“Poltergeist” Review
Heather O’Rourke gives an iconic performance as Carol Anne Freeling ,who gets abducted by ghosts in “Poltergeist.”
In the early 1980s, three films emerged which caused people to think that the PG rating wasn’t strong enough, leading to the creation of PG-13: “Gremlins,” “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and “Poltergeist.” The lattermost film was a massive success when it was released in 1982, but has gone down as one of the scariest PG rated films of all time. Not only is this true but it is a fantastic film to watch every Halloween especially for younger viewers (around 10-years-old).
Set in a suburban neighborhood, an ordinary American family finds themselves plagued by bizarre events around their home. Things move around, lights flicker and five-year-old Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) can hear voices from the television set. But when these weird happenings become more malicious and Carol Anne is abducted by the ghosts causing these disturbances. With very few options left, the family works with a group of paranormal investigators to find Carol Anne and put these ghosts to rest.
The film essentially is two creative voices coming together to create something truly special: Director Tobe Hooper and Co-Writer/Producer Steven Spielberg. With Spielberg, at this time, being famous for films like “Jaws,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” he was no stranger to capturing horror but it always had a sense of adventure. Tobe Hooper, on the other hand, was more famous for extreme horror like “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
Some people argue that Spielberg, who was on set quite a bit, asserted more creative control with this film and was more of a director than Hooper, but I strongly disagree with this notion. Not only is there no evidence to support this, but Spielberg and Hooper both denied this. This feels more like a Tobe Hooper film because of how well Hooper captures an atmosphere of terror which is combined with Spielberg’s sense of family that he captured so well in films like “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial” and “Jaws.”
The Freeling family of “Poltergeist” is so well defined because they seem to have a child for every age. It’s like “The Sound of Music” of horror films. There’s sixteen-year-old Dana (Dominique Dunn) for the teens, eight-year-old Robbie (Oliver Robbins) for the adolescents and Carol Anne for the really young children. No matter how old you are, every child can see what’s happening to these kids and both relate to and fear for them.
While Heather O’Rourke is fantastic and delivers one of the most memorable child performances in film history (I think every 80s child remembers her creepy line “They’re here.”), both Dunn and Robbins capture the terrified nature of children who are being haunted.
(From Left) Oliver Robbins, Craig T. Nelson, JoBeth Williams and Dominique Dunn create one of the most believable families in horror history as the Freelings.
JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson are both wonderful as Steven and Diane Freeling, the parents of this family, and I kind of love the fact that they’re classic 80s establishment parents while also hanging on to elements of the 1960s and 70s. I always get a laugh out of the pair of them smoking a joint while the kids are asleep as Steven reads a book about Ronald Reagan. Maybe this scene inspired JoBeth Williams to do “The Big Chill.” I’m convinced that if the family didn’t work, “Poltergeist” wouldn’t have worked because there’s never a moment during the first 20 minutes of character development where I’m thinking “get to the ghosts already.”
But when the scares do happen, they’re very inventive. This is partially because Spielberg’s story was inspired by what scared him as a child, like this big tree that was outside his window, and now he and Hooper have the chance to visually show why it scared him. When the tree comes to life and grabs Robbie out of his bedroom, it’s pretty terrifying for a child.
After Carol Anne is taken by the ghosts, the film becomes a haunted house film similar to “The Conjuring” where characters try to figure out what the hell is happening. The paranormal research team, led by Dr. Martha Lesh (Beatrice Straight), help cement the atmosphere by carefully examining the house which is wrought with paranormal activity. It’s also creepy to see that the family has this uneasy sense of equilibrium with the house, like they’ve somehow gotten used to the creepy phenomenon.
The entire second act is captivating as they try to get Carol Anne back and it appeals to your emotions just as much as your fears. Seeing Steve, Diane and Dr. Lesh tear up at the sound of Carol Anne’s voice is powerful and every actor in this film gives it 100%. When the paranormal team bring in a medium Tangina Barrons (Zelda Rubinstein) to help bring Carol Anne back, what follows is one of the most tense scenes in a scary film. It’s fairly obvious that James Wan’s direction of “The Conjuring” and “The Conjuring 2” was heavily influenced by this film with it being one of Wan’s favorite films.
After they do get Carol Anne back at the end of the second act, the film slowly breaks down your defenses by making you think that the film is over with everything back to normal and the family almost done moving out of the house. But the ghosts come back with one dark entity, simply known as “The Beast,” trying to kill Carol Anne and Robbie. While most of the film had its scares based on atmosphere, the finale of “Poltergeist” has all the monsters and skeletons you could want. It’s also in the finale that we get the big twist of the film: that these suburbs are built on a cemetery where the company responsible for this neighborhood moved the headstones but not the bodies.
What I love most about this twist is not only does it explain why there’s ghosts in a newly built house, but it’s also slowly built up in the film. We see Steve has a job as a real estate developer with the company who made this suburb. There’s also a conversation Steve has with his boss Mr. Teague (James Karen) about a possible promotion where Teague mentions that they can always move the cemetery again to make way for another block of houses, having done it before when construction began on Steve’s block.
“Poltergeist’s” climax is one of the most thrilling in 1980s horror with fantastic practical effects used to create “The Beast” (Left).
But when the coffins come out of the ground, Steve puts two and two together and drives off with his family, leaving his boss to watch in horror from the street as the Freeling house implodes.
Tobe Hooper might know that his audience is people of all ages, but his direction was hell bent on pushing the PG rating to its limit which makes “Poltergeist” an encouraging film. It’s nice to be challenged as a viewer and this film is definitely going to both scare and entice children at the same time. Similar to “Coraline,” “Jaws” and “Gremlins,” while I was scared of the film as a child, I found that these scares sucked me in even more.
While some of the special effects may not hold up anymore, “Poltergeist” still manages to elicit suspense and most of the practical effects and puppets still look realistic. But what might be more famous than the film is its alleged curse.
In the film, real skeletons were used because they were more realistic and cheaper to get than plastic ones. While no one thought anything of it, strange things seemed to happen on the set of “Poltergeist” and its sequels. But the real tragedy was that Dominique Dunn was murdered a few months after “Poltergeist” premiered and that Heather O’Rourke died of cardiac arrest at the age of 12. While I’m not one to believe in curses, I always find these kinds of stories fascinating around Halloween.
While I love to watch lots of bloody slashers around Halloween and rated R films, it’s always nice to watch films geared towards younger audiences, especially if they manage to still be scary. Not only does “Poltergeist” still manage to entertain me years after I first saw it, but it also has the potential to be the first legitimate scary film parents might let their children watch.
