And at least Gary Sherman has a lot more interesting directorial style than Brian Gibson demonstrated in the first sequel. A lot of the film is schlocky and silly but there are a few brief moments where Sherman fleetingly eschews the whole gamut of effects trickery that drove the previous films in favour of a series of subtle, eerie manifestations centred around mirrors. In fact Poltergeist III is sort of like a down-market episode of tv’s Sapphire and Steel (1979-82) and its constant unsettling temporal perturbations – characters do one thing and their reflection another; Nancy Allen has a conversation with Heather O’Rourke in the mirror moments before O’Rourke enters the room; Kane’s reflection watches from inside the reflection of an open doorway in the mirror; as O’Rourke walks down a hallway a line of doorways open in mirror reflection but not in physicality. And there’s an especially nifty scene with two characters who return from the beyond turn and walk down a hallway where the lettering on the backs of their jackets is seen to be in reverse, spelled the correct way in the mirrors. Unfortunately it’s a downhill trail in the latter half as the plot dissolves into a barrage of shock effects that only get increasingly sillier – freezers full of food come to life, attack by frozen cars in a parking lot, and at one point having Zelda Rubinstein ‘give birth’ to Lara Flynn Boyle. If the last twenty minutes had been cut and the film stayed with the mirror imagery Poltergeist III might have actually been a decent film.

One plus is the good cast – Heather O’Rourke, who died of an intestinal blockage just before the film’s release and to whom it is dedicated, has grown up an accomplished, intelligent actress since her rather flat performance in the first film. Zelda Rubinstein is the only other returnee from the other films. Rubinstein was absolutely excellent in the first film, but ended up being disappointingly wimped out in the second. She has been restored to some of her former glory here, although the mysticism has only gotten nuttier and not even she manages to force any patent belief in it. Tom Skerritt, one of the most modest and underrated actors around, brings an enormously warm and likable screen presence. Lara Flynn Boyle, later of tv’s Twin Peaks (1990-1) and The Practice (1997-2004) plays the teenage daughter in her screen debut. Richard Fire’s psychologist character suffers from the way it is written, with the script’s insistence of some of the most absurd rationalizing – there being one laughable scene where he insists that a spontaneous display of psychokinesis in a room of observers is all down to mass hypnotism.