Horrorfest 15: Poltergeist

I've seen POLTERGEIST probably. . . hmm. . . a billion times?

It might be the perfect movie.

Wait, that's nonsense, KARATE KID is the prefect movie, of course. But POLTERGEIST is close.

It has everything:

1.) It's scary. There's suspense and even a little gore.

2.) It's funny. There's at least as many laughs as scares, if not more, and they're usually not cheap jokes. I saw it in a second run theater the other day and a couple cynical audience members attempted to make fun of the movie at one point with a lame joke. As soon as they were done with their lame joke, a well-timed and expertly delivered Craig T. Nelson quip pulled the rug right out from under them.

3.) If you're not into scary movies or comedies, this one has plenty of sci-fi and fantasy elements to keep you busy. Sure, there's ghosts, but there's lots of pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo to keep the nerds entertained.

4.) It just keeps on throwing stuff at you. Every twenty minutes or so you get a new big set piece or new interesting character to spin the movie around and send it in another direction. One of the most famous characters, the psychic Tangina played by Zelda Rubinstein, doesn't even show up until the movie is 3/4 over!

5.) Good musical score from Jerry Goldsmith really adds to the "wonder" of it all. That's one thing missing in a lot of horror movies -- characters routinely discover amazing creatures or phenomena and instantly react by trying to kill it. They're almost never intellectually or emotionally curious about what's going on.

6.) It has that "Spielberg feel." In the early 80s, there were a bunch of movies produced by Spielberg that all had the same overall feeling. The sense of wonder is part of it, but there's also the naturalistic interaction between actors playing family members in believable suburban settings. The Spielberg-directed E.T. is a good example of this, but others include POLTERGEIST, of course, GOONIES and BACK TO THE FUTURE.

7.) The cast is great. I wish Craig T. Nelson, who plays the father of the Freeling family, was in every movie. JoBeth Williams, the mom, has to range from comedy to outright hysteria and does it convincingly. Beatrice Straight takes kind of a throw-away part as a para-psychologist and gives it real emotional dimension. The afore-mentioned Zelda Rubinstein aims for the fences with basically every line reading. But the kids -- the kids are the best part. I don't know how they got these performances out of the late Heather O'Rourke as the youngest, Carol Anne, and Oliver Robins as the middle son, Robbie, but the kids act like there's not even a camera on them. If these kids had seemed fake, POLTERGEIST would not work.

8.) The story is good. A family unwittingly moves into a new house in the suburbs, complete with a cemetary on a hill overlooking it and sinister clouds constantly looming in the sky. Weird things start happening -- Carol Anne seems to talk to invisible people, the chairs move around by themselves. Finally, the tree in the backyard tries to eat Robbie and while mom and dad are frantically trying to save him, Carol Anne is abducted into an interdimensional portal located in her closet. The rest of the film follows the family's attempts to figure out what's going on and attempt to get Carol Anne back from "the other side."

9.) EVERYONE is the intended audience for this movie. It's from that magical era when PG movies could feel like R movies, when 10 year olds could sit next to 50 year olds in a theater and get the same level of entertainment. It's a LITTLE too scary for really young kids, but I think that's the best way to go -- when you're young, watch things that are just on the verge of being too much for you, and you'll really enjoy them. Spielberg was the expert at walking this fine line. See TEMPLE OF DOOM if you don't believe me.

10.) On a personal level, more than any other movies, these Spielberg-produced flicks from the early 80s, and even the Spielberg-directed E.T., look like my childhood. The toys in the bedrooms, the bed sheets, the t-shirts, the jeans, the hats -- all that stuff looks like it comes from an incredibly well-shot home movie from my youth.

I realize I've gone this whole way without mentioning director Tobe Hooper once. That's the problem with these movies with the "Spielberg-feel" -- you forget there's other dudes on the set getting the job done. Judging from his most well known film, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, I'd guess Hooper is responsible for bringing a lot of the realism to the movie -- making the family interactions warm and familiar, shooting the house so you can see the clutter strewn across the carpet in almost every shot, sneaking in sly references to the oldest daughter (Dominique Dunne) having more pressing private concerns than a haunted house, allowing the adults room to be individuals as opposed to cliched moms and dads.

Anyway, I liked it.