Plot
Eric and Amy Bowen are looking to buy a new house with their family, eldest daughter Kendra, middle child Griffin and youngest daughter Maddie, after Eric has been laid off and Amy has a case of writer's block. They are shown a house that has recently come on the market in a quiet neighborhood that fits in their price range. After moving in they begin to hear strange noises in the walls on the first night and Griffin, afraid, decides to investigate what's making them and finds that something is moving around in a small storage space in his attic room. While looking in the space he is frightened by a box full of clown dolls that fall and he runs to his parents room as they are about to celebrate moving into the new place. Eric goes with Griffin to investigate what happened and while looking around in the storage space a squirrel startles them both. Running downstairs Eric puts on a show like he's being assaulted by an invisible force only to laugh and say that it was just a squirrel and that he will get a trap tomorrow. Griffin refuses to sleep in his room until the squirrel is caught and sleeps with his parents in their bed.
In the middle of the night lights and electronic devices start turning on and off as some unseen force appears to move through the home. The lights and the noise from the exercise equipment wake Griffin up and he goes downstairs after hearing Maddie talking. He finds her standing in front of the TV talking to static and asks what she's doing. Maddie has her hand on the TV when from inside, a silhouetted hand presses back followed by multiple ones. Maddie responds by saying "They're coming." The house alarm goes off, bringing everyone downstairs. Maddie turns to the family and says that the spirits are here.
In the morning Amy and Griffin are planting flowers when Griffin discovers a vertebrae. Assuming that it is just someones old pet, they put it back. Eric goes to the store and buys a trap for the squirrel after two of his credit cards are rejected. In the parking lot he sees a sign for the local mall and decides to just spend more money to raise everyone's spirits; buying Kendra a new phone, Griffin a helicopter drone, Amy a new ring and Maddie the pizza she wanted for dinner. That night, Eric and Amy go to a friends house for dinner so Eric can try and get in good with the boss and possibly get a job leaving Kendra to babysit the other two kids. At the dinner party Eric and Amy learn that their house was built on an old cemetery, but everyone believes that the bodies and headstones were moved to a better neighborhood.
At the house Kendra is messaging her friend when her phone emits strange sounds as a storm moves in. Having put Maddie and Griffin to bed she starts to follow the noise. Griffin is startled by the storm and the sounds of the old tree banging on his skylight window when he hears something moving around in his room. He tries to turn the light on but it burns out, so he grabs a flashlight. Trying to find where the noises are coming from he sees where clown dolls seem to be dropped just before he can see what's doing it. The big clown that fell on him when he first found the storage space is no longer on his shelf. He hears movement and sees the pull string nose, stirring at his feet but when he looks down and behind him nothing is there. As he stands up he sees the clown sitting on the other side of the room when it flies at him and wrestles with him on the floor. Griffin is able to break the clown and run out of the room just as the old tree breaks the skylight. He runs to Maddie's room where she is in the corner surrounded by her stuffed animals and he tells her to stay there while he goes to find Kendra. Kendra has been lured to the basement and hears pounding on the floor and a crack in the corner of a concrete tile. As she pulls it up a black muddy ooze comes up and she sees a ghostly figure next to her as a hand grabs her leg and holds her there.
Maddie is in her room when all the lights flow out towards her now open closet. Her favorite stuffed animal is then rolled by an unseen force into the closet and she goes after it only to become lost in a dark and seemingly unending void in her closet until she is grabbed by shadowy figures and dragged into the darkness. Griffin runs downstairs to try and find Kendra who is screaming in the basement with her leg trapped. Griffin is grabbed by the branches of the old tree, pulled through the house and out through his skylight. Amy and Eric arrive home to see Griffin being tossed around in the branches of the tree and then dropped while Kendra is released and runs for help.
After going inside they discover that Maddie is missing. While searching the house, Griffin hears her talking through the TV and Amy puts her hand on the screen to find Maddie pressing back from the other side. Unable to call the police, Amy and Griffin go to Amy's alma mater to the Paranormal Research department while Eric and Kendra stay at home and watch over Maddie. The staff believe their story and go to the house and set up equipment. At first a little skeptical of everything, Boyd starts filming and has his chair ripped out from under him and thrown against the wall by an unseen force. Shocked but still looking for a potential scam, he sets up equipment in the closet Maddie vanished in only to be attacked and frightened in it. After being released with no evidence of what happened to him he goes downstairs shaken but ready to believe and help.
