Poltergeist II: The Other Side - Not a bad sequel

I can't imagine many people will watch 'Poltergeist II: The Other Side' without seeing the original first, but, just in case you decide to do that, the first film deals with a family whose daughter is abducted by a very nasty ghostly spirit who infests their suburban home, forcing them to enlist a team of psychics to travel to 'the other side' to get her back.  Apart from the fact that the original tied things up quite nice, 'Part II' carries on reasonably smoothly (making me wonder whether the film-makers ever expected that there would be that much of an appetite for a sequel).

First of all, all the original cast return (with the exception of the family's older daughter who gets a brief mention as to why she's not appearing) and it carries on nicely, pointing out how their life has progressed in the event of their house - literally - disappearing and the effects it's had on the family.  Naturally, things don't go smoothly and the spirits haven't finished with them quite yet.

While I'm on the subject of the cast, besides the young actress, Heather O'Rourke, playing Carol Anne and her iconic delivery of the line "They're here…" the other most memorable character from the first outing was loveably mini psychic Tangina Barrons (Zelda Rubinstein).  And, although I was pleased to see her also return, I couldn't quite help but think that her part had kind of got (partially) given away to a new character (Will Sampson, as the Native American, 'Taylor') who turns up and basically does what Tangina did in the first, only in not such a memorable way.

Anyway, as I've eluded to, much supernatural shenanigans ensue and it's nice to see the more 'practical' effects in action, as opposed to today's overuse of computer effects.  Plus, in terms of sheer scares and creepiness, the stand-out performance is from Julian Beck as the 'human face' of the unseen poltergeist, 'Kane.' I couldn't look at him without getting severely 'weirded out!' I doubt any parent would let him happily approach their children in a shopping mall without getting Security on to him!

If you liked the first film then you should enjoy this one, too.  Arguably, because it's a sequel, it's inferior, but there's enough here that's different and adds to the overall mythology to make it a welcome addition to the franchise, plus it doesn't go back on what's come before it.  Of course, if you know your film history (or just do a Google search on these films) you'll find out that much of the 'true horror' surrounding the ‘'Poltergeist’ franchise happened OFF screen, but enough said about that the better.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that