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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - June 4th

"POLTERGEIST" released in 1982

Life is very pleasant for the close-knit Freeling family until a host of otherworldly forces invades their peaceful suburban home, in Tobe Hooper's cult haunted house film, Poltergeist!

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Steven and Diane Freeling (Craig T Nelson and JoBeth Williams) live a quiet life in an Orange County, California planned community called Cuesta Verde, where Steven is a successful real estate developer and Diane looks after their children Dana (Dominique Dunne), Robbie (Oliver Robins), and Carol Anne 9Heather O'Rourke). Carol Anne awakens one night and begins conversing with the family's television set, which is transmitting static following a sign-off. The following night, while the Freelings sleep, Carol Anne fixates on the television set as it transmits static again. Suddenly, a ghostly white hand emerges from the television, followed by a violent earthquake. As the shaking subsides, Carol Anne announces "They're here". Bizarre events occur the following day: a drinking glass of milk spontaneously breaks, silverware bends and furniture moves of its own accord. The phenomena seem benign at first, but quickly begin to intensify. That night, a gnarled backyard tree comes alive and grabs Robbie through the bedroom window. While Steven rescues Robbie, Carol Anne is sucked through a portal in her closet. The Freelings realize she has been taken when they hear her voice emanating from the television set that is tuned to an empty channel. A group of parapsychologists from UC Irvine — Dr. Lesh (Beatrice Straight), Ryan (Richard Lawson), and Marty (Martin Casella) — come to the Freeling house to investigate and determine that the Freelings are experiencing a poltergeist intrusion. They discover that the disturbances involve more than just one ghost, and sometime later Steven also finds out in an exchange with his boss, Lewis Teague (James Karen), that Cuesta Verde is built where a cemetery was once located. After Dana and Robbie are sent away for their safety, Lesh and Ryan call in Tangina Barrons (Zelda Rubinstein), a spiritual medium. Tangina states that the ghosts inhabiting the house are lingering in a different "sphere of consciousness" who are attracted to Carol Anne's life force which distracts them from the real "light" that has come for them. Tangina then darkly adds that there is also a demon known as the "Beast", who has Carol Anne under restraint in an effort to restrain the other spirits. Discovering the entrance to the ghostly dimension, Tangina directs Diane in a desperate effort to rescue Carol Anne from the Beast and to lay the spirits haunting the Freelings home to rest once and for all.

TRIVIA:   The shot of the chairs that position themselves in the amazing balancing act on the table was all done in one take. As the camera panned along with JoBeth Williams, who was getting some cleaning materials, several crew members quickly set an already organized pyramid of chairs on the table, then took the single chairs away before the camera scrolled back.

Top and Above:   The Freeling family; Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke) and Dana, Diane, Robbie and Steven (Dominique Dunne, JoBeth Williams, Oliver Robins, and Craig T Nelson).

Poltergeist came about from producer Steven Spielberg's failed attempt to do a sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Originally, Spielberg approached horror author Stephen King to write the screenplay - which would have been the first written by King directly for the screen - but the parties could not agree on the terms. When writers Michael Grais and Mark Victor first met with Spielberg, they were being hired to write the film that eventually became Always (1989). But when Spielberg happened to mention he also had an idea for a ghost story, Grais and Victor said they'd rather write the ghost story than Always and began working on the first drafts of the screenplay. Spielberg initially offered Tobe Hooper the script for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to direct, but when Hooper declined Spielberg gave him the script for Poltergeist instead (Spielberg himself would go on direct E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, at the same time as producing Poltergeist). Originally, as Hooper, Spielberg and the screenwriters were plotting out the screenplay, Carol Ann was going to get killed in the 1st act and then haunt the house in the second. They eventually decided this was too dark, and opted to have her kidnapped by the ghosts. In fact, eventually, so many of the dark elements were removed because Spielberg wanted a PG rating so that the film could run as a double feature in theaters with the concurrently released E.T.; so much so that there were no deaths at all in the final movie, and only a couple light injuries.

