Poltergeist III (1988) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - June 5, 1988

Saw this at the Empire Cinema, which is where I worked, for a time. But I do not think I was working there when Poltergeist III came out. 

Here we have a prime example of what, I believe, Carl Gottlieb referred to as the Immutable Rule of the Sequel. "Only the last one loses money."

Poltergeist II The Other Side might have made some money, but that money was nowhere near as much as the first Poltergeist. I think the first sequel only made a third of what the first film did.

But it made enough money to warrant yet another trip to the box office, just to see how much (or little) they could squeeze out of the franchise.

Poltergeist III had two knocks against it, right out of the gate. The first being star Heather O'Rourke dying shortly after the end of principle photography. That cast a saddening shadow that the movie had no way of getting out from under.

Second was the absence of any and all post-production visual effects. No costly Industrial Light and Magic wizardry was to be displayed here. All the effects were done on set and in camera, through sleight of hand trickery, body doubles, and mirror work.

In theory, and on paper, the idea works. On the big screen, though... Well, it neither looked nor felt the same. I did not dislike the film, though. I even thought, at the time, that it was superior and more fun to watch than Poltergeist II The Other Side.

I cannot say that it was all that good, though. Poltergeist III is just an interesting and entertaining failure at trying to do something different.