I just recently watched Poltergeist for the first time, and it's not what I was expecting at all.
I remember seeing ads for what must have been one of the sequels when I was a toddler in the mid-'80s, and it seemed terrifying to me at that age. Then, growing up, I remember hearing about how it was a cursed movie and etc. etc. etc. I was expecting it to be...a little darker?
Like, literally. As Keith notes, there are a handful of isolated moments where this thing turns into a Tobe Hooper movie, but a lot of it is very bright and sunny, and not in an ironic Midsommar way or a surreal "everything's a little bit too happy" way - in a Spielberg-optimistic way. Has everyone seen that trailer for Kubrick's "The Shining" recut as a romantic comedy? A lot of Poltergeist feels like that to me.
Yeah, while there is a lot that is worthwhile in this movie, I agree that I've long heard it was Very Scary and watching it, did not think so, tho I'm usually all-in on any sort of ghost thing and love a whole lot of Hooper's stuff.
Fully suspect this is a movie where folks who saw it as a kid hold it as a classic but for those of us who didn't, it may not be quite so special.
I didn’t see Poltergeist 2 until a a couple of years ago. I thought it was just ok and might have liked it better if it were unrelated. But as Elizabeth Kite notes below it’s got an extremely memorable villain played by Julian Beck, who mostly did theater and died before the film’s release.
I saw Poltergeist when it first aired on network TV. For those who weren’t around in the early 80s, there weren’t a lot of ways to see a movie if you missed its run in the theater. Poltergeist didn’t predate VCRs, but it DID predate Blockbuster and even the small rental stores. But the biggest movies often had a showing on television. Edited for content and with regular commercials, but still.
Anyway, the premiere of Poltergeist on TV was a big deal. I begged my mom to let me go see it at my friend Mark’s house down the block. His whole family was going to watch it. Against her deep misgivings - she thought I’d be terrified of it - she let me.
When I got back - it was early, the movie aired in the afternoon - my mother was prepping dinner. I remember her tight lips when she asked me what I thought of the movie. I said it was fine. She said good and told me to go upstairs and shower before dinner.
I completely fell apart. I couldn’t go upstairs alone. I was terrified, all of a sudden and all at once. The movie was horrifying and it’s scariest scene took place in the room I had, until then, felt safest in - the room where I sat on the floor and played with my Legos while my mom chatted on the phone or made me a snack.
I was a nightmare to my parents. I wouldn’t go upstairs alone, I wouldn’t go downstairs alone, I wouldn’t play in my playroom without someone next to me because I was worried a tree was going to attack me through the window. I cried. I couldn’t sleep. Weeks went by. I honestly didn’t get any better until the summer ended and I went back to college. BAM!
I had this same reaction to the first Blair Witch Project. Sometimes things just get under your skin, in just the right way! I was at least lucky that, at the time, I was staying with my mom in the dense suburbs, rather than at my dad's place in the middle of the woods.
Here to unpopularly advocate for the remake with Sam Rockwell - it came and went without much love and I think at best it gets a side-eye if it gets any eyes at all today, but I truly think it has some merit for a bunch of reasons. To me, taking it out of the Spielberg visual language and vibe lets it more comfortably get scary in a way that Hooper's just doesn't do. And I'd take Rockwell over Nelson ANY day.
This writeup captures a lot of what I like about Poltergeist: the fleshed out details. A lot of movies, especially horror movies, skimp on this because it's more fun to jump right to the walls bleeding. I always liked how Williams's mom character finds it all fun and interesting at first. I'd never caught the teen mom implication, which maybe helps explain why she's so excited by something strange and new and different.
Also, I'm not gonna say that the sequels are up to this level or even, frankly, good, but I AM gonna say that I like Poltergeist 2 a whole lot and that Cane is an excellent horror movie villain.
This held up for me when I rewatched it last year, especially the parents' performances. So did the effects for the most part: well, not so much the tornado, but that door guardian still looks cool as hell. I can't remember when I first saw this but it was edited (the older sister flipping off the construction workers was cut), but it scared the hell out of me. Clown-related.
I was almost 15 when this came out, and as a rabid Spielberg fan (yeah, Tobe Hooper, I know) I saw it the first chance I had. This means I went in not knowing about the face-ripping scene. Yowza! This was probably the scariest movie I’d ever seen, and I loved it, even if I only caught part of the social commentary. Went back the next week.