Spielberg and Hooper wanted virtually unknown actors to play the Freelings because they wanted to add a realism to the family that would off-balance the ghost story, feeling that if the audience watched well-known stars, then it would take away from the realistic feel of the characters. Drew Barrymore was first considered for the role of Carol Anne Freeling, but Spielberg wanted someone more "angelic" (although Barrymore did not get that part, her audition for this role landed her a part in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial). Spielberg explained that he was looking for a "'beatific' four-year-old child...every mother's dream" for the lead, and found her in the most unlikely of places - in the MGM studios commissary. Heather O'Rourke was eating lunch with her mother (who were both visiting O'Rourke's sister who was working on another film on the lot), when Spielberg came up to them and wanted O'Rourke for the part of Carol Anne. O'Rourke initially failed the first screen-test because she kept laughing her way through the audition, even when she was supposed to be afraid. Spielberg thought she was too young to take the part seriously, but he still recognized something special in her, so he asked her to come back for another audition, and this time, bring a scary storybook with her. He also asked her to scream, so she screamed and screamed until she started crying. This audition got her cast as Carol Anne. Spielberg later cast the remain Freeling family, with Craig T Nelson, as patriarch Steven, JoBeth Williams as his wife Diane, and Dominique Dunne and Oliver Robins as the remaining Freeling children, Dana and Robbie respectively. Actress Zelda Rubinstein was later added to the cast as eccentric medium Tangina Barrons - both Rubinstein and O'Rourke would be the only actors to return for the Poltergeist sequels, with Rubinstein also reprising her role in a cameo for the short lived TV series spin off, Poltergeist: The Legacy. 

[Tangina explains the spirits that are holding Carol Anne]
Tangina: There's one more thing. A terrible presence is in there with her. So much rage, so much betrayal, I've never sensed anything like it. I don't know what hovers over this house, but it was strong enough to punch a hole into this world and take your daughter away from you. It keeps Carol Anne very close to it and away from the spectral light. It lies to her, it tells her things only a child could understand. It has been using her to restrain the others. To her, it simply is another child. To us, it is the Beast.
[Long pause]
Tangina: Now... let's go get your daughter.

Top:   Eccentric spiritual medium Tangina Barrons (Zelda Rubinstein);

Above:   Diane encounters the ghostly Beast!

Though on-screen credit goes to Tobe Hooper, a wealth of evidence suggests that most of the directorial decisions were made by Spielberg himself - in fact, Spielberg had wanted to direct the film himself, but a clause in his contract stated that while still working on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Spielberg could not direct another film. However, with delays shooting E.T. (which location was only 20-minutes away from the Simi Valley location where Poltergeist was filming), the cast and crew found Spielberg on set almost every day of production. And when questioned about who had the greater control over Poltergeist, Spielberg or Hooper, Spielberg replied, "Tobe isn't... a take-charge sort of guy. If a question was asked and an answer wasn't immediately forthcoming, I'd jump in and say what we could do. Tobe would nod agreement, and that became the process of our collaboration." After this statement came out, a few members of the cast and crew, including Executive Producer Frank Marshall  stated, "the creative force of the movie was Steven. Tobe was the director and was on set every day. But Steven did the design for every storyboard and was only absent for three days during the shoot, because he was in Hawaii with (George) Lucas." The Directors Guild of America "opened an investigation into the question of whether or not Hooper's official credit was being denigrated by statements Spielberg has made, apparently claiming authorship", until Spielberg sent an open letter to Hooper, which was later printed in The Hollywood Reporter;

Regrettably, some of the press has misunderstood the rather unique, creative relationship which you and I shared throughout the making of Poltergeist.

I enjoyed your openness in allowing me... a wide berth for creative involvement, just as I know you were happy with the freedom you had to direct Poltergeist so wonderfully.

Through the screenplay you accepted a vision of this very intense movie from the start, and as the director, you delivered the goods. You performed responsibly and professionally throughout, and I wish you great success on your next project.

