Poltergeist (Yes, the 1982 movie)

Cafe Society
1

So TCM showed this a few days ago I guess (the Tivo caught it and I watched it tonight).

I hadn’t seen this movie in forever and I was curious how it held up.

Overall, I was very impressed. The tension was still there, and I think it holds up great as a scary movie.

Effects-wise, there are hits and misses. Some of the straight-up trickery shots (the chairs getting up on the kitchen table) work even better now because of the continuous camera shot. If you tried that today everyone would know that the new chairs were digital, but in Poltergeist those were real chairs on that table!

The effects in the children’s room are the most spotty - when the investigators first show up and look into the room they are overwhelmed with activity. I remember being overwhelmed when I first saw the movie, but now it just looks cheesy. On the other hand, the monsters that come out of the closet are great - the skull that yells at Craig T. Nelson and the glowing skeleton that yells at Jobeth Williams hold up very well.

The one scene that I remembered so well but looked so bad was the investigator guy pulling his face off. The transition to a fake face is so obvious that it’s almost comical. It’s still an iconic scene though, and has been spoofed several times (Family Guy did it last I think).

As the credits rolled I had a couple of thoughts - especially after Craig T Nelson rolled the hotel TV out onto the walkway.

First - how many people actually remember when TV stations did the sign-off ritual? A thank you for watching, the national anthem and then…nothing. The movie got it right (as far as I remember) - it showed the bedroom TV going to snow at 2:37 AM. That seems pretty typical to me - that was about when TV stations signed off unless you happened to get channel 32 (UHF baby!) that was showing some random Godzilla movie that started at 2 AM.

I also wonder now about the Holiday Inn that they went to at the end (and which the young daughter wistfully remembers). The ginormous sign out front looked like this.

That got me to thinking - I remember those signs, but I don’t remember the last time I saw them. Maybe it’s my life (I didn’t start staying in hotels for work until about 1994) but I can’t remember staying in a Holiday Inn with one of those signs since the 1980s. Anyone know when they were phased out?

Anyone else think this movie has aged really well? Anyone love this movie in their childhood and hate it now?

I have come to expect disappointment with movies that I loved from my youth and I was very pleasantly surprised by this one.

2

I don’t believe in ghosts or any of that stuff, but I love well-done ghost stories (like the original The Haunting or The Innocents, for instance) and this one is a very very good one. I haven’t seen it for at least a couple of decades so I don’t know how it would hold up, but I imagine it would, very well. I think JoBeth Williams was at her most beautiful, and I also thought the humor and terror fit well together.

It’s sad that the two girls who played the daughters are both dead now. Dominique Dunne (who I met once, and she was a real sweetheart) was murdered a few months after the movie came out, and cute little Heather O’Rourke died 6 years later when she was 12. Every time I see the iconic “They’re Heeeeeeere” scene, and it’s used often, I cringe a little.

3

Not only did I get to see it again in letterbox uncut glory, but since the opportunity popped up, I pulled my 6-year old in with me to watch. I told him that the film, particularly the clown and the tree, scared the poop out of me as a kid, but it was nothing for him to be frightened of. He watched it and loved it, especially when I pointed out the Star Wars bed sheets (which I had as a kid) and the fact that this was made by the same guy who did Jurassic Park, Indy, and Star Wars.

I agree on some of the effects not dating well, but the final scene with the bodies appearing all over the place was still fantastic, although copied slightly in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

4

I loved horror films since I was a little guy. At six, the worst I’d seen were probably the Universal 30s-40s classics.

At age six, I would have crapped myself watching POLTERGEIST. That movie hits on archetypal childhood fears- the closet, clowns, shadowy limbs moving, the closet, house creakings, dolls, faint hints of something in the TV static, and of course, the closet.

Yep! Sedate me, change my undies & expect to sit up with me all night! That’s what my parents would have had to do if I’d seen it at six.

Since I saw it when I was 20, I didn’t need sedation & changed my own undies. :smiley:

5

This is one of my all time favorite movies. I’ve had the opportunity to introduce it to several jaded young whippersnappers, and despite a few special effects failures, it still WORKS. Big time.

Whenever I spend any large chunk of time doing housework, I complete my duties by proclaiming, “This ha-ouse is clean.” :slight_smile:

6

I was 12 when this movie came out and it was the first time I ever encountered the SCARY CLOWN phenomenon. And it even included the monster-under-the-bed meme.

You’re right about the simple effects being the best. The chair effect was great because it wasn’t scary unto itself, but because it was unexplainable.

At 14, I moved to a new subdivision. The subdivision next to it contained a little 20x40 foot plot of land with a dozen or so old, old graves surrounded by the classic pointy, gothic iron fence. It even had a huge old tree in it. Always reminded me of Poltergeist, the way it sat there surrounded by a sea of identical suburban houses.

7

I’m sitting here repeating to my self over and over again (mentally):

“He knows his kid better than I do. He knows his kid better than I do. He knows his kid better than I do.” etc.

I have never had the impulse to backseat drive others’ parenting, but now I know what it’s like to have that impulse.

-FrL-

8

Pit me if you must, I don’t blame you, but I’m really trying to teach him about special effects versus computer effects and how movies are made (not that I’m in the business) so that he can watch them and appreciate them as art rather than just being scared all the time like I was as a kid. While he was learning the noises animals made, I taught him that zombies say ‘more brains’, and he gets all giddy when there’s a zombie movie on or asks me to play ‘zombies in the mall’ game (Rising Dead).

