Cinema Styles: They’re still heeeere in Poltergeist
Film: Poltergeist (1982)
Director: Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre)
Cast: Craig T. Nelson, Jobeth Williams, Heather O’rourke, Zelda Rubinstein
How to Watch: HBO Max
Runtime: 114 Minutes Genre: Horror, Thriller
Rating: PG Awards: Academy Award Nominations for Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Effects, and Best Original Score
Note: This review is part of our legacy series. Poltergeist celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.
Written and produced by Steven Spielberg, and directed by Tobe Hooper, Poltergeist is a classic horror film about a suburban family’s home that’s haunted by a host of demonic ghosts. The spirits first appear friendly, amusing everyone by moving household objects. They soon start to terrorize the family, culminating in the kidnapping of the youngest daughter. The family will stop at nothing to get their daughter back, including hiring a team of paranormal investigators to assist in their mission.
Poltergeist is the quintessential “haunted house” movie, and it tells its story with such ease and confidence it’s easy to overlook the influence it holds over a whole subgenre of horror filmmaking. In many ways, it helped to establish the trademarks of many modern horror movies. These films often start with characters experiencing a life of blaring normalcy, and that’s used to contrast the insanity they experience by the film’s conclusion. Horror films are also often known for utilizing the point of view of somewhat creepy children, and their connection with the spirit realm. Poltergeist features these two aspects prominently.
The ordinariness of the suburban family is used to show horror can enter the lives of even the most mundane individuals. The television is an important object in this story. Its importance to the modern suburban household is evident by it being the centerpiece of most people’s “living” rooms. It makes sense the television is the conduit between the living and the dead in Poltergeist. When the family’s daughter is abducted to the spirit realm, she can only communicate with them through their television.
The spirits and the realm in which they dwell isn’t ever fully understood by the family in this film, nor by its audience. The mystery of what lies beyond life is present here. As is true in life, the characters must battle against an unseen force they can’t see and don’t understand. It’s like fighting in the dark, but sometimes this blind struggle is all we can do to survive and carry on with our lives.
Poltergeist has a deep humanity at its core. It’s a film about the actions human beings will take to save one of their own, and the desperation we will resort to to protect those we love. It’s a beautiful testament to the living, as they face off against the realm of the dead.
Poltergeist can also be seen as the horror film equivalent of a fairy tale. The little girl’s parents literally use their love to save their daughter, and rescue her from increasingly more complicated obstacles. Fairy tales often share the theme of the comforts of family, and this story is no different. This film starts with the family at the height of their ordinary comfort. It quickly disrupts that order, and spends the rest of the movie watching them trying to return to a sense of normalcy.
The technical sides of Poltergeist work to enhance the overall impact of the entire film. Jerry Goldsmith’s score is one of the most underrated in film history, and it certainly belongs in the pantheon of great horror film scores. The visual effects in this movie are incredible for their time period; truly impressive for being 40 years old. They were produced by the legendary team at Industrial Light and Magic, and overseen by the great Richard Edlund.
The effects in Poltergeist really give it a sense of wonder and sinister beauty. Some moments are truly gruesome and disturbing. Even though the film was rated PG, by modern standards this movie would be PG-13. At the time of its release though, that rating didn’t exist. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) created the PG-13 rating because of movies like Poltergeist that weren’t quite PG but also not explicit enough they had to be rated R. Other films from the 1980’s that contributed to the new PG-13 rating being created included Gremlins and Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom, both of which are rated PG.
Steven Spielberg was heavily involved in the making of Poltergeist. He was originally set to direct this movie but his DGA (Directors Guild of America) contract wouldn’t allow him to direct two movies in one year. His other film from 1982 was E.T., the Extra-terrestrial. Spielberg saw Poltergeist as a spiritual successor to his hit science fiction film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Both movies feature messages from mysterious beings, and the humans who try to decipher them.
Since Spielberg couldn’t direct, he recruited Tobe Hooper to be the director. Still, Spielberg wrote the script, and drew from his own childhood fears. As a young boy, Spielberg was most fearful of clowns and the large tree outside his window. Not coincidentally, the young son in this movie is afraid of those two things as well.
The great controversy with this movie is whether or not Tobe Hooper truly directed the movie. Accounts vary from different individuals on set, but many say Steven Spielberg was so heavily involved in the creative process he should either be listed as the movie’s co-director or even the primary director. For the record, both Hooper and Spielberg have disputed this, despite contradicting information from multiple cast and crew members.
Poltergeist is a film about a cursed house, and some people believe this movie itself has a curse attached to it. Two of the child actors sadly passed away shortly after the film’s release. Dominique Dunne, who played the oldest daughter, died five months after the movie was released. She was tragically strangled by her boyfriend in the driveway of her West Hollywood home. She was only 22 years old. Heather O’rourke, who played the youngest daughter, died six years after the film’s release. She died of intestinal stenosis at the age of 12. Other actors in this movie reportedly experienced supernatural occurrences in the years after the film was completed.
Life is the absence of death, and this a movie that sees the characters battling the realm of the dead with incessant existence. Poltergeist is an uncommonly emotional horror film. It’s the perfect balance of the creative impulses of Tobe Hooper and Steven Spielberg. It’s an enjoyable nightmare and one that will stick with the viewer long after the credits roll. Just make sure you turn off your television when you’re done watching it. Otherwise, someone in your family might say “they’re heeeere.”
Bobby Styles studied Film at UCLA, and worked as an editor and producer on several film, commercial, and music video projects in Los Angeles. He currently teaches the intermediate and advanced Video Production courses in the Multimedia & Technology Academy at Monache High School. His column appears in The Recorder every Tuesday.