With the exception of the third one, Poltergeist has remained one of my favorite horror movie series just for the directions it took and the doors it opened. It didn't rely on shock and gore to quell it's audience, or a bunch of thrown together cliches. While I know it is impossible to re-capture the magic that Poltergeist and Poltergeist II have, it's something I wouldn't even dream of trying. There is no such thing as re-capturing something. The only thing you can do is repeat it in your own way by your own means. It's what led me to sit down and put together my pitch for a fourth film in the series entitled Poltergeist 4: The Fury. 

Robbie and his crew have finished two weeks ahead of schedule and as a result, all of the heads have prior holiday obligations that will now have to be broken. Not wanting to inconvenience them, Robbie tells them he will stay in the hotel until they can come up and take a look at it. Pleasantly surprised with the show of kindness and sacrifice, the heads ask him if he has any family and says that he can invite them up and that they are allowed to stay at the hotel and that Christmas dinner and all other necessities will be handled by them free of charge. 

Robbie sends his crew home for the holidays and sends for his girlfriend and family. Girlfriend Sara James arrives. Robbie’s parents, Diane Freeling and Steven Freeling come up. Robbie’s oldest sister, Dana Freeling, also comes up, along with younger cousins Joel and Amy, whom are the children of relatives in Chicago who were unable to make the trip. Youngest and final sister Carol-Anne Freeling, her husband Roland Anderson, and their young son Benjamin finish out the arrivals. With this being the first time all of them have been together in this capacity, the group settles in for a nice family holiday. 

Unbeknownst to them, the grounds the hotel sits on has a deep, dark secret. In the early 1800’s a horrible battle between good and evil took place upon them. The good were a tribe of Indians that lived off the land there. The bad arrived in the form of a man traveling with his congregation. They were on their way further west with the notion of forming a utopian society, and chose a spot not too far away from the tribe to set up temporary camp. 

Shortly after the man and his congregation arrived, the Indians began speaking of strange occurrences and what could only be described as “miracles” that they saw while spying. They believed the man, a reverend named Henry Kane, could very well be the ‘white man’ version of their native people’s shaman.

 It began with little occurrences that escalated into an unforeseen change. At first the Chief and Shaman strongly disagreed with Reverend Kane and his people being there, and the Chief was making plans to have them removed peacefully, and or forcibly. After going to the Reverend’s campsite and informing him of his wishes, he and the men who’d gone with him returned to their village with their minds seemingly changed. They were allowing Reverend Kane and his people to stay. Not only that, but the Chief insisted that the tribe ally with them and teach them the ways of the wild in order for them to survive. 

The next occurrence happened when the Shaman felt as if something was forcing itself in where it didn’t belong, and that whatever it was it was weakening his connection with the spirits. On the other hand, the abilities of Reverend Kane (who was a medium) seemed to grow stronger. He predicted little things, such as unexpected weather changes, to big things, such as animal and enemy tribe attacks, that profited the tribe greatly. 

The Reverend informed the Chief that the Shaman was loosing his abilities as a punishment from the spirits, because he was becoming corrupted by his quest for power. That was why he didn’t want Kane around, because he knew Kane could see that the Shaman wanted to bend the tribe to his will and have them follow him instead of the Chief. This revelation causes the Chief to oust the Shaman from the village and he is warned never to return. The tribe and the Chief then turn to Reverend Kane as the tribe’s shaman. 

Seeing that he has pulled this tribe into his powerful grasp, Reverend Kane begins to use this power to his advantage, stating that if certain things weren’t done the spirits would be displeased and would commit acts ranging from an uneventful harvesting season all the way up to ending the world. Needless to say, the tribe do as they are told.

The Shaman is helpless as he watches the tribe fall under Reverend Kane’s influence, as he knows now it was this strange man who is somehow locking out his abilities. Able to make sporadic and undetected contact with his son, who also has the same gift as his father, he come to find that his son can also see and feel the invading presence. Willing to risk his welfare for the return of his father to the village and to the post of Shaman, the boy goes to the Chief and confronts the man one against one.

Details of what exactly happened between the two of them is unknown, but it is believed that the boy's innocence and purity were able to cleanse away the evil and impurities that had taken over the Chief’s soul. What is known is that the return to normalcy led to a battle of epic proportions that left many of the tribe’s people wounded or dying. 

Reverend Kane decides its time for him and his followers to move on, citing that the Indians had become possessed by demons and that God had worked through him yet again in order to smite down the enemy.  He also reveals that this is the sign that the end of the world os coming and that God has been leading them, through him, to safe haven since their travels began. 

The place Reverend Kane would lead his followers to would be the last place they would ever visit. They sealed themselves in an underground cavern, all of them crying, praying, and hopeful that they would be taken to heaven. The end of the world came….and went. Nobody was allowed to leave the tomb, as the good Reverend announced that it was not safe to leave and that God was cleansing the Earth to make way for the new kingdom, and that God would inform him when it was time. That time never came. Reverend Henry Kane and his followers died in that cavern.

It wouldn’t be until quite some time later that the area would be purchased and used for a graveyard up until 1976, when the landowner found himself in a big financial pinch that threatened to have his property taken from him. It was then that Cuesta Verde Real Estate came to the rescue offering to not only buy the land, but to move the graves over to Broxton Memorial Park, which was just five minutes away. With the land secured the Cuesta Verde Real Estate began building homes that would become the first phase of the Cuesta Verde Estates. The cavern still went undisturbed, and despite moving the cemetery headstones to Broxton Memorial Park, the Cuesta Verde Real Estate did not move the bodies.

