Review: Gil Kenan's 'Poltergeist' Remake Starring Sam Rockwell & Rosemarie DeWitt

Mostly a cautionary tale about the necessity of seller’s disclosures when purchasing an older home, Gil Kenan’s new take on the “Poltergeist” mythos borrows liberally from the classic Tobe Hooper film to revisit the story of a family, a house, and the closet-set portal that upends their lives, with limited results. Although the horror offering puts a nice twist on the family dynamics at play and adding in a backstory that helps frame the entire narrative, the feature eventually dissolves into shoddy CGI and a flaccid third act that comes up short not only when it’s compared to the original feature, but the genre in general. There are some chills to be had here, but they taper out exactly when the action should really be ratcheting up, and the film’s tension burns out so quickly that it might as well have been sucked into an inter-dimensional portal of its own.

Forced to downsize after a string of bad economic luck, the Bowen family decamps to an older home in a modest...