Poltergeist (1982)

...also, the amount of young actors that carked-it after this series, I found worrying.

Tobe Hooper, my arse!
...and was the dog REALLY called, E-Buzz? (or is my mind playing tricks?)...cause that's SERIOUS foreshadowing right there.

I wandered into this just by having nothing to do, having never heard of it and saw Spielberg was attached.

The sequels can just fuck OFF, though.

This film terrified me as a child, and will continue to do so until I pop up in someone's pool as a heap of bones. And I never tried any hallucinogen because I was afraid it would end up like the bathroom scene, with me ripping my face off. Poltergeist is the quintessential love it/hate it film for me.

In a pretty recent interview, Zelda Rubenstein more or less said that Hooper was incapable of directing the movie and Spielberg stepped in as a result. Of course, she also made it very, very clear that she disliked Hooper immensely.

I'm still baffled how that scene didn't guarandamntee this film getting an R-rating. It's still one of the most disturbing things I've EVER watched in a horror flick.

To their credit, the sequels had Kane. As shitty as the rest of the sequels were, that guy's mere presence is enough to make me lose a few hours sleep. Knowing what I know about his scene at the screen door in II ("You're all gonna die!", from a guy about to die in a few weeks from cancer), he alone bumps that film up to at least a 5 out of 10

Loved it as a kid, but it's aged horribly. The very definition of a great audience experience overshadowing a flawed movie.

That whole middle section with Beatrice Straight's long speech about afterlife, followed quickly by Rubenstein's long speech about afterlife brings the film to a complete stop. I do love the crazy-ass ending of toaster-popping corpses, though.

Great Jerry Goldsmith score, too.

Don't think it's aged horribly at all. We're just not as innocent. A great flick to discover on the sneak (via late night cable). <Works best as the horror flip-side to those kids eye Spielberg fantasies of the 80's> Also, a good companion piece to CREEPSHOW.

This is one of the best directed horror flick of the era. So kudos to Hooper (And Spielberg)

Not trying to argue with ya, Ratty--but I don't think the middle section stops the picture. If anything, gives it more depth.

Carol Anne's Theme is one of those pieces of music that's never going to get the respect it deserves. It's the lifeblood of this film.

Love the sense of wonder with the "moving chairs" scene. Plays on our fascination with the paranormal and feeling that since this is in Spielberg's world, we/they are safe.
Then he pulls the rug out from under us!

That's a little harsh. Is it a product of its times? Absolutely, but it hasn't "aged horribly". I actually think its place as a product of the 80s is quite endearing and, moreover, important to the story being told. We have a classic nuclear family well esconced in Reagan's Morning In America who are presented with something that simply does not fit with the neat and ordered 1980s suburbia and lifestyle in which they live. More than that, we have a story that is, at least in part, about children of the 60s and the idealogical conflict that middle-age and economic comfort has created ("Now reach back into our past when you used to have an open mind. Remember that?").

I do have fond memories of this film but something has bothered me over the years:


"This house is clean" my ass. Seriously, what the fuck? You think Tangina could have warned them about, I don't know, it returning wanting to kill them?

"This house is clean....oh but there's like a 90% chance it'll come back to rape your souls. No big though, right? When do I get paid?"

It's aged amazingly well. The entire first act is one of the strongest, most entertaining, most well done first acts in any horror movie (though, now that I think about it, horror first acts are usually pretty weak), right up until that weird jump cut from the Carol-Ann with a football helmet scene to the Mosquitos-biting bit. The rest of the movie can't sustain this near-perfection, but it's still very very good. Definitely one of my favorite horror movies of all time.

One thing that always irked me was Zelda Rubenstein's character saying "This house is clean", and then the closet door turns into that Cronenbergian transdimensional vagina. She was this all-knowing, all-wise, super-powered hearing dwarf. What happened? She just slipped up? I think a giant ectoplasmic transdimensional snatch is a pretty major thing to overlook. Some magical dwarf she turned out to be.

Another thing I never realised until after I saw it at the theatrical limited re-release: This movie is fucking hysterical. First act especially, but all through-out it's got a great sense of humor without ever undercutting the danger. "You're right, you go." is probably my favorite line in the movie. That or "Leave her, leave her, go go!"

