CATCH A CLASSIC TCM Classic Horror (With Mario Cantone): ‘Family Hauntings’
TCM, beginning at 7 p.m.
Tonight’s double feature of themed scary movies introduced by comedian/writer
Mario Cantone is composed of two terrific classics featuring families terrorized by the supernatural. First up is Poltergeist (pictured) (1982), the blockbuster directed by Tobe Hooper and produced and cowritten by Steven Spielberg that was one of the first haunted-house movies to update its setting from a stereotypical dark old home in a remote locale to a modern suburban residence — in this case, a tract home located in a crowded and sun-drenched Southern California subdivision. The family threatened here is the Freeling clan, led by mom Diane (JoBeth Williams) and dad Steven (Craig T. Nelson). Trouble starts when their 5-year-old daughter Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) begins making contact with spirits she knows as the “TV people,” and before long, a particularly sinister one is able to punch a hole into this world and steal the child away into its plane of existence. Along with its setting, Poltergeist updated the haunted-house film with its use of razzle-dazzle, Oscar-nominated visual effects that still look impressive. Jerry Goldsmith also received an Oscar nomination for his eerie and exciting musical score. Tonight’s second film is Burnt Offerings (1976), based on Robert Marasco’s novel and starring Karen Black, Oliver Reed and Bette Davis. The house in this film is more traditionally spooky than the one in Poltergeist — it’s a remote, somewhat run-down 19th-century mansion that the Rolf family rents for a summer. It turns out this house is alive in a way, and it slowly begins to steal the family’s lives. The film’s theme may be familiar to fans of The Shining, though this book and movie came out before Stephen King’s novel and its big-screen adaptation. Burnt Offerings does not always succeed as well as The Shining does, but it does have some eerie moments, especially in its unnerving dream sequences involving a very creepy chauffeur (Anthony James). —