Poltergeist - 1982
A poltergeist is an entity that causes havoc on a particular person or group of people. Commonly thought to be angry or playful ghosts, they get attention through moving objects or loud noises. Unlike regular ghosts, they can follow people. Ghosts haunt a place. Poltergeists haunt people. There are some studies that suggest that the phenomena is actually unintended telekenesis done by people. I think the former idea is more interesting.
Poltergeist has never truly scared me. I'm a believer of ghosts, and stories and movies about them often prey on my mind. Not this one. This movie is pure fun. It's a bit creepy in places, but in general it's more like Jaws or Jurassic Park. Spielberg wanted to do what is called a "funhouse film". That's a film that sort of simulates an amusement park funhouse. Things pop out at you. There are loud noises to make you jump. Halloween is also a funhouse film. Having Tobe Hooper direct this was a good choice as he'd just done his own funhouse film called aptly The Funhouse. (And I recommend giving that one a watch too.) The man knew how to make people jump, as did Spielberg. It was a good match.
The story is simple. In an upper-middle class subdivision in California there lives a normal everyday family. There's the dad, who works for the subdivision selling houses and played by the coach himself, Craig T. Nelson. The mom, who is a pot smoking housewife played by JoBeth Williams. There's a teenage daughter, a son of about 10 or 11, and the youngest, Carol Ann who is 5. Well, after Carol Ann is caught talking to the static screened TV, strange things start to happen. Ultimately Carol Ann disappears though her voice can still be heard through the TV. Spookier things start to happen as the film goes on.
The movie is a special effects extravaganza, which for the time was odd for a movie about ghosts. Most of the prior films' versions of ghost special effects were balls dropping down steps or disembodied voices. Here we see a friggin' tree try to swallow a kid, a woman being dragged across the wall and ceiling, a closet sucking a bed and children into it, a psychologist tear chunks of his face off, etc. Yes, you read that last one right, and it's one of the most famous scenes in the film. I like to think that it helped lead to the PG-13 rating, because it's pretty darn gruesome for a PG film even if the special effects are woefully dated now. (It's still gross, as is the meat crawling with maggots before it.)
I like to think that the film takes place just a few miles from where E.T. is taking place at the same time. Both the neighborhoods look the same anyway. Unlike most haunted house films, this one takes place in a newer suburban home, making the audience feel less at ease. The TV and closets being conduits for the spirit world also no doubt made people uncomfortable, having many of those in their houses. Being able to relate to things going on in a scare film is key to producing frights. And I love the fact that the son, the middle child, is apparently a film geek, as he has a poster for Alien, lots of Star Wars stuff, and the like in his room. In fact, he's a fraidy cat just as I was as a kid. I definitely relate to him. And he's very afraid of his clown doll, because who wouldn't be?! Especially after what it does to him late in the film.
The acting from young Heather O'Rourke, who plays young Carol Anne, is amazing for someone so young. No wonder they kept her for the next to films. (Both of which I do like, though they do steadily decline in quality.) The son (who can be seen in Airplane II as well from the same year) is also a pretty good actor, though not of the same quality. Of course the grown ups play aging yuppies pretty well too. Hiding their pot smoking from their kids, spoiling them horribly, and annoying their neighbor. I must mention the other actor in the film. The music, which is fantastic. It's done by Jerry Goldsmith and was nominated for an Academy Award (the film was nominated for 3, winning none.). The main theme is one of the most famous out there, and I'm surprised no band uses it for when the house lights come up at the end of a concert... Anyway...
Poltergeist is a film with a complex history to it. It's now considered a semi-classic, and was a pretty big hit when it came out in the summer of 1982. It came out only one week before the biggest hit of the year, Steven Spielberg's E.T. The Extraterrestrial. Whereas that one was directed by Spielberg, this film, officially anyway, was only produced by Spielberg. Poltergeist was directed by horror movie auteur Tobe Hooper, who had previously done The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Eaten Alive (which had a troubled production history and was his only flop at the time), the very effective TV movie Salem's Lot, and The Funhouse. Spielberg had great respect for the director and chose him to do the film as he was working on E.T. at the time. However, stories started to circulate very soon after the film came out that Spielberg was the real director of the picture. Spielberg denies this, as do some of the cast and crew. However, other members of the cast, including Zelda Rubenstein, have stated that all Tobe Hooper did was set up the shots. She went on to say that she thought he was on drugs. This could be true, as the reason Spielberg didn't direct the film was due to a clause in his contract saying he couldn't work on another film until E.T. came out. Hiring Tobe Hooper could just have been a way around that. And the film has the Spielberg feel to it as well, but not much of a Tobe Hooper one. The way I think it went was that Tobe Hooper basically did all the technical work, but Spielberg did all the creative work. And the movie turned out perfectly as a result.
Another story about the movie is its supposed curse, which I think is just coincidence. The girl that played Carol Ann in the movie and its two sequels ended up dying before the third film was was released, due to bowel obstruction that went misdiagnosed. The man who played Kane in the second film died before that film was released as well. Will Sampson, who played the medicine man in the second film, died shortly after that film was released. And most famously Dominique Dunne, the older daughter in the first film, was killed by her ex-boyfriend a few months after that film was released. The curse is stupid. I actually like to think about curses and such because it makes life more interesting, but this one is bunk.
Poltergeist. It knows what scares you!
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