My favorite gag comes when Craig T. Nelson leads the paranormal investigators up to the kids' room. The one is bragging about how he filmed a Matchbox car roll itself across the floor at a speed so slow as to be undetectable to the naked eye. Nelson, who's busy opening the deadlocks he's installed on the bedroom door, gives the investigators this little "uh huh" look and throws open the door to reveal absolute mayhem inside. That little look is hilarious.

Plus the parent's "drug" use. Answer is simple. The Beard's got stroke, even in 1982.

I love the entirely visual subplot that the older daughter is pregnant.

Woah woah woah. I never caught this.

Watch her. She's constantly eating. It's her bed that has the potato chips in it that the dog eats out of at the beginning, and she's got her head in the fridge in almost every early scene she's in.

Also, she seemed kind of slutty.

I always thought it was odd that she sort of disappears for, roughly, the middle 3/4 of the movie. It makes you wonder what the point was of including the character in the first place. Were her scenes cut? I find it hard to believe she'd be included simply to flick off ole' Bluto and scream "What's happening?" at the climax of the film.

That was probably the least of Dunne's worries at the time.

This.
Absolutely.

Not much to add, but this is a great gateway flick for younger people getting into the horror genre.

Has anyone ever given a good explanation for that jump cut? It's just so jarring.

Ah, yes, John Thomas Sweeney. One of my hometown's lesser exports.

Revisited this recently. As many times as I watched this when I was younger it never dawned on me how odd the scene is where Jo Beth Williams watches the guys digging the pool harass her teenage daughter and she acts like it's just the funniest thing and has been the normal routine every time her daughter leaves for school. Hey, Diane, those sleazy guys your husband probably hired on the cheap are making lewd and sexually suggestive comments to your very underage daughter. It isn't something to giggle about and then go back to your housecleaning just because she flipped them off. Especially when one of those guys is Sonny Landham. Oh, those lovable, wacky pool workers.


I have to agree that this hasn't aged poorly at all. I think my only complaint is that the opening with the RC cars, the spraying beer cans, and the guys trying to watch the football game resulting in the remote control battle is a little too over the top comedic. Just a little. And speaking of the pool guys, I've always liked the shot of the canary's cigar box being unearthed. Nice bit of foreshadowing of the actual cause of the problems plaguing the Freelings. Honestly, that pool was just a bad idea all around. I like to think the pool was the last straw.

edit- Oh, and this is just the best/freakiest ghost ever...

Thank you for my new signature.

I agree that the film has some flaws but overall, it's still a terrifying and creepy film that you should see at least once, no matter who actually ended up directing it. The sequels... except for Kane and his presence, they don't even come close to the first.

I also saw it on the big screen last fall when Fathom Entertainment had it in theatres for one night. It was pretty rad seeing it that way, although I did have to cover my eyes for the face-ripping scene.

Speaking of that, apparently the movie WAS originally rated R, but they appealed and it was changed to PG (PG-13 wasn't around back then). Yep, they caved in to The Beard's pressure.

That always reminded me of the Gawky Birds on the Muppet Show.

Probably the greatest film depiction of clown-fear, too. Jesus Christ, that fucking doll. I wasn't much older than that kid, either, when I saw this in the theaters (thanks, Pop!). That fucking clown doll. Goddamn it to the hell that spawned it. Fucking clown doll. Fuck.

I think Diane was giggling at how well Dana handled the situation. And I don't think we're supposed to look at the construction crew as threatening -- there's the one scene where the one worker is sneaking coffee through the window and Diane knows his name and everything, so they probably know them well enough for them not to take their reaction to Dana seriously.

As for "This house is clean," I always took that to mean that it was just a temporary respite, that the poltergeists had retreated to marshall their forces for a bigger strike. So the house was clean. Just not safe. But Zelda couldn't sense that.

Forget the face ripping, forget the clown. Most disturbing thing in Poltergeist? Good ole' Bluto leaning through the window and eating tomato sauce out of the simmering pot! My God, how sanitary is that action?
I've always been more confused by her sudden flip-flopping on the whole "Don't go towards the light!"/"Run towards the light!" position. Seriously, was there any reasonable explanation for that?

