This four-year-after-the-fact sequel to POLTERGEIST (1982) is lousy, as expected. It lacks several members of the former film’s creative coalition, including screenwriter/producer (and, it’s been widely alleged, uncredited co-director) Steven Spielberg, director Tobe Hooper, producer Frank Marshall and actress Dominique Dunne (who was killed before POLTERGEIST was released). That left screenwriters Michael Grais and Mark Victor, visual effects supervisor Richard Edlund, composer Jerry Goldsmith and actors Jobeth Williams, Craig T. Nelson, Heather O’Rourke, Oliver Robins and Zelda Rubinstein. Newbies included director Brian Gibson (BREAKING GLASS) and conceptual artist H.R. Giger, who was known to complain endlessly about his designs for this film being compromised.
So yes, POLTERGEIST II: THE OTHER SIDE (1986) is bad. It does, however, improve upon its predecessor conceptually, with a script that maintains its focus (unlike the Spielberg vetted POLTERGEIST screenplay, which felt like exactly what it was: a grab-bag of promising ideas packed into a flimsy-to-nonexistent framework). We actually learn the identity of “The Beast” that was discussed but not shown in the previous film, and why said Beast is so interested in snatching Diane and Carol Anne off the mortal plane—plus, as the title promises, we actually get a good look at the “Other Side” that was only hinted at in 1982.
Julian Beck (Kane)
The set-up: the Freeling family, consisting of Steve (Nelson), Diane (Williams), their children Robbie (Oliver Robins) and Carol Anne (O’Rourke) and dog E. Buzz, are living in a house with Diane’s clairvoyant mother Jess (Geraldine Fitzgerald), their former residence (as viewers of POLTERGEIST well know) having imploded. All seems well until a creepy old guy named Kane (Living Theater legend Julian Beck, who died during filming) takes an interest in Carol Anne. Also drawn to the family is Taylor (Will Sampson), a Native American shaman anxious to protect Carol Anne from Kane, who, it turns out, is the aforementioned Beast.
This is explained by Tangina Barrons (Rubinstein), the psychic from the previous film who, it seems, knows everything. Diane and Carol Anne are revealed to be reincarnated 19th Century women who followed Kane, a cultist, to a cave where everyone suffocated. That cave, it turns out, was located directly under the site of the Freelings’ imploded house. They return, but not until after Jess has died and Kane has tried to snatch Carol Anne off the mortal plane by distracting her family through supernatural methodology, which includes Robbie’s braces sprouting wires and a tequila worm transforming into a Giger-designed vomit monster. Kane needs Carol Anne to keep the ghosts of his cultists in line, and is determined to place her on the Other Side in order to make that happen.
Steve Johnson and The Beast
Director Brian Gibson does what he can, but he’s not Steven Spielberg, nor Tobe Hooper. The naturalistic atmosphere of the former film is nowhere to be found in POLTERGEIST II, although Gibson tries very hard to replicate it. His failure is most noticeable in the performances of Oliver Robins and Heather O’Rourke, whose childish charisma in the earlier film gave way to awkwardness and ineptitude. Much of the dialogue of POLTERGEIST was apparently ad-libbed by the children, whereas here Robbins and O’Rourke recite grown-ups’ stale conceptions of kidspeak. Furthermore, Grais and Victor insist on lame attempts at humor that not even Craig T. Nelson, a comedian by trade, is able to pull off.
The Richard Edlund overseen special effects are of course the true stars. The giant worm, erupting braces and heavenly expanse intended to represent the Other Side were well carried off, and quite groundbreaking for 1986, even if those sequences now play more like outtakes from a NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movie than a POLTERGEIST sequel. Speaking of which: a POLTERGEIST III was released in 1988, and marked POLTERGEIST’s final airing until the crummy 2015 remake.
Vital Statistics
POLTERGEIST II: THE OTHER SIDE
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Director: Brian Gibson
Producers/Screenplay: Mark Victor, Michael Grais
Cinematography: Andrew Laszlo
Editing: Thom Noble
Cast: Jobeth Williams, Craig T. Nelson, Heather O’Rourke, Oliver Robins, Zelda Rubinstein, Will Sampson, Julian Beck, Geraldine Fitzgerald, John P. Whitecloud, Nobel Craig, Susan Peretz, Helen Boll, Kelly Jean Peters, Jaclyn Berstein, Ann Louise Bardach, Syd Beard