroes were running from the ghosts. Staying in the car was their best strategy after all.

Also, where would a bad horror film be without the obligatory bath scene right? As per usual, it’s pointless and shouldn’t be around. It’s not as drawn out and painfully unbearable as in the average film, but it’s still around which is not cool. It’s basically just adding insult to injury by this point. Basically, the key message is do not watch this film. It just had no idea where it was going from start to finish and was a mess.

Overall, Poltergeist II is quite bad. It doesn’t really know what its doing at this point. It’s not really trying to be a horror film as nothing even gets remotely horror esque aside from the monster form at the end. All of the characters make foolish decisions and Taylor was a very poorly written “hero”. We find out that some iffy truths about what may have happened with his tribe way back when, but it has nothing to do with anything. This film wouldn’t even exist if the characters made smart decisions. If you want to watch a good horror film….don’t watch this one!

Overall 0/10