Poltergeist
Poltergeist isn’t a typical haunted house flick.
★★★★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.
An American Werewolf in London
As a werewolf flick, it was an evolutionary leap, providing a visceral, literal view of the werewolf transformation that haven’t been seen in any other film in the genre before.
★★★★1/2
Super-synopsis: Two American backpackers wander into the Yorkshire moors and gets attacked by a werewolf. One of them survives, but becomes a werewolf himself and starts eating unsuspecting Londoners whenever the Blue Moon song plays in the background.
When I was a kid in the 80s, this movie was shown repeatedly on TV, albeit censored. What they didn’t cut though was the werewolf transformation. Of course, it was one of the most incredible movies I’ve ever seen, and stoked my imagination in a way Teen Wolf was never able to. Throughout the decades, for some reason I’ve never revisited the film, until Arrow Video released their beautiful 4K set, so I guess it was time to return to The Slaughtered Lamb.
As a werewolf flick, it was an evolutionary leap, providing a visceral, literal view of the werewolf transformation that haven’t been seen in any other film in the genre before. They also ditched the hybrid man-wolf design and went with a giant hound beast on all fours as the final form, which actually made the werewolf scarier. The movie also added to the mythology with its own original ideas, such as the victims coming back to haunt David but in their mauled and decomposing states, which ensured that the film continues to deliver on the horror in between the werewolf bits and kept the film interesting and engaging throughout. The nightmare sequences were also a nice touch.
I wished there was a little more characterization for the main characters . The trio of David Naughton, Jenny Agutter and Griffin Dunne were charming as hell, but David seemed only mildly troubled by the brutal death of his good friend Jack, and was mostly cheery and goofing around throughout. I guess they needed to sell the romance with Agutter’s Nurse Price, and a troubled and traumatized lead wouldn’t be a very fun person to fall in love with. It also felt that Price was the real protagonist of the film, but she also didn’t get enough screen time to establish her character a little better. For example, the whole subplot of the doctor investigating David and Jack’s attack could have been given to Agutter’s character instead. John Woodvine did a good job playing the doctor, but his character was unnecessary. It felt a little bit like a set up for a Van Helsing or Dr. Loomis-like character for possible future installments, but that never materialized, which made the character even more pointless in hindsight.
Another minor gripe would be the final reveal of the creature. Rick Baker’s work was fantastic, but he was working with a small budget and the technological limitations of that time, so any time the beast is in full reveal, it looks like a puppet with one static expression. I would have kept him in shadows at all times, but again this is just a minor nitpick. Rick Baker is still an incredible talent - my favourite of his work here is Jack’s gnarly face and neck wounds.
Since my last experience with the film was with the truncated TV version, I was surprised to hear the f-bombs and see the sexy, sexy stuff involving Naughton and Agutter, and that scene in the cinema, which only now did I realise was showing a skin flick all along. Luckily I was using my headphones or my neighbours would have thought I was having a very good time that night.
And a good time it was. A solid werewolf flick that has yet to be surpassed even till this day. I enjoyed Benicio del Toro’s The Wolf Man but An American Werewolf in London still edges over it. Highly recommended.
Originally published on my Facebook Page, here.