TORONTO — The first trailer for the made-in-Canada remake of Poltergeist was released Thursday — and it’s full of frights.
Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt play parents who seek the help of a parapsychologist (Jared Harris) when their daughter (Kennedi Clements) is abducted by supernatural forces.
The movie, directed by Gil Kenan (Monster House), is a contemporary version of the 1982 film by Tobe Hooper that is regarded by many as one of the scariest movies of all time.
The original was co-written and co-produced by Steven Spielberg.
Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, The Evil Dead) is one of the producers of the remake, which was shot in Southern Ontario in late 2013. Its scheduled November 2014 release date was bumped and four days of reshoots were completed last August.
The movie, which was filmed in 3D, will now be released on July 25.
Poltergeist was the top horror movie of 1982, grossing more than $75 million, and earned Oscar nominations for Original Score, Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects.
There were two sequels – 1986’s Poltergeist II: The Other Side and 1988’s Poltergeist III – which earned $41 million and a disappointing $14 million respectively.
The movies also spawned a TV series, Poltergeist: The Legacy, which ran from 1996 to 1999 and was filmed in Vancouver.
Some fans of the trilogy believe in the “Poltergeist curse” because four of its stars died within six years of the original. Heather O’Rourke, the young daughter in all three movies, died of septic shock in 1988 at the age of 12 and Dominique Dunne, who played her sister Dana in the first movie, was killed by her boyfriend in 1982 when she was just 22.
Two actors in Poltergeist II: The Other Side died suddenly– Julian Beck of cancer and Will Sampson of kidney failure.
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