Despite the open letter, and the DGA concluding there was "no evidence" that Spielberg should receive a co-directing credit, several members of the Poltergeist cast and crew have over the years consistently stated that Spielberg was the 'de facto director' of the picture, while other actors have claimed Hooper directed the film. In a 2007 interview with Ain't It Cool News, Rubinstein discussed her recollections of the shooting process. She said that "Steven directed all six days" that she was on set: "Tobe set up the shots and Steven made the adjustments." She also alleged that Hooper "allowed some unacceptable chemical agents into his work," and felt that "Tobe was only partially there." Subsequently, the issue of who had creative control over Poltergeist is still a muddy issue even today.

Above:   Producer Steven Spielberg and director Tobe Hooper on set of Poltergeist.

Released by MGM on June 4, 1982, Poltergeist was a commercial success, grossing over $75 million at the US box office; making it the highest grossing horror film of the year, and the 8th highest grossing film of 1982 (Spielberg's own E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial coming first that year with nearly $360 million at the box office). Poltergeist was also a hit with critics, with Peter Rainer writing in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, "Buried within the plot of Poltergeist is a basic, splendid fairy tale scheme: the story of a little girl who puts her parents through the most outrageous tribulation to prove their love for her. Underlying most fairy tales is a common theme: the comforts of family. Virtually all fairy tales begin with a disrupting of the family order, and their conclusion is usually a return to order." Andrew Sarris, in The Village Voice, wrote that when Carol Anne is lost, the parents and the two older children "come together in blood-kin empathy to form a larger-than-life family that will reach down to the gates of hell to save its loved ones." Poltergeist also earned three Academy Award nominations that year for Best Sound Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Visual Effects - although all of them lost to Spielberg's other film E.T. The Extra Terrestrial!

The house that gets sucked into a black hole at the end was actually a model about four feet across. The model took several weeks to complete. The shot was arranged with the camera placed directly above model, which was mounted over an industrial strength vacuum generator (the front door was facing directly up, straight at the camera). The model also had about 100 wires attached to various points of the structure. These wires went down through the back of the house, and down through the vacuum collection sack. The camera was turned on, and took 15 seconds to wind up to the required 300 frames per second. The vacuum was turned on, the wires were yanked, and several SFX guys blasted the house with pump-action shotguns. 

The entire scene was over in about two seconds, and they had to wait until the film was developed before they knew if they would have to do it again. Luckily, they got it right on the first take. The finished scene was sent to Steven Spielberg, who was on location shooting E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). He gave it to a projectionist, who assumed it was dailies from ET and was startled by the images. Spielberg had the remains of the model encased in perspex, and it is now sitting on his piano. The model itself was worth well over $25,000.

Aside for being nominated for three Academy Awards, a scene from the film was ranked as #80 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments, and the Chicago Film Critics Association named it the 20th scariest film ever made. The film also appeared at #84 on American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Thrills, a list of America's most heart-pounding movies. Poltergeist also spawned a franchise around young star Heather O'Rourke, who went on to play carol Anne in Poltergeist II: The Other Side and Poltergeist III; although neither would have the success of the original. Actors Craig T Nelson, JoBeth Williams, and Oliver Robins reprises their roles as the Freeling family for the first sequel (along with Rubinstein as Tangina Barrons), but, tragically, teen actress Dominique Dunne was murdered by her estranged ex-boyfriend shortly after Poltergeist was released. Years later O'Rourke would also sadly pass away in early 1988 from a misdiagnosed illness causing a heart attack, which has prompted some to associate these tragedies with the "Poltergeist curse" (the rumor is often fueled by the allegation that real skeletons were used as props in various scenes of Poltergeist and Poltergeist II: The Other Side). Nevertheless, in 2015, MGM produced and released  a "revisionist" reboot of the series, starring Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Saxon Sharbino, Kyle Catlett, and Kennedi Clements as the Bowen family, with Jarod Harris as occult specialist and television personality Carrigan Burke. The remake was met with moderate box office receipts and mostly negative reviews from critics, with critical consensus reading, "Paying competent homage without adding anything of real value to the original Poltergeist, this remake proves just as ephemeral (but half as haunting) as its titular spirit."

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   88%

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