Daily News from New York, New York • 100

20 DAILY NEWS Friday. May 23. 1986 sss arani hue I vs; iM Il.lllt IjlJMHI I'll it) DS8 SMI By KATHLEEN CARROLL Daily News Movie Critic Vi t. "-l i5 il POLTERGEIST II: THE OTHER SIDE. Craig T.

Nelson, JoBeth Williams. Directed by Brian Gibson. Area theaters. Runnlm time: I hour, 31 minutes. Rated PG-ll.

ST HAS BEEN FOUR YEARS since the Freeling family had that nasty encounter with those furniture-moving "TV people" in "Poltergeist." And, despite the fact that they're now living with Diane Free-ling's mother in a perfectly peaceful house, they're still running a bit scared. Steve Freeling (Craig T. Nelson), who says he's now "into downward mobility," insists he's happy selling vacuums. But he has yet to overcome his aversion to television. we have a TV set like everybody else?" Robbie asks his father.

In response, his dad points out the advantages of listening to the radio.) In the meantime, pint-sized psychic Tangina Barrons (Zelda Rubinstein), who created such a stir in the original Steven Spielberg-inspired movie, has remained behind in the now utterly deserted suburban hellhole of Cresta Verde. Undeterred by past events, she continues to dig for skeletal remains in the cavernous hole where the Freeling's house once stood. But some of the spirits have moved on, and back at Grandma's house little Carol Anne Freeling who attracts all the wrong ghosts reaches for her ringing toy telephone and speaks softly to her mysterious t. 4 J- M. 7 5fe 6 4 rt1 I rf I .,1 T-t -II IM llMiMii.Miiffftiii 'POLTERGEIST II: THE OTHER SIDE': Will Sampson (r.) comforts Heather Rourke Domt cal me Mom! By TERRI M1NSKY caller.

"They're back," she wistfully informs her mother. Are they ever and one of them actually has the nerve to pay a call in broad daylight It rains the minute the cadaverous-looking Kane darkens the Freeling's doorstep and, as played by the late Julian Beck (with his sunken cheekbones, menacing grin and Bible Belt accent), he is a thoroughly unnerving specter of evil. Still, this sequel pales when compared to the original. It gets off to a peppy, amusing start as the marvelous cast prepares to deal with unwelcome nocturnal visitors. But after a series of standard horror episodes including an advisory appearance by an American Indian (Will Sampson plays this towering figure of serenity) the movie ends with a wimper.

The special effects "beast" is icky instead of horrifying and the plain truth is that director Brian Gibson fails to deliver the goods. His movie just doesn't stand a ghost of a chance without Spielberg's technical wizardry and professional polish. Daily News Staff Writer IN REAL LIFE, JoBeth Williams is not a mother, though she would like to be. In the movies, JoBeth Williams is always a mother, and she is sick of it The first time she ever played a mother was four years ago, in "Poltergeist" Since then, she has been a philandering mother in "The Big Chill," a tortured mother in the TV movie "Adam," a ditsy mother in the current "Desert Bloom," and now she reprises her role as a haunted mother in "Poltergeist II: The Other Side," opening today. "I'm not doing any more All-American mom roles," says Williams, as she unfolds the leg she had just folded beneath her on the couch of her St Regis Hotel suite.

Well, maybe one more she's reprising her part in a sequel to "Adam," which begins filming next month. But that's it, she says, "even if it means I don't work for a while." Actually, she's not even all that fond of the idea of sequels, and rolls her eyes when relating that producer Freddie Fields already plans to do "Poltergeist III." She was the only member of the original cast of "Poltergeist" who didn't want to do the sequel, but the two screenwriters and producer Fields kept lying up to visit her on the Nevada set of "Desert Bloom" with revised versions of a script. "I love being wooed," she says. Finally she agreed when she won the right to have input into how her character, Diane Freeling, was written. ft HARRY HAMBURQDAJLY NEWS 'dirtjjj- husband Craig T.

Nelson are trying to make breakfast, but the toaster keeps flying about the kitchen. Nelson, determined not to let the forces of evil outwit him, finally slam-dunks the bread into the toaster, but the ghosts then turn the appliance upside down and dump the toast on his head. She didn't have that right in the first movie, which was okay except for one niggling detail she ended up playing a 31-year-old mother with a 16-year-old daughter. "I thought, 'Who am Loretta Lynn?" says 'We both burst out laughing, but my laughter turns cry --ov. vu.i Williams.

"But the role was originally written for an older actress in fact they wanted Shirley MacLaine. to crying, and I say-rher voice automatically dips into 'character as ifie reciteie lost iines-J 'I'm tired, 'I'm i i 'A See MOMWfY hext p'age who turned" it down." sheMsr disappointed' that" her" favorite scene in" JPoltergeist was cut', where she' and' Screen Crai T. Nelson.