Poltergeist (1982)

[slayrrr666]

Sorry about this one, I should've had it up this morning, but, oh well. Another one of my "Never-ending shame" series entries:

“Poltergeist” is one of the classic haunted house films.

**SPOILERS**

Real estate agent Steve Freeling (Craig T. Nelson) and his family, Diane, (JoBeth Williams) Dana, (Dominique Dunne) Carol Anne, (Heather O’Rourke) and Robbie, (Oliver Robbins) move into a new home in the suburbs. Packed with nice neighbors, beautiful scenery and a quiet atmosphere, it is the perfect place to raise a family. However, inside the house, strange things begin to happen. Chairs and furniture begin to rearrange themselves after only seconds have lapsed and Carol Anne has a strange fascination with watching the static on the TV instead of regular programming. Steve doesn’t believe it until Diane shows him a special trick: a chair in the kitchen slides across the room by itself, with no one touching it. Freaked out, he calls in a paranormal research team, lead by Dr. Lesh, (Beatrice Straight) to find out what is wrong with his house. At first dealing with the spirits and declaring the house free from poltergeists, even stranger things happen to the family to convince them that they may not have gotten rid of them after all.

The Good News: As haunted house films go, this one is one of the best. Don’t let the PG rating fool you, this is a scary film. Haunted house films usually only have a small margin of error, because how often can you get scared of them? The timeless ones know how to make the audience feel uncomfortable being around the house in question, and this one does it marvelously. The house looks creepy to begin with, which always helps, but the inside isn’t, so it looks like a normal house. It looks like it could happen to you, and that is where the best horror comes from: it comes from the fact that it could happen to you. How could the rest of the population believe that the events happening on screen is truly terrifying? Make it happen to real-looking people. Nobody here looks like they just came from the gym, or even seen a plastic surgeon, and the chemistry between the family is so realistic you begin to feel for them. What happens at first is a nice twist: the poltergeists don’t want to harm, instead they want to play. You can tell in one great scene: the chair slide. Instead of picking up the chair and throwing it across the room at the characters, the poltergeists have fun by sliding it across the floor. It’s a little creepy when you first see it, and the false sense of security is just right to lure you off track. However, once the film gets going and their true nature becomes apparent, it has one great chill after another. When they bring in the paranormal team is great at that. By bringing in these high-tech equipment and other gizmos is shocking, because we don’t know what is happening to deserve this. Once we do learn of what has happened to the house, it just becomes a roller-coaster ride through to the end, with lots of action, suspense, and danger. The middle section also isn’t like any other haunted house films, as we are trying to figure out what is happening to the family and how to deal with their problems instead of becoming haunted by what happened in the beginning. It is full of new ideas and flows together nicely with the ending. That action packed ending is another perfect example for delivering chills. After escaping the spirits, the family gets out of the house, and into the front yard, when dozens of skeletons begin to pour out of the ground. Dodging them to get to their car, one erupts out of the garage in front of them and lands on the car, which is my favorite jump in the film. That is such an action-packed ending that it just makes the beginning of the film seem like nothing really much happened. I love endings that send you out on a high note, and this is definitely one of them.

The Bad News: The beginning of the film is a bit slow, so it takes a while to get going. Also, I’m getting kind of tired of having the house be haunted by having it rest on an ancient burial ground. How about some more creativity next time?

The Final Verdict: Despite being another entry in the burial ground haunting films, this is one of the better ones. It’s creepy, atmospheric, and certainly packing enough chills to make it worthwhile. Give it a shot if you like this kind of film, but it is recommended to all horror fans as well.

Rated PG: Violence

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I see you've improved your perception from the Alien review ;D
I agree mostly with your comments and feelings, but I disagree in one question that is about that boring repetitiousness of ancient graveyard sites being hidden below ordinary homes.
Well, that flick was released in 1982 and it wasn't overused conception I think then.
Secondly, the conception in itself is not boring even if it is overused but it is dull when there are no unsuspected twists of action.
So the old-fashioned theme may be excellent if made and refurbished by an exceptional director (Old theme may be good material if it is altered in a nice way)

No WHAT by HOW it is made it most important to me.

Of course you must have included your cute "too slow a bit" tag ;D but you've attached it only to the beginning of the flick. You're making a big progress, man.(No malice in this sentence)
Apart from these two little things I agree with you almost completely, it was a very nice and well-written piece of review
If I sounded patronising just kick my ass in the reply ;D

[Quorthon]

Man I love Poltergeist. The sequels are a bit weaker, but the special effects they pull off in them are as amazing as in Poltergeist.

