There's some debate about it, but some of the crew did testify under oath that they used real skeletons. However, they were not bodies exactly - they were bleached and completely clean skeletons, and they added a bunch of stuff to them to make them look like they were decaying corpses.
It’s sad that both daughters in this film passed away. Steven Spielberg used his own childhood fears for the son Robbie. He was terrified of a tree outside his window and clowns
Dominique Dunn didn't just "pass away." She was brutally murdered by her ex boyfriend. And from what I read, he only served a couple of years, or some bs like that. Griffin Dunn is her brother who starred in several movies including An American Werewolf in London.
@@SurvivorBriYeah, I would never say Heather’s death wasn’t tragic, because she suffered from a painful condition and died so young. But Dominique’s death is the stuff of nightmares and it sounds like the consequences were disgracefully insufficient. Some crimes are so grotesque and so telling that I can’t imagine letting the culprit breathe another breath as a free person. How could anyone trust a man loose, who murdered his own partner with his bare hands?
Correction: apparently the killer changed his name to John Maura and last known to being working as a General manager for food and beverage dept of a retirement community in San Rafael, CA
I don’t get it. I just don’t find clowns to be scary. From “IT” to Art the clown. Just nothing scary about clowns. I think that Chewbacca face was scarier.
Back when all the tv stations went off the air by 12am until the next morning. I don't miss that. 😂 The oldest daughter is the one who was murdered after filming this movie. The youngest was in the sequels before she passed away at 12.
Yeah, the TV static was always creepy… then this movie came out and Spielberg was clearly just building on the feeling of unease that static caused in all of us. Clever, tbh. That’s why this “family friendly” scary movie is genuinely unsettling. Not sure it should have been considered family friendly, but it was seen that way. I mean, not young kids but still. They were fine with us tweens seeing it.
Yep I remember when you were lucky to have 2-3 good VHF channels and they went off the air after the late night news until 5-6am.
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TV stations went off at 12 AM at the height of the early '90s. In the '80s tv stations went off at 10:00 PM, so in this movie is safe to assume the tv is off at 10:00 PM, not at 12 AM.
One thing I love about this movie is that it doesn't follow the usual "wife see creepy shit and the husband doesn't belive her because he doesn't." Love that the ghosts were pretty much open with that theyt were there to all of the family members. :) And how they filmed when Diane litterary climbed on the walls was that they built a set piece they could rotate and placed a camera in it. So when they rotated it , it looked like she dified gravity. Her flashing was apparantly not planned though. :)
Man, maybe the flashing wasn’t planned but I dunno how they thought that was gonna turn out! It’s a great effect, though. And yeah, Spielberg always had that down to earth, real people reaction quality back in the day, instead of dumb, unlikely tropes. It defined film of the time. Close Encounters and Jaws both had that feel to them. You can still relate to the characters because they’re just… people. People in crazy situations. I love that.
The film is said to be cursed as one of the actresses, Dominique Dunne, Dana, was strangled by her ex-boyfriend in September 1982 and died at age 22. Heather O'Rourke, Carol Anne, passed away in January 1988 at 12 as she had stenosis in her stomach caused by Crohn's Disease. POLTERGEIST III was the last film she had made. A stage light fell off the roof of the soundstage and nearly killed both producer Steven Spielberg and Jobeth Williams after they got out of the swimming pool, and if they hadn't got out in 10 seconds t, they would have been killed Most of the skeletons in the swimming pool scene were 100% real as they were used for medical services and schools and hospitals. There were even rumors that most of the skeletons came from cemeteries. The film was nominated for 3 Oscars Best Visual Effects, Best Original Score, and Best Sound Editing, but lost all to ET, THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL.
In Poltergeist (1982), there is a poster on the children's bedroom wall for the 1988 Superbowl XXII. In an eerie and tragic coincidence, on the day of Supebowl XXII, actress Heather O'Rourke (Carol Anne) suddenly fell ill, and died the following day of septic shock due to intestinal stenosis.
And for those who believe in the curse say the skeletons are the cause as the spirits were not happy regarding of how their bones were used. There are also two deaths from the sequals also blamed on the curse.
@@raggarbergman there is one death that should be omitted from “curse” because the one Actor knew he was dying of cancer *before* he even took the role.
People remark on how audiences reacted to "The Exorcist" and "Jaws" (fainting, vomiting, running out of the theater, etc.), but I can attest that "Poltergeist" was also freaking people out it 1982. I remember my parents were literally shaking with fear, there were people in the audience crying, etc. I was 12-13 at the time and I don't think I got a good night's sleep for about a week.
Totally! This thing terrorized me - mostly because of that flippin' tree! Had one outside my window and never slept right again while we lived there XD
@@otterpoetsame. The clown is what scared most of my friends. But the tree trying to 'eat' Robbie did it for me. Had a tree outside my bedroom window that freaked me out after seeing this movie as an 8 year old.
