This film essentially begins one year after the horrors in the previous film with a new malignant force now seeking the young child "Carol Anne Freeling" (Heather O'Rourke) for the exact same reasons as in the previous film. This time, however, the evil spirit has been generated from a 19th century cult leader by the name of "Reverend Henry Kane" (Julian Beck) who led his congregation into the desert in preparation for an end-of-the-world scenario that never materialized. Not wanting to admit to his congregation that he was mistaken, he subsequently lets them all die in an underground cave that has only now been discovered-and it just happens to be located right under the same house owned by the Freeling family in the previous film. To make matters even worse, this evil spirit has more power than the previous one and recognizing this the spiritual medium named "Tangina Barrons" (Zelda Rubinstein) enlists the help of a Native American shaman by the name of "Taylor" (Will Sampson) to combat it. Yet, in spite of all of his knowledge and experience, he soon discovers that Reverend Kane is much more formidable than he realized-and he has no intention of allowing Carol Anne to escape. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that I thought this was a pretty good sequel when it first came out and having just watched it recently I remain of that opinion. Admittedly, some of the situations were recycled from the first film and as a result it didn't have the same impact as before. But even so the underlying story was still entertaining enough in its own right. Another interesting facet is that--even though both JoBeth Williams (as "Diane Freeling") and the aforementioned Heather O'Rourke clearly dominated in the previous film--it was the performances of both Julian Beck and Will Sampson who rose to the occasion in this one and gave this movie an added edge. At least, that is how it seemed to me. In any case, for what it's worth I enjoyed this film and have rated it accordingly. Above average.
Review of Poltergeist II: The Other Side
