Review: Poltergeist

This film centres around the Freeling family, who have newly moved into a new house in Cuesta Verde. It soon appears that the house is haunted, however it’s only when youngest daughter Carol Ann (the tragically short-lived Heather O’Rourke, who died in 1988) mysteriously disappears that this All-American family starts to take the spooky supernatural goings on seriously. It would appear that Carol Ann has been sucked into another realm, and the Freelings must resort to hiring a team of parapsychologists (including Beatrice Straight and Richard Lawson), and later a diminutive psychic (the late and inimitable Zelda Rubinstein), in order to bring their beloved little girl back from ‘the other side’. Oliver Robbins and Dominique Dunne (who was shockingly murdered not long after this film was made) play the other Freeling children.

 

No one’s going to tell you with a straight face that this is a bad film. It’s a solid film, no doubt about it. It is not, however, a great film, and I have serious questions about its true authorship that I have never quite shaken in all the times I’ve seen it. While this 1982 ghost/haunted house flick is credited to director Tobe Hooper, I ask you to look at Hooper’s work (“Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “Lifeforce”, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2”), look at the work of executive producer Steven Spielberg (whether as director or producer), and you tell me whose creative vision we’re seeing on screen. Look at the opening scenes of All-American suburbia and tell me with a straight face that this is a Tobe Hooper film. Meanwhile, one shot in particular gives the game away, towards the end; A very familiar camera trick is used. It’s a great shot, no doubt, but if you’ve seen “Jaws”, you’ll recognise the shot immediately as Spielberg’s implementation of the “Vertigo” pull-zoom technique. I mean, it’s unquestionable in my eyes that Spielberg is George Lucas to Tobe Hooper’s Richard Marquand here. This is at least 90% Spielbergian, not a bad thing mind you (Spielberg is technically a more proficient director, and on his day, frankly unbeatable in my view), but Spielberg and horror don’t really go together. Or at least, they didn’t until 2005’s genuinely unsettling and underrated “War of the Worlds”. But in 1982, he wasn’t quite ready to go all-out, balls-to-the-wall scary, he couldn’t compete with films like “The Entity”, “Repulsion”, or 1963’s “The Haunting”.

 

It’s an entertaining family drama, no doubt about it, but as a horror film? Not really all that great, though business sure as hell picks up at the finale, with an excellent final twenty minutes. In addition, Heather O’Rourke is unsettling from moment one in a subtle way (there’s just something ‘off’ about her), and this might be the first and only film I can think of that makes ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ unsettling and creepy. Not to mention TV sets. Every kid who saw this, I imagine, has tried looking for something sinister in white noise. But creepy isn’t necessarily scary. And it’s not scary at all for most of its length, and it sure as shit ain’t anywhere near as unsettling as “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. That’s not entirely a reasonable comparison, though, as this is a vastly different kind of horror film, but I still can’t help but feel that if this were truly Tobe Hooper’s vision, he would’ve made a far more unsettling and creepy film. This film just doesn’t seem like his work at all. I mean, look at the dopey scene where records and toys start spinning inside a child’s bedroom. It’s dopey, unconvincing, and clearly more Spielberg than Hooper.

 

Perhaps, the Spielbergian nature of the film is merely symptomatic of Spielberg having co-written the script with Michael Grais and Mark Victor (both of whom co-wrote “Poltergeist II” and produced the awful “Sleepwalkers”), based on a story by Spielberg. But I don’t think that tells the whole story, if you’ll excuse the pun. In my opinion, he has been neutered and reined in by Mr. Producer, so as to not entirely alienate the Spielbergian audience (In that sense, the boring, Spielberg-produced “Arachnophobia” springs to mind). And yet, it’s not great Spielberg, either, though perfectly fine second-tier Spielberg, and slightly darker than his usual stuff around this time. It’s such a professional-looking and well-designed film, with good use of sound and shot composition/lighting by cinematographer Matthew F. Leonetti (“Commando”, “Red Heat”, “Action Jackson”), which is kinda more indicative of Spielberg than Hooper, though Hooper was obviously spending Spielberg’s money. Money which apparently didn’t extend to the awful animation FX, by the way, the one truly dated aspect. I normally like the work of Richard Edlund (“Star Wars”, “Ghostbusters”, “Big Trouble in Little China”, “The Monster Squad”), but by making the title entity something like Glinda the Good Witch, it’s obvious that Spielberg had his arm up Edlund’s arse, too, in addition to Hooper’s. Not ILM’s finest hour, at any rate, and although Oscar-nominated, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that the film lost out to (ironically) “ET”. I also highly doubt the meat and maggots were Hooper’s idea (The subsequent face-melting nightmare, however, was probably all Hooper).

