Poltergeist
All actors and roles (10)
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.
- 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.
- 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."
- 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.
- 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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