Poltergeist

1982
Director: Tobe Hooper
Cast: Jobeth Williams, Craig T. Nelson and Heather O'Rourke

Plot: A family's home is haunted by a host of ghosts.

We'll Never Know Why Putting a House on Someone's Grave Pisses Them Off So Much
by C. True

Gearing up for Halloween it was a pleasure to see Poltergeist on the big screen for the first time. However, before the movie I was a little worried about the audience at this particular theater. Other movies at this same second-run beer theater have been ruined by the guffawing slightly inebriated twenty-somethings. Sure St. Elmo's Fire had plenty to poke fun at, but I don't find Maverick's heartbreak over Gooses death especially cheesy and worthy of a laugh. I was pleasantly surprised though by how everyone really shut up, watched this movie, and got as scared as they did when they saw it as a kid.

So many great premises are at work here. We have a nexus of evil within the house which I always found very effective in giving me chills. One of my favorite scenes is a simple one (and according to imdb the first one shot) where Jobeth Williams hesitantly opens her children's bedroom door just to be screamed at by some supernatural entity and slam it shut again. Knowing the house is haunted is one thing, but knowing that the seat of the evil things happening is localized to one spot sets up some great scares. Another great theme is the surprisingly non-cheesy sentiment of a mother trying to save her child. And although it isn't a theme or premise, for my money there was never a scarier scene then when that kid starts getting swallowed by that tree. Who thinks trees are scary? I don't know but damn if that didn't give me nightmares for years.

The special effects really hold up well here as well. Most of them are pretty simple, I'm not even sure you'd call making a steak crawl across a countertop by rigging it with wires a special effect anymore. For instance the best special effect isn't even a real special effect. In a continuous shot where we see Jobeth Williams push all the chairs in at the kitchen table, then the camera pans with her as she goes back into the kitchen to get the cleaning supplies and then back to the dining area to see a shocking chair pyramid on top of the table. How was it achieved? As the camera pans away some guys come in with a preformed chair pyramid and put it on the table and grab the other chairs. It doesn't get much simpler than that and yet its one of the best surprises in the film. Not to get all preachy but there is something nice when it comes to effects about knowing what you're seeing is really happening, just not in the way you think it is.