 

But there’s no doubting the film has moments and elements worthy of praise. It has been imitated a billion times, but the chair-stacking scene works because it’s so sudden, low-key, and...impossible. Craig T. Nelson’s slack-jawed reaction to the mysteries of the kitchen is priceless too, and I have to give Hooper, Spielberg, and his co-writers credit for not turning Nelson’s character into a complete Doubting Thomas cliché. It’s real, it’s happening, and they need to get their daughter back, damn it. Jo Beth Williams is crucial here, and highly underrated and effective actress who instantly earns your sympathy. She’s the heart of the film. She also looks mighty MILFy in short shorts. Hot damn. I’m not normally a Craig T. Nelson fan, but this is far and away his best performance, and at times he looks entirely shattered and broken. He’s certainly more sympathetic and relatable than James Brolin in “The Amityville Horror” (Probably this film’s closest approximation). Beatrice Straight is OK as the parapsychologist, but her role really could’ve and should’ve been combined with Zelda Rubinstein’s psychic character. Straight and her cohorts just aren’t necessary and Straight gets a few too many syrupy lines of dialogue that makes her sound somewhere in between Jiminy Cricket and Glinda the Good Witch. Was the late Rubinstein a good actress? Not exactly, but she’s the most memorable thing in the film. She’s a total scene-stealer and a tad unsettling too. Sure, she gives off a bit of a ‘We represent the lollipop guild’ vibe that makes one wonder if Carol Ann has been welcomed to Munchkinland, but it’s when Ms. Rubinstein turns up that things really start to soar and she should’ve been in the film earlier and more often. Young Oliver Robbins is also excellent as the son, who looks genuinely shell-shocked after the genuinely terrifying scene with the tree, the one and only truly terrifying moment in the film. In fact, that creepy tree is just one example of the film’s good choice in locations.

 

Less effective, is the music score by my otherwise favourite composer Jerry Goldsmith (“The Omen”, “A Patch of Blue”, “The Blue Max”, “Planet of the Apes”, “Powder”). It’s an accomplished score in some ways, but also not especially effective for what it should be there to achieve. It’s a very Spielbergian (or John Williams-esque) and fantasy-oriented score, rather than horror and would be better suited to something like “ET”, “Close Encounters”, or John Carpenter’s “Starman”. Goldsmith did much, much better with his work on my favourite horror film “The Omen”, which also contains the greatest score of all-time in my view. But I’m someone who expects a lot from Goldsmith, so don’t necessarily listen to me, because the man still managed to get an Oscar nomination for it. I just felt like Goldsmith had been instructed by someone *cough* Spielberg *cough* to provide a very John Williams-esque score, instead of being free to do his own thing (Indeed, Goldsmith himself stated that he only worked with Spielberg, not Hooper).

 

If you view this film as a Spielberg film, it’s a good, but not great one. If you view it as a fantasy-drama, it definitely works. The central drama of the little girl lost is actually very affecting and the best thing about the film. Sure, some of the dialogue is a tad TOO quotable and easily mocked, but the performances by Nelson and especially Williams ground it in reality. It’s solid entertainment, no matter how else one categorises it. I just think it could’ve been even greater if it had more of an edge and more genuine terror. Tobe Hooper film my fat ARSE.

 

Rating: B-