MOVIE OF THE DAY: POLTERGEIST

Excellent write up, Sebastian. I DVRed this film and plan to watch it tonight or tomorrow. The film has my favorite (and most disconcerting) use of the camera trick where the foreground rushes toward the camera while the background speeds away (can't remember the technical name for that kind of shot). It's when the mom looks down the hallway to go the kids room, and the hallway just stretches back...

Great article. I just saw it again recently, yeah, this a Spielberg film in all but name. His visual flourish is everywhere. I also don't see Hooper being adept at developing those quirky family moments, like the remote control dual, the helmet/floor scene or the TV set at the end. 

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Originally Posted by MichaelM 

Excellent write up, Sebastian. I DVRed this film and plan to watch it tonight or tomorrow. The film has my favorite (and most disconcerting) use of the camera trick where the foreground rushes toward the camera while the background speeds away (can't remember the technical name for that kind of shot). It's when the mom looks down the hallway to go the kids room, and the hallway just stretches back...

Yeah, that's at the end. I take the plot point of them staying in the house to task, but that entire last poltergeist attack is gold. It's one of the rare instances when the climax outdoes all of the great stuff that came before. Plus JoBeth Williams is at her MILFY best wearing that football jersey and panties. I think every boy of a certain age had weird wrong feelings during the bed molestation scene.
 

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Originally Posted by Sebastian OB 

 

Yeah, that's at the end. I take the plot point of them staying in the house to task, but that entire last poltergeist attack is gold. It's one of the rare instances when the climax outdoes all of the great stuff that came before. Plus JoBeth Williams is at her MILFY best wearing that football jersey and panties. I think every boy of a certain age had weird wrong feelings during the bed molestation scene. 

 

The devil's head which comes roaring out of the closet, and the spindly skeleton thing (which was filmed in a water tank!) are both gold, as you say. And completely agreed about JBW. Those panties....completely riveted my 15 yo self when watching it on cable. Again, and again, and again.

Pointless personal trivia: I still do Craig's "before/after" schtick every once in a while in front of  the mirror.

I've always wished for a Poltergeist Special Edition DVD or even a great Making Of Documentary but we will never get one because of the controversy over director. I guess we will eventually when Hooper passes on kind of like when George Cosmatos died Kurt Russell finally came forward as the real director of Tombstone http://web.archive.org/web/20070122213246/http://www.truewestmagazine.com/archives/westerns/2006/western-russell_godfather_10_06.htm.