Summer of '82: Poltergeist

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By Rob Vaux June 04, 2012 Source: Mania.com

When asked which movie first scared them, most people turn to an expected slate of childrens flicks: appropriate for all viewers, but containing some undeniably freaky images. (The Wizard of Oz comes readily to mind, as does Disneys Snow White.) But when you ask which horror movie first scared them, a significant number of people would probably pick Poltergeist. It was rated PG, after all, and prominently featured Steven Spielbergs name when the director was preparing to unleash the ultimate cuddly alien upon us all. So who worried about letting the kids take a look at Poltergeist?

That attitude lasted at best until the hideous fucking clown popped out from under the bed. An entire generation followed it up by sleeping in mommy and daddys room for the next month.

We would have done well to look closer at the poster and note that Steven Friend-to-All-Children actually only produced the film (though rumors continually surface to the contrary). The director, Tobe Hooper, has a much different set of films on his resume notably one about power tools and suspicious meat products. With that name in the forefront, the pants-wetting terror that followed should come as less of a shock. Certainly, the two filmmakers baited their hooks well. The films haunted house appears in modern suburbia, occupied by a Norman Rockwell family of the sort that Spielberg adored. The first half hour plays like a low-key sitcom, as dad (Craig T. Nelson) bickers with his neighbors, mom (JoBeth Williams) negotiates the passing of a pet canary, and their three kids engage in various forms of low-key normality. Even little Carol Annes (Heather ORourke) sleepwalking incidents seem perfectly ordinary, as does her habit of talking to the TV after all the channels sign off for the night.

Therein lies Poltergeists sublime rope-a-dope. We integrate ourselves into this family immediately, and the film unwraps its carnival of horrors solely through their eyes. The ghosts in the TV soon manifest themselves more directly and while we eventually understand their reasons for being here (more or less), that doesnt make them any less terrifying. We see much of it through the perception of the children, who view it as alternately fascinating and horrible. The parents ultimately revert to a similar state. They understand nothing about whats happening around them and can only latch on to the most direct goals if they wish to escape their formerly perfect home alive.

Hoopers scares rely upon that unknown quality: the fact that that these spirits could appear at any time in any form and do any number of scary things. The banality of suburban America makes the horrors on display all the more chilling. We built our tract homes on the bones of older, darker things things that have a way of asserting themselves over our ridiculously self-centered attempts to cover them up. (Kubrick touched on the idea first with The Shining, and shades of the concept echo in more recent horror films like Ringu.) To that, Poltergeist adds an instinctive knowledge of childhood fears: monsters in the corners, demons beneath the bed, the imposing tree outside the window ready to gobble you up at any moment. If they can exist where we live amid the humdrum worries of raising kids and keeping up with the neighbors then their veracity becomes impossible to deny.

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Summer of '82: Poltergeist