POLTERGEIST III

Poltergeist III is a very difficult movie to watch.

I watched Poltergeist III on a rainy Saturday afternoon a couple of years ago, so I knew it was bad. I had no intention of watching it a second time, but there it was on the B Side of the DVD, and I had one nagging question—why did Carol Anne's parents send her away? I couldn't think of their excuse for the life of me, and I figured I could find out within the first five minutes of the movie. Then, like a moron, I left it on and watched the whole thing.

This time we find Carol Anne living in Chicago with her Aunt Pat (Nancy Allen), Uncle Bruce (Tom Skerritt), and step-cousin Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle), so that she can attend a special school for "gifted" children. They live in a swanky new high-rise with about 100 floors. Most of the walls are mirrored, and lately the building has been very cold. Everyone assumes this is the fault of the new ventilation system, but it has everything to do with Carol Anne. Even halfway across the country, the Reverend Kane is still on her case.

Here, I just have to say that Poltergeist III is a very difficult movie to watch. Heather O'Rourke died four months before its theatrical release, and her poor little face is all puffy. To compensate, the make-up department went heavy on the brow pencil, blush, and lip gloss. If they actually allowed Heather to play her age, she'd look like any other preteen who fell in the make-up, but they insist on keeping her little, dressing her in red footie pajamas, and making her drag around her Speak N Spell like a six-year-old.

Given her history with electronic devices, you'd think Carol Anne's next contact with "the other side" would come through the Speak N Spell. Instead, she sees a ghostly version of herself in the mirror—a half-dead looking girl who grabs her hands, and pulls her up the wall. Again and again she is haunted by a distorted image of herself, and it just about makes you sick, knowing that she would die shortly after filming these scenes.

Things really go wonky when Bruce and Pat leave Carol Anne in Donna's care and head downstairs to a very posh party. Donna's itching to go to a cool teenage party of her own, but she knows it wouldn't be right to ditch her little step-cousin. Poor Carol Anne is acutely aware of the fact that everyone thinks of her either as a third wheel or a freak, so she's always doing her best to make up for it. She probably remembers having a sister named Dana who used to get all worked up about things, and you can see how that worked out: erased! She puts on a brave face, and tells Donna to go ahead and go—she'll be okay alone, and if they both get in trouble, she'll "take the heat". Awww.

While Donna and her friends are sneaking into the indoor pool, the evil spirits close in on Carol Anne. She flees to the parking garage, and somehow Donna and her friend realize she's in trouble. They get to her just as she's being sucked into a big puddle, but instead of pulling her out, they go down with her.

Though the teenagers eventually resurface, Carol Anne is trapped between worlds. Her special teacher keeps rolling his eyes and insisting she's manipulating all of them with mind games and post-hypnotic suggestions, and eventually even her aunt has enough. When Bruce wonders how they're going to get Carol Anne back, Pat screams "Who the hell God damn cares?!" Only Tangina has Carol Anne's best interests at heart, and she comes to her aid after sensing danger from the other side of the country.

She explains that the spirits are still waiting for Carol Anne to lead them to the light, which is obviously just laziness on their part. You know they've been sitting around looking at that light for the last hundred years. Why should Carol Anne have to take them? It's not like she's just hanging around with nothing to do—there are hundreds of words in that Speak N Spell just waiting to be learned!

Finally Tangina decides to step up and lead Reverend Kane's victims to the light on Carol Anne's behalf. Aunt Pat starts to feel guilty, and again Carol Anne is brought back to the world of the living by her family's love. You can bet that if Heather hadn't died, they would have tried to milk the same scenario again and again. When I turned the DVD off (I kid you not) Poltergeist: The Legacy was on Channel 12. I don't know that it's even related to the movies, but I, for one, have had enough.