DAYDREAMIN’ DAUPHIN

DAYDREAMIN’ DAUPHIN

DRIVE INSATURDAY

Edouard Dauphin

The Dauphin thought the six o’clock alarm would never ring. But it rings and I rise (not easy when you're passed out on the floor), wipe the ouzo out of my eyes. My steppin’ razor’s cold and it stings—but I strap it under my belt anyway and I’m ready to go out into the night, for a seven o’clock screening of a film I’ve not been looking forward to seeing, Poltergeist II: The Other Side.

Four years back, when the original Poltergeist was released, The Dauph, in this very column, urged you to avoid it like weekold Shredded Pig’s Ears. Some of you may have listened; still, the flick went on to become, one of the highest grossing pictures of the decade. Will you heed Edouard now when he warns you away from the sequel? Nah. But as long as you keep reading, this bumptious scribbler ain’t complaining.

Poltergeist II begins and once more we are plunged—like it or not—into the all-American world of the Freeling family. Things have calmed down a bit for them since they fled their last home pursued by every dead American Indian west of the Pecos. Dad (the still-untalented Craig T. Nelson) has dropped a few notches as a breadwinner and now ekes out a living as a vacuum cleaner salesman. (“I’m into downward mobility,” he insists— something any CREEM staffer can identify with.) Mom, played by the generally less than scintillating JoBeth Williams, bitches about the fact that they’ve never been able to collect insurance on their house that vanished into thin air. Guess they weren’t in good hands—but then with Poltergeist II, neither are we.

In the original Poltergeist, Mom and Dad prepared for bed by smoking some killer weed and getting real nice and cozy together. Things haven’t changed that much. Now Dad tries to get Mom into a romantic mood by singing her favorite Beatles song, "If I Fell.” Now there’s a man who knows about foreplay!

Remember Carol Anne, the too-cute-for-her-own-good blonde kid who was sucked into the family television set last time out? .Well, big surprise, the dead Injuns are still out to get her. They’ve given up on TV (hasn’t everyone?) and call her on a toy phone instead. "They’re back,” she announces impishly and it only takes one look at the old timepiece to know that we’re in for at least another hour of bad special effects.

Let’s talk about these effects, all right? One of them consists of a child’s braces growing out from his teeth to wrap around his entire body like barbed wire. Now The Dauph knows a few orthodontists who might be mildly frightened by this until they realized they could charge for those braces by the yard. But, for the rest of us, this is just plain ludicrous and boring. Same goes for a scene in which Dad, grown weary from the attack of the poltergeists, swallows the worm in a bottle of tequila and gives birth, moments later, to a squiggily monster resembling a gigantic sushi. By the way, there is even an acting credit in the program for this character. He is billed as Vomit Creature and is portrayedive by someone called Noble Craig. Now there’s something wonderful for an actor to have on his resume. Congrats, Craig! You should be cutting a seven figure deal and any day now.