The investigative team gives GPS locators to everyone in the house, so they will know where everyone is at all times. While trying to contact Maddie, Eric believes he see's his daughter and runs up to her room, only to be tricked by a ghostly figure in the closet. Angered he starts breaking the back wall of the closet with the broken chair and table; which vanishes and then falls through a portal-like spot in the ceiling of the living room. The investigators believe that this haunting is not a simple ghost or ghosts but poltergeists. The lead investigator Dr. Brooke Powell decides to call the only person she knows that can help, Carrigan Burke who happens to be Dr. Powell's ex-husband.
Carrigan arrives and explains that Maddie is psychic and able to communicate with spirits and that the poltergeists trapped and angry because the headstones were moved but their bodies weren't. They plan on using Maddie who is at her most purest point in her life to lead them into the light and free them from their purgatory. Carrigan then comes up with a plan to get Maddie back before she goes into the light and is lost forever. He anchors a rope in Maddie's room and tosses it into the vortex having it come out the other side. Having Griffin maneuver the drone into the vortex and through the other dimension, they look for Maddie only to have the drone destroyed by the poltergeists. Unable to use the drone as a way of guiding Maddie out, they argue who will go in after her only to discover that Griffin has already gone upstairs. He says that he never should have left Maddie and goes through the vortex to the other dimension. Following the rope so he'll be able to get out, he sees Maddie and leaves the rope to get her. As he starts to bring her back to the rope, the poltergeists grab and pull the rope out of the wall in order to trap them both in that dimension so Maddie will have no choice but to lead them into the light. As the rope is sucked out of the other dimension Griffin and Maddie try to grab it and escape. The rope comes through the other end of the portal without the kids only to have Griffin and Maddie fall out of it with Griffin holding Maddie.
The family, believing it's all over, quickly head out to their car and try and leave. Maddie says that the poltergeists are still there as she never lead them to the light when the car suddenly stops as it's backing up. The hood is crushed and the car tossed upside down on the lawn and pulled back into the house. Maddie is the only one that is outside the car and then is grabbed by her leg and dragged up the stairs by an unseen force. The family follows and tries to pull her back from being sucked back into the vortex. Carrigan sees this and decides that he is the only one that can end this as he is the only other psychic. He goes into the house as the family escapes out a window. Eric sees Carrigan standing in front of the vortex and asks what he's doing. Carrigan explains that this is the only way to make sure that his family will be safe and he enters the vortex. The Bowen family jump into another car and speed away as the house is torn apart followed by a giant fountain of light exploding from inside the house. The investigative team run to their equipment looking for a sign that Carrigan managed to get back out somehow and suddenly see his GPS locator pop up on the screen in the living room.
The Bowen family is looking for another new house; Eric gets a job working for the schools as a baseball coach and they are shown a nice house with big closets and an old tree. Amy states that those aren't real big selling points for them and Maddie says that her old closet ate her. The realtor notices that she is the only one in the house as the family drives off. In a mid-credit scene, Carrigan is back to doing his paranormal TV show taping a scene when Dr. Powell steps out before her queue and the two argue as a married couple again.
Production
In early September 2013, the crew shot interior scenes for the film in an old residence in Toronto.[4] Exterior shots were filmed on the West Mountain of Hamilton.[5] The film was shot and released in 3D.[6]
Release
On August 6, 2014, the film's release date was shifted from February 13, 2015 to July 24, 2015.[7] On March 4, 2015, the date was shifted again to May 22, 2015, which was previously set for Spy.[8] It was released in 3D.[9]
Marketing
The film's first trailer was released on February 5, 2015.[10] Forrest Wickman of Slate Magazine's opinion was that the trailer made the film appear to be too similar to the original film.[11] James Hibberd of Entertainment Weekly said that the trailer "retains and amplifies several elements from the original", and praised that "the modernizing doesn’t result in, say, the family’s daughter being kidnapped by ghosts in Snapchat".[12] Brad Miska of Bloody Disgusting stated that "while every fiber of my being wants to reject it, [the film] actually looks pretty insane", and praised the trailer's final shot.[13] Ben Kuchera of Polygon also opined that the trailer appeared to be similar to the original film, but that it "looks great, as a horror movie".[14]
Reception
Box office
Poltergeist made $1.4 million during its Thursday night showings from 2,500 theaters,[15] and an estimated $9.4 million on its opening day.[16]
Outside North America, it earned $8.3 million on its opening weekend from 3,421 screens in 35 countries, finishing at sixth place at the international box office.[17]
Critical reception
Poltergeist has received mixed to negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 33%, based on 75 reviews, with an average rating of 4.8/10. The site's consensus reads "Paying competent homage without adding anything of real value to the original Poltergeist, this remake proves just as ephemeral (but half as haunting) as its titular spirit."[18] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 47 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[19] In CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend, cinema audiences gave Poltergeist an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.[16]