I'll have to agree with spacer in the whole burial ground thing. I think Poltergeist was one of the first--and it's not an ancient burial ground, just a moved cemetary--without the moved headstones.

[slayrrr666]

spacer said:

I see you've improved your perception from the Alien review ;D
I agree mostly with your comments and feelings, but I disagree in one question that is about that boring repetitiousness of ancient graveyard sites being hidden below ordinary homes.
Well, that flick was released in 1982 and it wasn't overused conception I think then.
Secondly, the conception in itself is not boring even if it is overused but it is dull when there are no unsuspected twists of action.
So the old-fashioned theme may be excellent if made and refurbished by an exceptional director (Old theme may be good material if it is altered in a nice way)

No WHAT by HOW it is made it most important to me.

Of course you must have included your cute "too slow a bit" tag ;D but you've attached it only to the beginning of the flick. You're making a big progress, man.(No malice in this sentence)
Apart from these two little things I agree with you almost completely, it was a very nice and well-written piece of review
If I sounded patronising just kick my ass in the reply ;D

Hey, what's a little constructive criticism. That;s what we do here: help each other out.
As for the too slow thing, it's just a hold-over from my action film upbringing, but I'm trying to get into the slower, suspense-setting films a little more after finally giving these classics their just deserts. I don't know how to thank you guys, because without me posting that heinous crime at Halloween, I don't know what I'd be talking about now. Thank you.

[Quorthon]

I was going to make a joke about how the next thing we need to teach you is to look for that added depth and underlying meaning often hidden in the film industry's better films. But in all honesty, I often miss all that shit, too. I'm a pretty dim bulb at times. Sometimes I think it's just lucky guesses and speculation on coincidence by people looking for more depth than there is in some movies.

Snotty film reviewer: "Ooh, see, with this scene, the director is trying to express his feelings on the attitudes of how lazy, "normal," Jews don't respect Hacidic Jews enough in a 3-block radius of downtown Brooklyn because of a divide between Conservative and Liberal belief systems... and in this struggle, we see the director himself struggles with his own homosexuality and feelings of regret for his dishonorable discharge from the US Navy..."

Me: "It's a dog taking a shit on a park bench you asshole!!"

Sometimes, that depth is all perception.

[slayrrr666]

quorthon said:

Snotty film reviewer: "Ooh, see, with this scene, the director is trying to express his feelings on the attitudes of how lazy, "normal," Jews don't respect Hacidic Jews enough in a 3-block radius of downtown Brooklyn because of a divide between Conservative and Liberal belief systems... and in this struggle, we see the director himself struggles with his own homosexuality and feelings of regret for his dishonorable discharge from the US Navy..."

Me: "It's a dog taking a shit on a park bench you asshole!!"

Sometimes, that depth is all perception.

LOL! Love that image, Q.

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quorthon said:

Man I love Poltergeist. The sequels are a bit weaker, but the special effects they pull off in them are as amazing as in Poltergeist.

I'll have to agree with spacer in the whole burial ground thing.

quorthon said:

...and it's not an ancient burial ground, just a unmoved cemetary--without the moved headstones.

;D

[Heineken Skywalker]

slayrrr666 said:

As for the too slow thing, it's just a hold-over from my action film upbringing, but I'm trying to get into the slower, suspense-setting films a little more after finally giving these classics their just deserts. I don't know how to thank you guys, because without me posting that heinous crime at Halloween, I don't know what I'd be talking about now. Thank you.

Hey, the fact that you're opening your mind a bit more is "thanks" enough. And wasn't it actually your heinous crime at ALIEN that caused the uproar? I know it did with me. ;D

And yeah, I didn't think the burial ground/cemetary thing was a cliche back in '82.

I always thought this flick was really well made and acted, but never found it all that scary really. And I first saw it back when it was new in theaters. It was always more like a funhouse ride to me than a true horror movie. You know, things jump out at you and make you jump, but at the same time, you're laughing. Not really screaming in true terror. Overall, it's about as scary as the darkest moments in the Indiana Jones movies, ie: the spirits coming out of the Ark of the Covenant and melting the Nazis, the heart being torn out of the chest, etc.

[red]SPOILER![/red]

I think my favorite scene is still the "ghosthunter" who goes to the kitchen for a midnight snack and things get progressively worse for him. He realizes the chicken leg he's eating is covered with maggots, then the raw steak crawls across the counter and tears itself inside out, and then he ends up ripping his own face off in the mirror. Now, that was some pretty good stuff.

[Quorthon]

And that scene was one of my Guess the Gore shots--and yet only Frankenjohn and Slayrrr really dove into that game!

[Heineken Skywalker]

I think I logged in too late to take a guess at that one. Gore's not my specialty anyway.