Poltergeist
"They're here."
Poltergeist (1982)
Budget
$10 700 000
Revenue
$121 733 131
Director
Scenario
Steven Spielberg
Author
Composer
Producer
Actors
JoBeth Williams
Diane Freeling
Craig T. Nelson
Steve Freeling
Beatrice Straight
Dr. Lesh
Dominique Dunne
Dana Freeling
Heather O'Rourke
Carol Anne Freeling
Oliver Robins
Robbie Freeling
Zelda Rubinstein
Tangina Barrons
Richard Lawson
Ryan
Short description
The Freeling family moves into a new house in a suburban development, only for strange events to begin around them. Objects shift on their own, the ground trembles, and their youngest child, Carol Anne, starts communicating through the television. When she vanishes into a spectral void, her parents must turn to outside help, including a parapsychologist, to reach the dimension that has taken her and bring her back.
Tobe Hooper directed the film, his fourth of fifteen features and the one that followed The Funhouse and preceded Lifeforce. Steven Spielberg wrote the screenplay with Michael Grais and Mark Victor, produced it, and is also credited as a director; among his own films it came after E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and before Twilight Zone: The Movie. The cast includes JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson as the parents, Beatrice Straight as Dr. Lesh, and Heather O'Rourke as Carol Anne, supported by Dominique Dunne and Oliver Robins among twenty-four credited performers.
Made for about 11 million dollars, the film took roughly 122 million worldwide, a strong return that signalled its broad pull beyond a niche horror audience. On IMDb it holds 7.3 from over 176,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.2 from several thousand. A critics' rating of 7.5 from 76 reviews places it close to the audience scores, pointing to a broadly consistent response.
What's left behind the scenes
- The Freeling’s house, sucked into a black hole and then collapsing, was a 4-foot-long model that nevertheless took 2 weeks and $25,000 to build.
- Heather O'Rourke was cast as Carol Anne while she was having lunch with her mother and sister in the MGM studio cafeteria. Steven Spielberg approached their table and suggested the girl try out for the role of Carol Anne. At first, she couldn't pass the screen tests because she kept laughing, even when the script required her to be frightened. Spielberg nonetheless saw potential in her and asked her to return for another audition and bring a scary book. During the test, he asked her to scream in fear; she screamed and continued screaming until she burst into tears.
- The real house used in the filming is located in Simi Valley, California.
- Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper specifically cast little-known actors for the roles of the Freeling family members to add more realism to the story.
- Steven Spielberg worked on this film almost concurrently with the filming of 'E.T.'. Production on 'Poltergeist' ended in August 1981, after which Spielberg took a few weeks off before starting work on 'E.T.', while Tobe Hooper spent another 10 weeks on editing. Spielberg handled the special effects for both films nearly simultaneously (they were produced at George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic studio).
- To film the crawling piece of meat, a steak was placed on the seam between tiles. Two pieces of wire were attached to the bottom of the steak, and a camera operator hiding under the countertop simply moved them. The same trick was used when JoBeth Williams' character shows Craig T. Nelson's character a moving chair.
- JoBeth Williams was reluctant to film the pool scene due to the amount of electrical equipment near the water. Steven Spielberg got into the pool himself and told her that if anything happened, they would both die.
- The hands that emerge from the bathroom mirror and thrust into the face of the person standing opposite belong to Steven Spielberg.
- Filming began on May 11th and ended on August 4th, 1981, and just two weeks later, Steven Spielberg began filming "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" (1982).
- The first scene filmed was Diana opening the bedroom door with a terrifying scream, and the last was Dr. Marty Casey seeing hallucinations in the bathroom.
- Drew Barrymore auditioned for the role of Carol Anne, but Steven Spielberg cast her in "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" (1982) because he was looking for a more angelic child's face for "Poltergeist."
- The scene with the chairs on the table was filmed in a single take. For just seven seconds, the camera focus shifted from a panorama of the table with chairs standing around it to the character played by JoBeth Williams; in that brief window, assistants managed to construct a pyramid of chairs on the table.
- For the finale, where the house is sucked into a black hole, a small scale model of the building (just over a meter high) was used. The camera was placed directly above the model, which in turn was positioned over an industrial vacuum cleaner (with the front door of the house facing upward toward the camera). About a hundred wires were attached to various parts of the model. Then, the vacuum was turned on, and several special effects technicians pulled the wires simultaneously so the model would begin to collapse, while others simultaneously opened fire on the model from different sides using pump-action shotguns. At Steven Spielberg's request, what remained of the model was encased in plexiglass, and he took it home as a souvenir. The construction of the model cost $25,000.
- During the filming of the scene where Heather O'Rourke's character clings to the headboard of the bed while toys are blown by the wind into the closet behind her, the girl broke down and burst into tears. Steven Spielberg immediately stopped filming, picked the girl up in his arms, and told her that they would not film that scene anymore.
- The human skeletons appearing in the Freeling's pool were real, but actress JoBeth Williams only found out about this after filming.
- The images that Robbie (Oliver Robins) was terrified of are rooted in Steven Spielberg's own childhood fears—he was afraid of clowns and the tree growing outside his bedroom window.
- Comparing the birth years of the actors, Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams are only 14 and 11 years older than Dominique Dunne, who played their eldest daughter in the film.
- The human skeletons appearing in the Freelings' pool were real, but actress JoBeth Williams only learned this after the scene was filmed.
- The house where the filming took place is located in Simi Valley, California.
- Drew Barrymore auditioned for the role of Carol Anne, but Steven Spielberg cast her in 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial' instead, as he was looking for a more angelic child's face for 'Poltergeist'.
- Initially, director Tobe Hooper, Steven Spielberg, and screenwriters Michael Graize and Mark Victor planned to show Carol Anne dying at the very beginning and remaining in the house as a ghost. Later, they decided the film would be too bleak and opted instead to have the ghosts kidnap the girl. Much of the darker plot elements were removed because Steven Spielberg wanted a PG rating so that the film could be shown in double features with 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'.
- Steven Spielberg, who worked almost simultaneously on two films: "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" (1982) and "Poltergeist" (1982), once said: "If 'E.T.' was a whisper, then 'Poltergeist' was a scream."
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