POLTERGEIST also has the single funniest moment ever in the horror film, when the parapsychologist says it can be a lot of work to determine if a house is haunted and the coffee pot slides across the table.
It's been a while, but isn't there also a bit where they're talking about measuring things over a period of hours or days to catch subtle movement and one of the parents rolls their eyes and opens the door to a room where everything is just whirling about madly in the air.
The question of authorship was settled for me when I realized this has the same opening shot as TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. That begins with a dolly back from the mouth of a disintegrating corpse, while POLTERGEIST starts with a move back from a different kind of rot - the television in the middle of the family home. The Spielberg influence pushes the movie on a technical level, but the Hooper of it pushes into nastier territory than Steven could attempt on his own.
this is an absolutely fantastic piece, Keith. Despite having noticed several of these things casually, you really do nail the feeling of the movie that the whole development itself is simply a mistake. And putting it in the proper timeframe really is important to understand it.
I find it fascinating that in so many of these suburban set movies of the period that people (specifically including adults) still get around their neighborhoods on foot or by bike. It really wouldn't be long in the film world (and possible the real world) before everyone was simply driving any time they left their house.
"Did we know what we were doing when we built so many of these places in the years after World War II? Are they really where we want to spend our lives?"
Keith, are you trying to pitch a book about the portrayal of the suburbs in films of the 70s/80s and their intersection with housing politics? because I'd buy this book!
Terrific article. I know it makes me sound a bit grumpy and elitist but my general argument on the whole 'who directed Poltergeist' debate is that if you believe Spielberg solely responsible then you've only seen one Tobe Hooper film.
Fantastic write-up as usual in this series. Though I absolutely can’t fault any of your selections for 1982 so far, I hope the last slot goes to a sci-fi film given how it was such a watershed year for the genre (e.g. Blade Runner, Wrath of Khan, The Thing, Tron), though I admittedly haven’t done the legwork to confirm which sci-fi classic would fit the Q4 release window…
I just recently watched Poltergeist for the first time, and it's not what I was expecting at all.
I remember seeing ads for what must have been one of the sequels when I was a toddler in the mid-'80s, and it seemed terrifying to me at that age. Then, growing up, I remember hearing about how it was a cursed movie and etc. etc. etc. I was expecting it to be...a little darker?
Like, literally. As Keith notes, there are a handful of isolated moments where this thing turns into a Tobe Hooper movie, but a lot of it is very bright and sunny, and not in an ironic Midsommar way or a surreal "everything's a little bit too happy" way - in a Spielberg-optimistic way. Has everyone seen that trailer for Kubrick's "The Shining" recut as a romantic comedy? A lot of Poltergeist feels like that to me.
Yeah, while there is a lot that is worthwhile in this movie, I agree that I've long heard it was Very Scary and watching it, did not think so, tho I'm usually all-in on any sort of ghost thing and love a whole lot of Hooper's stuff.
Fully suspect this is a movie where folks who saw it as a kid hold it as a classic but for those of us who didn't, it may not be quite so special.
Keith, I NEED to know if you've seen the sequels and if you like 'em. I have not but they've long been on my 'I should prob watch these' list.
I didn’t see Poltergeist 2 until a a couple of years ago. I thought it was just ok and might have liked it better if it were unrelated. But as Elizabeth Kite notes below it’s got an extremely memorable villain played by Julian Beck, who mostly did theater and died before the film’s release.
I'll second the praise for Beck, who turns in a vivid performance that's worth the price of admission on its own.
I saw Poltergeist when it first aired on network TV. For those who weren’t around in the early 80s, there weren’t a lot of ways to see a movie if you missed its run in the theater. Poltergeist didn’t predate VCRs, but it DID predate Blockbuster and even the small rental stores. But the biggest movies often had a showing on television. Edited for content and with regular commercials, but still.
Anyway, the premiere of Poltergeist on TV was a big deal. I begged my mom to let me go see it at my friend Mark’s house down the block. His whole family was going to watch it. Against her deep misgivings - she thought I’d be terrified of it - she let me.
When I got back - it was early, the movie aired in the afternoon - my mother was prepping dinner. I remember her tight lips when she asked me what I thought of the movie. I said it was fine. She said good and told me to go upstairs and shower before dinner.
