i remembered the original poltergeist as one of the scariest movies i'd ever (partially) watched due to having seen scenes of it as i was roaming around the house as a child while my parents watched it. many, many years later, i rewatched it as an adult; while i didn't find it particularly frightening, it was a good movie, with a particular escalation of tension and events. i expected the remake to insert many jump scares (it does) and special effects (yes) - and i also expected it to not be very good, of course. i did not expect the worst aspect of the movie to be its crushing blandness and similarity to recent movies. i should have, but i didn't. while it is a faithful remake of "poltergeist" in plot and characters, it is more similar to, say, "the conjuring" in execution. here is what is "new": the movie starts with the family moving in, unhappily, due to financial problems; these issues are present throughout the first part of the movie but lead nowhere; there are anvilicious clues from the start that the girl is special and can speak to the spirit(s); when freaking out - often in hysterics - everyone goes from 0 to 10 as if a switch is turned on (i especially disliked the reaction to the girl disappearing, and more on this later); the family reaches out to a competent, professional-acting team of scientists, who suggest the exorcist already introduced by having the older daughter watch his show - but wait, the lead scientist and the tv exorcist used to be married! it might sound like a remake using newer movies to inject a "fresh approach" is not a bad thing, but in this case too much is lost. for example, the original had actual humor in it, and not just in a few snarky lines. this family is too generic, all scenes setting up the horror part are predictable and bland. setting aside the unfortunate decision of making this movie about blandy mcfamily who has just cluelessly moved in and are innocent victims, setting aside the even more unfortunate decision of not including scenes like the mother putting a helmet on the little girl as she is using her to demonstrate the initial harmless poltergeist phenomemon or the hilarious carousel of flying objects in the room, one scene stood out to me. it is the crucial scene that sets off the real horror: the tree attacking the boy and the girl being spirited away. for one thing, and this was totally unexpected, the original is much, much more physical and frightening. we see the tree bursting through the window, dragging the boy to literally consume him, we see the struggle and the rescue, and he is dirty and bloodied. also, being attacked is an obvious distraction, keeping the parents busy while the girl is forcefully sucked into the closet. in the remake, the tree only shakes the boy about, then dumps him on the ground, while luring the girl in an, i thought, entirely unconvincing manner (seriously, why did she wait for so long and moved so slowly when trying to grab the toy?). in the original, everything is sucked into the closet, so the family has to move a lot of things aside to look for the girl, finds her under a sheet and they tear up... but it is the clown, and the mother even laughs before starting to search her in the entire house and outside. this was excellent. in the remake, the only indication that the girl is truly missing is that... she is not in the room and the toy is in the closet; everyone somehow instantly understands what happened and freaks the hell out. crucially, the parents are not home as the events happen. granted, this could simply speak of a different anxiety, especially with the earlier talks about the mother staying at home to take care of the children, but it just isn't as creepy as where the original went. consider, for example, the scene in the original where the daughter wakes up as she is sleeping with her brother between her parents and goes to the tv; she was not safe, they could not keep her safe, and this message is timelessly unsettling.