Poltergeist II-The Other Side

Here's a simple question for ya'........when the hell are folks going to get it throught their thick skulls to leave Indian burial sites the fuck alone?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Actually, in this case it's some Jonestown type whack-job come back from the other side with a crew of spooks to wreak havok on the already buggered lives of the Freeling family. Let's get the film itself out of the way....stupid as can be but surprisingly entertaining. The scene where Craig T. Nelson pukes up the demon tequilla worm is worth the price of rental alone and all jokingness aside I suspect this was a very serious take on the affects of alcohol on ones normal demeanor. Perhaps the director or one of the scripters is an AA member, doesn't really matter, the message is loud and clear even if it is as funny as a shit storm in a flour factory. Also worth mentioning is the late Julian Beck as the Reverend Henry Kane who is the Quaker styled Jonesey here and man oh man am I ever glad I never had any relatives who looked like this dude when I was a growin' up because you'd never be able to give me all of the trannies in T'rana to go a visit them if they did. Serious, this guy has got that skin stretched over skull with a smill straight from Hades look going for him that Peter Murphy would have died to have been born with.....come to think of it..only place I've ever seen a face like this was on Ruth Rendell when she smiled! Now, let's get to to the real meat here....made in 1986 this baby is only 20 years old and more than half (HALF dammit) of the cast are dead! Maybe there was something to that curse on the film afterall...and here is the real kicker....they used real skeletons for some of the corspes supposedly and this got the crew and cast all weirded out to the extent they demanded an exorcism be performed on the set. Well, wouldn't you know it but Native American actor Will Sampson (who we saw in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUKOO'S NEST, which gets a great in-joke in this flick) just so happens to be a mystical shaman, how bloody convienient, so he shoos everybody away and does his shaman thing and still half the damn cast end up dead! Sure he had nothing at all to do with this as his reputation was pretty damn solid as these sort of things go but still makes you wonder a bit doesn't it. Anyway, take this baby with a grain (or circle) of salt and enjoy the ride and make sure not to miss the funniest part of the film, this being when little person Zelda Rubinstein shows up in a reprise roll from the first. Though the joke is at her expense it is downright gutbusting if you fall for it!