As a 25 year old im curious, were people back then scared of these movies (poltergeist, jaws, exorcist, etc) because it wasnt topics that were talked about in the social norm, or because people never saw movies like that. Personally, i think i grew up desensitized to horror movies and my personal paranormal experiences so nothing really scares me when it comes to movies, so id like to hear from those who experienced the mentioned movies in their hayday.
@@killerr721 as I said above, I was 8 when my parents took me to see it in theaters, scared the shit out of me and gave me nightmares. Scared my mom too if I remember correctly. Pre-internet there wasn’t a lot about paranormal stuff to be had unless you went to the library and specifically researched it. It’s crazy to think now, but we were just a lot more….ignorant? It sounds bad but I don’t mean it in a bad way, we just didn’t have access to the kind of information available now nor the means to access it other than on paper in a library. So I don’t know if it was because it was so out of the norm, or just the thought of something intangible being able to screw with you so much.
Saw this when it first opened, in a full theater. The scene where the technician begins ripping his own face off caused the audience to shriek wildly for quite a long time until it ended. I've never heard an audience react that way since.
"Poltergiest" is indeed one of the finest horror classics for sure. And it was also the only horror movie that made me cry. I think it might be the film's theme song that was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, or the part that the daughter was taken into another plane of existence. Or maybe both.😢
The black Hope Horror is the inspiration and the TRUE story behind the movie Poltergeist. The Black Hope Horror happened in Crosby, Texas and just like in the movie it served as a new location for future homes. However, there was one major problem with the location this subdivision was located at. The subdivision was built over a cemetery that was supposed to be located in another area. The people who had commissioned the project said they moved the bodies and the headstones, but that wasn’t the case. Families ended up moving in and that’s when the real problems started to happen. People started noticing their homes come with more than they bargained for, eventually, the truth came out and all hell broke loose. There is a book on what happened to one family that will give you sleepless nights.
"Poltergeist", isn't about an actual poltergeist, it drew inspiration from real-life events. The "Popper Poltergeist" plagued the Hermann family in 1958.
It might give me sleepless nights if I thought for a minute that it was actually true. I expect it's about as true as Amityville...i.e. not at all, but profitable for the family.
Camera moves with the rotation, if it didn’t then the wall would become the floor from the cameras perspective. The camera has to move with the room to maintain the illusion of up still being up.
@clonexx I think they meant the camera stays still at the pivot point. It doesn't move around in the room. Although, as you said, it rotates or pivots in the room
@ Possible, for sure. How it’s written just sounds like the camera would be stationary and not spinning with the room. But obviously the camera has to be steady or the shot would look pretty janky heh
I’m so glad you liked it. I grew up with this movie. It’s strangely realistic. This is one of the most realistic portrayals of a family I’ve ever seen in a movie. And I also love the way that they portrayed marijuana use not as some horrible thing, but as something that in moderation even a very successful loving family can use it. And this was in the 80s, all of it very realistic. Thanks for the entertainment.
Well the skeletons were real - because real ones are cheaper to buy than realistic fake ones - but they were hardly "corpses". The clothes and any flesh you might think you see were all added by the effects team. Real skeletons are very thoroughly cleaned and disinfected before being made available to colleges and universities as teaching tools, they aren't just dug up out of the ground. The actors didn't know though so that's true.
I was a freshman in high school when this came out. I'm pretty sure I screamed when the clown attacked Robbie. I was shaking for over half an hour after the movie ended. The big screen makes it so much more frightening!
Dominique Dunne’s situation was so tragic. She was in an abusive relationship and he murdered her. Prior to that, she guest starred on an 80’s show called Hill Street Blues, playing a domestic violence victim. Her bruises and injuries seen on screen were real and used for the episode. The images can be found online.
They were like "It sucks that your boyfriend beats you but hey, since you already have the bruises, let's use it"? lol. Sounds like BS to me. Abuse victims usually go to great lengths to hide their abuse.
I really love this movie. 100% agree on how the family dynamic really makes the film. Also, for me personally, I love the late 70s, early 80s, Spielberg era. It brings me back to my childhood. So oddly enough this film is always really comforting to me lol.
My mom took me to see this in theaters when I was FOUR. On the one hand it sparked a lifetime love of horror films that persists to this day; but on the other hand, very few films actually scare me anymore. I love the “Sometimes spooky happens, and can’t be rationed with or dealt with in any way” paranormal horror aspects of the movie, which is sadly kinda rare for the genre.
26:32 The whole room and camera rotate. The technique was used before with Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling in Royal Wedding and Lionel Richie's music video "Dancing on the Ceiling".
I fell in love with horror in the 2nd grade when the video for Michael Jackson's Thriller came out. Poltergeist was one of the first horror films I saw. I remember imagining the ripped face man coming to me while I slept and ripping my face off. I loved film so much that I became an actor. I had the honor an privilege of being in a film with James Karen, who played Steven's boss in this film. I also almost got the opportunity to work with Ola Ray who played Michael Jackson's girlfriend in the Thriller video, but she had to pull out of the project due to a family emergency. James Karen also is in one of my favorite zombie films, Return Of The Living Dead. I think you'll like that one.