Multiple personality disorder? Trial & error? It was an election year?

I remember watching this as a little kid for a birthday sleepover (I think I was turning 10 - ah 1986...). My mom lost her shit with the clown scene. Never knew she had an issue with clowns before that point. And then there were my friends and I. After watching the film we tried to sleep in my room, which had a HUGE tree right outside the window that scratched against the window all night.

So, there was very little sleep occurring in the Tieman household that night.

Carol Ann shouldn't go towards the light, but the spirits in the house should.

Yeah, I got to admit that scene really delivers, esp. in a crowded theater. Easily the scariest moment of the entire movie.

That's a dick move. I hope Craig T tracked her down afterwards and gave her a karate chop.

Seriously, if you called the plumber over to fix your sink, he fixes it assuring you everything is fine and then three days later it starts fucking up again? You're going to be pissed at Greg the Plumber. And he's probably not a midget(dwarf?) either.

If anyone wants to know where the word "poltergeist" comes from. Mystery solved.

EDIT: And Mr. Teague (James Karen) is known in my household as "Pathmark Guy", regardless of the movie he's in.

I was always under the impression that she got temporarily possessed by the "evil spirits" to give bad advice to go into the light. Retroactively, it even seems a little like she's channeling Kane: "All welcome, children! All welcome! There is peace and serenity in the light."

No, she's trying to clean the house. She's trying to get the spirits that, for whatever reason, have not yet passed on to move along into the light so they'll stop haunting the house. It's not meant for Carol Ann.

It's mom that says it.

Three ribbons, handkerchiefs, numbered tennis balls, thick rope, and bath water are prepared. Carol Anne is summoned by her mother's voice and then by her father's authoritative, angry demeanor. Against her own instincts, Diane commands her daughter to "run to the light, Carol Anne. Run as fast as you can...Mommy is in the light...Mommy is waiting for you in the light." The door to the bedroom is opened - blinding blue strobe-lights flash from within the closet. Tangina instructs Ryan to "go downstairs and wait by the target" and Steven to "give me the tennis ball marked number one." She discovers a passageway between the closet through the living room ceiling when she tosses the ball into the closet and it returns by way of the living room.

Taylor > Tangina

Say what you want about the sequel but at least Taylor had good shit.

Part of Tangina's plan is to use Carol Anne to get the spirits to follow her towards the light. Steven gets confused when Tangina begins telling the spirits "All are welcome. There is peace and serenity in the light" because he thinks it is meant for Diane and Carol Anne. It isn't.

Great points. It's a rare trick to pull off funny without short-changing the fear. POLTERGEIST does it better than just about any of it's contemporaries, excepting THE SHINING & the original NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.

<Love the final shot of the family booting the tv from the hotel room-LOLZ everytime>

Exactly. First she tells Diane to have Carol Ann move towards the light -- but not into it -- so that the spirits will follow her over towards it. Then she tries to beckon the spirits to go in -- "There is peace and serenity in the light," i.e. "Stop beating around the bush, it's nice over there, get going." It's never meant for Carol Ann to go through because she's not dead.

Spielberg needs to write more. I own his first draft of this flick and it barely differs AT ALL, from what was released.

I was never inclined to believe the "Hooper never directed it" stories because he mentioned how once the film was finished he and Spielberg pitched the idea to the studio for their sequel. I just always figured that if he had that bad a time he would never come back.

It wasn't that he had a bad time, it's that he wasn't there (mentally) half the time, and Spielberg had to step in to keep the film on schedule. I think it's one of the reasons why they shot it in the same neighborhood as E.T.

If Speilberg would not have been satisfied with Hooper's directing talent I doubt he would of ask him to direct is Taken pilot

Well Tobe Hooper was doing considerably less cocaine when Taken came around.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a Great film (capital G), and it's Great first and foremost because of it's direction. He's been coasting on that film his whole career (though, to be fair, it's not like he's a world-renowned film director, just a director of a world-renowned film) but it's a hell of a film to coast on.