All-Time Favorite: Poltergeist (1982)

Poltergeist is one of the all-time great original horror movies with a super creepy true backstory.

I grew up in the ’90s and by that time, Poltergeist was already a legend. Funny enough, I had already grown to love Craig T. Nelson from his “Coach” days, so I grew up loving this frickin’ movie, as much as it scared me.

The scenes, imagery, and dialog are all over the rest of horror history. There might be a lot of horror movies but there are very few original concepts, and there’s not a movie that does poltergeists better than this original.

Poltergeist is a truly scary Spielberg movie about…poltergeists. Duh. The action starts early – the opening scene is Carol Anne starting at the TV static and talking to it.

Pulling back, you meet the Freeling family who lives in a brand new neighborhood. Craig T. Nelson the dad, JoBeth Williams the mom. For you youngins, you may not know that the older sister is Dominique Dunne, daughter of the famous novelist Dominick Dunne, who was tragically murdered by her boyfriend the same year Poltergeist came out. There’s the brother who apparently started acting again recently (The Rideshare Killer?). And the doomed Heather O’Rourke, who died somewhat mysteriously a few years later in 1988. There have been several interviews with the cast and crew who felt like something might be shadowing the movie’s plot.

It’s not long before strange things start happening in the house. That tree shadow is always hanging outside of the kids’ window. That fucking jingly clown. If you know, you’ve probably had nightmares. There’s a huge storm one night which has the two younger kids sleeping with mom and dad. The TV screen goes to static. Carol Anne wakes up, eventually uttering the iconic, singsongy line after some plasm enters the house’s wall:

Jesus, Carol Anne.

The earthquake they had experienced with Carol Anne’s ominous announcement, only no one else on the block experienced it. Silverware starts bending, objects start moving – including a sliding Carol Anne and mom Diane across the kitchen floor. The dog won’t stop barking at walls.

Eventually, Carol Anne and a whole shitload of glitter gets sucked into the closet while the little brother is getting eaten by the creepy old tree. The family searches for Carol Anne who’s nowhere to be found; but then the brother starts pathetically screaming because he can hear Carol Anne over the TV static.

Some time has passed since we’ve last seen the Freelings. They’re interviewing paranormal investigators who come to their house. While the paranormal team is talking about all the paranormal phenomena they’ve caught – a chair moving over 7 hours – Steve shows them into the moving vortex in Carol Anne’s room.

The investigators are there for more paranormal weirdness that leaves one of them so scared he won’t return to the house. Steve and Diane sends the kids away as Dr. Lesh leaves to bring in reinforcements.

This is where you learn the land is cursed. Steve’s boss shows up to offer him a big piece of land because he’s such a great salesman and learns the company has been moving cemeteries before building residential houses. And in fact, there was a Native American burial ground under Steve’s house.

Dr. Lesh’s reinforcement is the amazing Zelda Rubenstein, a pyschic medium, with a ton snarky of one-liners. Steve is skeptical, but Tangina (Rebenstein) gets Diane right away. We learn the dead have taken Carol Anne because of her light. Essentially, they’re stuck and need to go into THE light, not Carol Anne’s light. But, the devil is in there with them.

The closet door is a portal, one that leads to the living room ceiling. They send a series of tests through followed by Diane (cue Spielberg moment). Steve pulls out the devil while Diane and Carol Anne come out the ceiling. A happy ending.

Except we see the family moving out. Diane has new white streaks in her hair and is about to dye it thanks to her daughter’s advice like it’s a normal evening. Cue the fucking clown moving! NO THANK YOU. The bells; I still hear the bells. Then there’s the other infamous scene of Diane being assaulted by an invisible entity across the walls and ceiling. She ends outside in the pool which is now filled with skeletons from the Native burial ground – fun fact, one of them is real-real, unknown to folks in props they had a real skeleton from a once-live person in with fake ones.

Coffins (from a Native American burial ground?!) start popping up when Steve’s boss shows up.

You son of a bitch you moved the cemetery but you left the bodies, didn’t you? You son of a bitch you left the bodies and you only moved the headstones!

– Steve (Nelson)

The family drives away (as we hear Dunne’s lingering screams in our ears), the house gets sucked up into the vortex. This is essentially the end, though we see them safely to a hotel room.

You may know that two sequels followed with Heather O’Rourke, the last being 1988 when she died.

You just can’t beat the original.

Recommended for…

Any horror aficionado – it’s a requirement.