With only Heather O’Rourke and Zelda Rubinstein the only returning cast members from the previous installments, that should be a bit of an indicator of how far the series has already fallen. On the flip side, the series has added Tom Skerritt and Nancy Allen, as well as Lara Flynn Boyle in her feature film debut.

It also has a lot of really solid practical and physical effects, a lot of them using reflections and mirrors.

But the story. The story is so bad.

Carol Anne (O’Rourke) has been shipped off to her Aunt Pat’s (Allen), who is newly married to Bruce (Skerritt), who comes to the family with a daughter of his own, Donna (Boyle). Things start to go sideways pretty quick in the towering building the family lives in. Gardner runs the building, which includes residences, business offices, and even a galleria, and art gallery, which Pat runs.

There are issues with the heating, there are strange cracks appearing in mirrors, Donna wants to go to a party, Bruce and Pat have a showing to attend, and Kane (now played by Nathan Davis, Julian Beck passed) is back for Carol Anne.

Honestly, they should have gone with a different story, perhaps even a different family altogether with perhaps only Tangina (Rubinstein) being the connective tissue. This one is poorly paced and scripted, but like I said, the practical effects are quite solid.

And Davis as Kane is nowhere near as frightening as Beck was in the role, which again means they probably should have changed the film’s supernatural problems.

The film seems plagued from the start, but I will totally give Sherman credit for making the best of a bad situation by really making the effects work for him. Just thinking about the production and logistics of how some of them were done, all the reflections and false mirrors, you have to give credit where credit’s due.

But damn, I wish they had given us a stronger story. I love the fact that we get Skerritt and Allen, both of them are very attractive, and they get to spend most of the film in evening wear. I just wanted more from this entry. And the less said about the psychologist the better. Ugh.

Having said that, I’m not a huge fan of the second film either, though Beck’s Kane was totally terrifying when I first saw the film. The first one, is a classic, and remains a classic, no matter what came after it.

These could have been really smart, scary stories filled with practical effects, but instead the series fizzled out with this one. And then there’s the reboot. Do I dare?