Poltergeist
★★★★1/2
Mild spoilers
The 1982 horror classic tells a familiar tale of a suburban America family encountering strange ongoings in their new home. When their daughter mysteriously disappeared one night, they believed it has something to do with the house, and reached out to a parapsychologist to help them recover their missing child.
Poltergeist isn’t a typical haunted house flick. For example, house owners Diane and Steve Freeling were pretty quick in realizing that their house was haunted. The “ghosts” here do not conveniently disappear whenever someone else walks into the room. Even the paranormal investigators were skeptical and at one point considered if the occurrences were rigged. Pretty impressive to see a 40-year-old film subverting genre tropes and letting its characters behave intelligently.
As for the cast, they were great - solid performances all around. I was disappointed to learn that none of them were nominated for Oscars. Mr. Incredible himself, Craig T. Nelson, plays the dad, and it’s amusing how much the Parrs resemble the Freelings. The amazing JoBeth Williams, playing Diane, is the lead of the film. Zelda Rubinstein as medium Tangina Barrons delivered the film’s standout performance, a mesmerizing monologue scene within the film’s third act. Network’s Beatrice Straight played the parapsychologist and she was also good. Carol Anne, the girl in the iconic poster, was played by Heather O’Rourke, whose burgeoning career was sadly cut short by her untimely passing just a few years after the film premiered.*
I almost forgotten to mention the instantly recognizable, Oscar-nominated score by Jerry Goldsmith, a very hummable tune with eerie undertones, and I love how that fits the movie perfectly.
If I had to nitpick on something, it’d be the fact that the movie wasn’t frightening enough. It’s more sci-fi/horror than traditional horror. I can see why some horror fans may find it underwhelming and off-flavor. Nevertheless, Poltergeist remains a surprisingly innovative take on the horror genre that has also inspired many films and TV shows like Stranger Things, and is certainly worth checking out.
Side note: You may have heard of the rumour that producer Steven Spielberg forcefully relinquished directorial reins from Tobe Hooper due to some on-set conflict. Hooper was famous for directing movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Salem’s Lot and Lifeforce, and they couldn’t be more different than Poltergeist, a film that is more E.T. than Eaten Alive (also a Hooper film). You can see why there were such speculations. According to what I’ve read, at the very least Spielberg did have creative influence over the film, and he edited the film, and supervised the special effects and the musical score without Hooper’s involvement. Nothing unusual about directors not getting final cut though. One famous example would be Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, and I think he was locked out of the editing room at one point.
* Apparently, there is this thing called the Poltergeist Curse that purportedly caused the untimely deaths of five actors who were involved in the Poltergeist series of films. I was shocked to find out that the actor who played Carol Anne’s older sister, Dominique Dunne, tragically died in the same year the movie was released. Lou Perryman, who played Pugsley/Bluto in the first film, was murdered in 2009. Three other cast members including O’Rourke died of illnesses within the same decade.