Steven Freeling was employed shortly after construction began, and having already had a good sales record for Cuesta Verde Real Estate with their previous project, The Coves, he was selected to move himself and his family into the first home built, and it would be customized to his and his family’s liking. Steven moved in with Diane, Dana, and Robbie shortly after construction was complete. In 1979 they welcomed the final edition to their family when their daughter, Carol-Anne was born.

When Carol-Anne was five, herself and her family experienced a disturbance unlike any other. It began startlingly enough when the house was struck by a mild earthquake. The family woke with a start and found Carol-Anne already awake watching them. “They’re here” she told her family moments later. 

“They” were the “TV People”, as Carol-Anne had named them, and they seemed almost whimsical at first. Stacking the chairs in impossible formations on the kitchen table, and ultimately sliding them across the kitchen floor from point A to point B. Invisible and unseen, it was a side of nature Diane said they were not equipped to understand, but it was fascinating nonetheless.

A short while after, things went from whimsical to dark. The impossible happened when a large tree nearby the children’s bedroom came to life and attempted to eat Robbie, sending Steven, Diane, and Dana to his rescue. They didn’t know that it was all a lure to get them away from Carol-Anne, while the unseen forces stole her into their spectral world. 

The kidnapping plunged the Freeling family into a struggle that pitted them face to face with unimaginable horrors in order to win her back. It was through the efforts of Tangina Barrons, a woman gifted with extraordinary clairvoyant abilities that they were able to find a way to get Carol-Anne back from the entity Tangina had named as “The Beast.” 

But The Beast did not let go willingly, and after it seemingly went into remission, it returned full force the next evening and attempted to recapture Carol-Anne. It did not succeed. Carol-Anne and her family narrowly escaped, as bystanders watched as the possessed Freeling house imploded upon itself and fade away into nothing.

Two years would pass, and the Freeling family would be living in a different place when The Beast stuck again. This time it came in its true form, which was that of Reverend Henry Kane. 

Even in death Kane’s followers still followed him, and he had previously moved to take Carol-Anne because in their spectral world her life force emitted a light much like the light that had come beckoning for them. Kane used Carol-Anne to restrain them, to convince them that salvation lied with him, because he too had the light, and that the other light they’d seen was false. This time, though, he wanted her because he and his followers had tasted her vibrant life force and had become attached to it. Kane believed Carol-Anne belonged to him. 

The sinister Reverend would’ve been successful yet again in his attempt to capture Carol-Anne had it not been for the intervening of Taylor, a strong Indian man who’d been sent to check on the family by Tangina after herself and some colleagues accidentally uncovered the cavern that housed Kane and his followers long dead bodies. The Freeling’s former home had been built right over it. 

Taylor was aware of whom and what he was up against. His great ancestors belonged to the tribe Reverend Kane had manipulated and then nearly destroyed back in the 1800’s, and the tale of his sinister deeds had been passed down through the generations. It was through his knowledge and efforts that Carol-Anne’s safety was insured, and that the family was led to their ultimate confrontation with Kane on his own turf in the spectral world known as “the other side”.

Unsure if Reverend Kane had fully been stopped, Tangina and Taylor suggested Carol-Anne be sent to live with relatives in Chicago for a few years in order to start a new life, and in a sense, hide her.  In 1988, that attempt was proven to have failed when Carol-Anne was made to relive the forgotten, horrifying moments when she was five via hypnosis at the hands of her therapist, Dr. Seaton. 

Clairvoyance ran on Carol-Anne’s mother’s side of the family. Diane had the gift, her mother, Jess, had the gift, and Carol-Anne had come to learn that she too had the gift. It was because of this gift that during the hypnosis sessions it made her stand out like a beacon to Reverend Kane, who had been completely lost in his search for her.

Carol-Anne, now living with her Aunt Pat, Uncle Bruce, and Cousin Donna in their Chicago apartment, was forced to endure the nightmare yet again as Reverend Kane and his followers took over the entire skyscraper the apartment was part of. Tangina stepped in yet again to help Pat and Bruce get their niece and daughter back, but it would be for the last time. Kane killed Tangina, but she returned in spirit to try and persuade Kane to go into the light that beckoned for him and his followers. It was assumed that Kane finally accepted his fate and went into the light, after returning all those he had kidnapped into the spectral world.

Now all these years later, it has been revealed that Reverend Kane did not go into the light. Tangina’s clairvoyant abilities caused her to radiate the same type of radiant life force as Carol-Anne had years ago, and thus he used her in the exact same manner as he had used Carol-Anne. Tangina, however, only provided a temporary solution for him and his followers. Her life force soon expired and passed onto the light beyond.

Carol-Anne’s son, Benjamin follows in the same footsteps as his mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. He too has the gift of clairvoyance. And with its introduction to a place that was just as vital to Reverend Kane and his followers as their former tomb, they are once again drawn forth. 

Unlike his previous attempts, Kane’s intentions are no longer the same. His followers have begun to stray from him, thinking him not the savior and spiritualist he made himself out to be. Kane has promised his followers the ultimate prize. Resurrection. By drawing on Benjamin’s clairvoyant abilities, which are already powerful for one so young, and are amplified on top of that by his innocence, Kane seeks to lead himself and his followers out from the other side and back to the world of the living. 

The Freeling family as well as girlfriends, husbands, and cousins now find themselves in a brand new and terrifying struggle against the otherworldly forces. It begins as it always does. Small, strange happenings here and there. Catching sight of something moving out of the corner of the eye, or seeing it move all its own. The children playing with “imaginary friends”. Then things become dire as a powerful storm hits the hotel and everyone is mysteriously separated. It becomes a race against time for them all to unite and escape before Kane and his followers no longer need Benjamin and are fully resurrected.