I completely fell apart. I couldn’t go upstairs alone. I was terrified, all of a sudden and all at once. The movie was horrifying and it’s scariest scene took place in the room I had, until then, felt safest in - the room where I sat on the floor and played with my Legos while my mom chatted on the phone or made me a snack.
I was a nightmare to my parents. I wouldn’t go upstairs alone, I wouldn’t go downstairs alone, I wouldn’t play in my playroom without someone next to me because I was worried a tree was going to attack me through the window. I cried. I couldn’t sleep. Weeks went by. I honestly didn’t get any better until the summer ended and I went back to college. BAM!
I think we all want to know just how old you were when you saw it Lasagna.
I had this same reaction to the first Blair Witch Project. Sometimes things just get under your skin, in just the right way! I was at least lucky that, at the time, I was staying with my mom in the dense suburbs, rather than at my dad's place in the middle of the woods.
Here to unpopularly advocate for the remake with Sam Rockwell - it came and went without much love and I think at best it gets a side-eye if it gets any eyes at all today, but I truly think it has some merit for a bunch of reasons. To me, taking it out of the Spielberg visual language and vibe lets it more comfortably get scary in a way that Hooper's just doesn't do. And I'd take Rockwell over Nelson ANY day.
I don't love it, but it's one of the better of the vanished remakes of the '10 (see also RoboCop, Total Recall...)
This writeup captures a lot of what I like about Poltergeist: the fleshed out details. A lot of movies, especially horror movies, skimp on this because it's more fun to jump right to the walls bleeding. I always liked how Williams's mom character finds it all fun and interesting at first. I'd never caught the teen mom implication, which maybe helps explain why she's so excited by something strange and new and different.
Also, I'm not gonna say that the sequels are up to this level or even, frankly, good, but I AM gonna say that I like Poltergeist 2 a whole lot and that Cane is an excellent horror movie villain.
This held up for me when I rewatched it last year, especially the parents' performances. So did the effects for the most part: well, not so much the tornado, but that door guardian still looks cool as hell. I can't remember when I first saw this but it was edited (the older sister flipping off the construction workers was cut), but it scared the hell out of me. Clown-related.
I was almost 15 when this came out, and as a rabid Spielberg fan (yeah, Tobe Hooper, I know) I saw it the first chance I had. This means I went in not knowing about the face-ripping scene. Yowza! This was probably the scariest movie I’d ever seen, and I loved it, even if I only caught part of the social commentary. Went back the next week.
POLTERGEIST also has the single funniest moment ever in the horror film, when the parapsychologist says it can be a lot of work to determine if a house is haunted and the coffee pot slides across the table.
It's been a while, but isn't there also a bit where they're talking about measuring things over a period of hours or days to catch subtle movement and one of the parents rolls their eyes and opens the door to a room where everything is just whirling about madly in the air.
You’re conflating two scenes but both those things happen. It’s a different incident that supplies the punchline to the measuring talk.
The question of authorship was settled for me when I realized this has the same opening shot as TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. That begins with a dolly back from the mouth of a disintegrating corpse, while POLTERGEIST starts with a move back from a different kind of rot - the television in the middle of the family home. The Spielberg influence pushes the movie on a technical level, but the Hooper of it pushes into nastier territory than Steven could attempt on his own.
this is an absolutely fantastic piece, Keith. Despite having noticed several of these things casually, you really do nail the feeling of the movie that the whole development itself is simply a mistake. And putting it in the proper timeframe really is important to understand it.
I find it fascinating that in so many of these suburban set movies of the period that people (specifically including adults) still get around their neighborhoods on foot or by bike. It really wouldn't be long in the film world (and possible the real world) before everyone was simply driving any time they left their house.
"Did we know what we were doing when we built so many of these places in the years after World War II? Are they really where we want to spend our lives?"
Keith, are you trying to pitch a book about the portrayal of the suburbs in films of the 70s/80s and their intersection with housing politics? because I'd buy this book!
Terrific article. I know it makes me sound a bit grumpy and elitist but my general argument on the whole 'who directed Poltergeist' debate is that if you believe Spielberg solely responsible then you've only seen one Tobe Hooper film.
Fantastic write-up as usual in this series. Though I absolutely can’t fault any of your selections for 1982 so far, I hope the last slot goes to a sci-fi film given how it was such a watershed year for the genre (e.g. Blade Runner, Wrath of Khan, The Thing, Tron), though I admittedly haven’t done the legwork to confirm which sci-fi classic would fit the Q4 release window…