We talk a lot about the difference between real violence and movie violence and I point out actors that appear between movies, etc. We talk about how the actor who gets shot in a movie or tv goes home and has dinner with his family after work, but that lots of kids die every year because they find a real gun and think it’s fun to play. Basically, I’m trying to teach my son to not be the dumbass that gets a Superman cape and jumps off a building.

I’m sure he doesn’t fully grasp it all yet, but the important thing I want him to learn is that movies and are pretend and meant to be fun, and that zombies and monsters can’t get you.

(We’ve also talked about how society is silly in that men get to walk around all day with their shirts off but for some reason, it’s naughty for women to do so, but I’ll save that for another day.)

Back on topic, yeah, Poltergeist was a great film.

9

Excellent and creative parenting, as far as I’m concerned!

10

I’ll take a little different view, although I agree the effects are great. And JoBeth Williams…wow…

But Zelda Rubinstein always annoyed the hell out of me. Although I haven’t seen it in years, it confused me when Zelda Rubenberger said to go into the light, then stay out of the light, stop at the red light, turn off the light, or whatever that little person said. To me, she was the worst part of the whole experience. Anybody know if Zelda Ribbentrop made any other movies? Never mind, I looked on imdb, and I see Zelda von Rubinmeister has been working, most recently in voice work. Bleh.

11

Awesome. I wasn’t on board with videogame violence that young, but my son started watching *Buffy *with us at about 6 or 7. Like your son, he was (and is) very interested in both storytelling as a visual art form and special effects.

Poltergeist: scared the spit out of me at about 10 years old or so, on Betamax, I believe, at a friend’s house. Haven’t seen it since. Maybe I’ll rent it this weekend and watch it with the older kiddo (now 15).

12

Still holds up nicely. Whenever there’s a storm, I remember the scene where Craig T. Nelson teaches the kid how to track it by counting the number of seconds between lightning and thunder. I still get a chill when we see all the points of light coming down the staircase.

Good acting too, especially from the parents. You could tell they loved each other very deeply.

Too bad both sequels were so awful.

13

I saw this movie when I was about six or seven. Before you blame my parents I had begged them for weeks to see this film, and they didn’t really know what it was about before we watched it together as a family.

I freaked out. I would not sleep in my own bed for weeks, I was inconsolable about this movie.

I have watched it since and appreciate it as a very well-done scary movie, but at the time, scared the crap outta me.

14

Last time I saw it, I was surprised to realize that the points of light were actually people-shaped! It’s very subtle.

Another “good” part: JoBeth Williams falling into the unfinished swimming pool in the rain…with them.

15

She was in the recent horror-comedy Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. A very underrated movie in the mold of Scream, in which a student film crew documents a Mike Myers-type as he prepares for his own Halloween-style murder spree. Zelda’s time on screen was mercifully brief.

16

This scared the pants off me when I was a little kid. And I love it because, at the same time I was scared to death, it was also one of the first movies where I started thinking about it as a movie. I remember thinking about why the scene with the chairs on the table was so scary – I mean, why are chairs scarier than zombies? – and being so pleased with myself when I figured out that the unexpectedness of a normal thing like kitchen chairs acting in a bizarre way was a different, and very effective, kind of fright.

My in-laws live in a very small town, and there is an area outside of town that everyone calls the “old Indian burial ground.” A few years ago, my grandmother-in-law was telling us about the new office being built by the company she worked for. She expected to be transfered to the new office when it was opened. We asked where it was, and she was describing the location and I said “Wait, isn’t that the old Indian burial ground?” and she said yes, it was, and I could not stop laughing. No one else thought this was funny! What is wrong with people?

17

I saw this movie when it first came out, which means I would have been 18. It still scared the crap out of me. I loved it, though. I’ve always had a thing about clowns, so the worst part for me was when the evil clown doll rose up next to the kid’s bed. :eek: I don’t like gory slasher movies, but I’m always up for good psychological horror or ghost stories.

The sequels were terrible, though. Didn’t like the second at all, and ended up walking out of the third one halfway through.

18

She played a character in the TV series “Picket Fences” a few years back, although it’s been so long since I’ve seen it that I don’t remember much about the character. You mentioned voice work, which reminds me that I’ve also heard her doing the narration on a few “haunted house”-type cable TV documentaries. I guess she’s been typecast!

19

I’m gonna have to agree on the iffy-ness of showing it to a six year old since there’s many less scary movies to use to demonstrate how special effects work. However, my mom used to let me watch Nightmare on Elm Street movies when I was like eight and I turned out alright.

Although I know for a fact if I showed that movie to my eight and six year old nieces, they would probably have nightmares for months. I have never seen kids who were such wimps though. They made me turn off An American Tail because they were terrified of scene where the boat’s in a storm at sea. Right then all my hopes of showing them classic 80s kid movies (Last Unicorn, Dark Crystal) went up in smoke.

20

I think she was a secretary at the Sherriff’s office or something like that. They killed off her character by having her fall into a large chest freezer and having the lid close on her and no one found her for days. That scared me because, although I am not a little person, I am a small person and I’ve cleaned out the large freezer at work and felt like I was going to fall in a few times. So I always drape a large towel over the opening so if I fall in the lid can’t close.