The Second sequel to POLTERGEIST, and about on par with the first, which is to say a mixed bag: bombastic, cynical and plain dumb, but with some affecting elements. The director and co-writer was Gary Sherman, of the classic RAW MEAT, who added some interesting elements to an ill-conceived project.
POLTERGEIST III’s release was overshadowed by the death of its 12 year old star Heather O’Rourke, a returnee from the previous films. Diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, O’Rourke was taking medication during the 1987 filming of POLTERGIEST III that caused her cheeks to puff up, and died on February 1, 1988, while the film was in post-production (following the first film’s co-star Dominique Dunne, who was killed before its release, and POLTERGEIST II’s antagonist Julian Beck, who passed on before the filming was completed). Her sad demise became the focus of the reviews and marketing campaign, rendering the film being sold an afterthought.
Sherman’s major inspiration, outside POLTERGEIST, appears to have been J.G. Ballard’s HIGH-RISE. That’s evident in the setting, an all-inclusive Chicago high rise containing a department store and swimming pool in addition to living quarters. Carol Anne (O’Rourke) has been sent by her fed up parents to live on an upper floor with her uncle Bruce (Tom Skerritt), his wife Patricia (Nancy Allen) and their teenage daughter Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle in her feature debut). Also returning from the previous film is Kane, a.k.a. The Beast (Nathan Davis, replacing Julian Beck), who appears to Carol Anne in the mirror surfaces that blanket the interior of the high-rise.
Strange and irrational things occur in the building, such as a heating system that can’t seem to do its job and a vertical crack that begins near the bottom floor elevator and runs upward to the top. Carol Anne can’t seem to get anyone to believe her claims about errant mirror images, with Dr. Seaton (Richard Fire), a goofball shrink (a popular personage in late 80s/early 90s genre cinema—see the Earl Boen played Dr. Silberman in TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY) leading the “Carol Anne is delusional” charge.
Things come to a head when Donna and her punk friends embark on a troublemaking spree, during which Kane sucks Carol Anne into “the Other Side” (for the third time). Luckily the all-knowing psychic Tangina Barrons (Zelda Rubinstein) turns up to help make things right (as she did twice before).
The dialogue is horrendous, littered, as in POLTERGEIST II, with pathetic attempts at comedy and an excess of shouted names—“Donna!,” “Carol Anne!,” etc. (in a late 1990s TONIGHT SHOW interview Boyle said of this film that “all we did was scream each other’s names”). There are, however, some inspired moments, and imaginative special effects designed by Sherman himself; this film may be the ultimate example of mirror horror, with many ingenious reflection-based scares. Sherman is to be commended for, unlike POLTERGEIST II’s Brian Gibson, ignoring the filmmaking aesthetic developed by Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper, as whatever else POLTERGEIST III may be, it is at least original.
Working against Sherman’s efforts were the suits at MGM, who forced him to reshoot the ending and rush postproduction to meet the set-in-stone June 10, 1988 release date. That mad dash to complete the film may explain the bad performances by skilled actors like Tom Skerritt, Nancy Allen and O’Rourke (although she certainly had a legitimate excuse for the distracted air she exudes), and a narrative that appears to have been going someplace interesting, i.e. someplace along the lines of the aforementioned J.G. Ballard novel, only to devolve into an undisciplined blur, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Vital Statistics
POLTERGEIST III
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Director: Gary Sherman
Producer: Barry Bernardi
Screenplay: Gary Sherman, Brian Taggert
Cinematography: Alex Napomniaschy
Editing: Ross Albert
Cast: Tom Skerritt, Nancy Allen, Heather O’Rourke, Zelda Rubinstein, Lara Flynn Boyle, Kip Wentz, Richard Fire, Nathan Davis, Paul Graham, Meg Weldon, Stacy Gilchrist, Joey Garfield, Chris Murphy, Roy Hytower, Meg Thalken, Dean Tukuno