Uncle Bingo wrote:
So what do you think? Is Poltergeist under-appreciated? Is it worthy of "classic" status?
I think it is regarded as a classic, and accordingly, no one watches it.

I find it an oddly toned mess, that gets surprisingly boring in places. Poltergeist never really seems to figure out what it wants to be, and careens from comedy to horror in fits and starts, without any of the flow that Gremlins or The Host manage by virtue of a slightly off-kilter attitude. Poltergeist is too staid.

The TV scenes, the clown, and the face-tearing are really effective. But that's about it. Basically, everything Poltergeist did well, scare-wise, was trumped about 100-fold by Ring/Ringu.