Both times the Skull ghoul popped out as a giant head and then as large torso with a stretched out face, I was like "I didn't know this movie was a rollercoaster!". 💗💗💗💗
I had heard that the puppet used for the closet demon was actually the first design (deemed “too scary for a horror comedy“) for the librarian demon at the beginning of Ghostbusters.
The EFFECTS in THIS movie are actually a combination of BOTH practical (physical) and optical (like at 8:34, 8:43, 12:27, 12:37, 18:51, 19:16, 19:23, 23:25, 27:01, and 28:58). No, they really didn't have cgI back when this movie was made, but there were OTHER OPTICAL techniques. I would say that the PHYSICAL effects in this movie still look great! Not so much the OPTICAL ones though.
Can you imagine being the therapist Robbie will eventually go to, and hear him tell how a tree tried to eat him and his sister being sucked into a TV? I suspect, in his later years, Robbie would be committed to a mental hospital. At the time this movie was being filmed, Speilberg was filming ET, and in his contract, he could not be involved in 2 movies at the same time, to get around that, he is only credited with the production in Poltergeist.
Or maybe he and/or Carole Anne become very successful occult investigators, like in The Conjuring! Don't forget, the paranormal team got some things on tape, probably more than we saw (they'd have been crazy not to take advantage of the roomful of madness and had plenty of time to do so), so there's definitely proof all this went down, to say nothing of all the witnesses who saw the house get pulled into another dimension!
Absolutely love that you think the film has reached it's climax when they get their daughter back but something doesn't feel right and then it really goes crazy with the actual finale.
My uncle took my cousin and I to see this when it came out in theaters, we were like eight or nine years old. I had nightmares about that tree for years.
The coolest thing about these movies was recapping them for your buddies at school the next day, cause A LOT of them were not allowed to watch this kind of movie and it's not like you could see things online (hell a lot didn't even have a vcr at home), so the only way they had to be exposed to horror was to hear the recaps of those with less responsible parents.
I was wondering if you would recognize the father. He voiced Mr. Incredible. But yeah, classic movie. One of the great examples of how they used practical effects to create such a masterpiece. Movies just aren't made like this anymore.
"Poltergeist", isn't about an actual poltergeist, it drew inspiration from real-life events. The "Popper Poltergeist" plagued the Hermann family in 1958.
@kylereese4822 yes I know what a poltergeist is. It's a german word when translated into english means " noisy ghost or noisy spirit." It's just what steven spielberg decided to name the movie.
I finally watched this movie a couple years ago and it has become one of my favorite horror films. I love how light hearted it is while being so dark at the same time. Also the "this house is clean" line always reminds me of Ace Ventura and gives me a chuckle.
This movie was released the year I was born, but I didn't see it until I was in high school. I'm grateful for that, as I enjoyed the movie at that age. I would have been traumatized if I had seen it when I was younger. Spielberg produced the movie, but he couldn't direct it due to the fact that he was busy directing E.T., which was being filmed at the same time. VERY ironically, the filmmakers' motive for using real skeletons as props in this movie (and it was only the bones that were real, the rest was practical effects) was the same motive that led the dad's boss in the film to do what he did: greed! At the time, it was substantially cheaper to use real human skeletons (which they had imported from India, IIRC) than it was to make or purchase imitation ones. You are absolutely right that the cast was unaware that the skeletons were real at the time of the filming. JoBeth Williams (who played Diane) was especially upset when she found out she had been in a water tank with actual human skeletons when filming the swimming pool scene during the film's climax. The scene where Diane was literally being "driven up the wall" and across the ceiling was done by using a rotating set. The monster that appeared outside the children's bedroom door was a miniature filmed in a fish tank full of water, which gave it that eerie floating effect.
I was 12 when this came out. My mom worked the night shift in an old hotel and in the summer I’d go to work with her. I’ve always been a night owl, so I’d stay up and must have watched this a dozen times that summer, usually alone between midnight and 4 AM. The only part that really bothered me was the clown. The skeleton monster at the top of the stairs was Tweetie. If you look at it closely, you can see it’s a bird. When the older daughter comes back from the hotel at the end of the night, she has a hickey. When we were looking at houses, my notes on the place we ended up getting were “creepy ass Poltergeist tree in the back yard.
My experience with the movie will be at the end. Her going up the wall is a simple, if expensive, trick. They just build a rotating room on a hydraulic whatsis (I know not words but concepts), fasten the lights and camera securely, call, “Action!” and JoBeth Williams screams and writhes as the room turns under her and the camera films it as though she’s the one moving. Same trick was used in the Lionel Richie video, “Dancing on the Ceiling,” which was inspired by Fred Astaire’s dance in “Royal Wedding” back in 1951. Seriously, things like this are the reason a lot of people groan about CGI taking over… not because it isn’t an amazing tool, but because the best results usually come from a blend of the two. See Jurassic Park for supporting evidence. Few movies have held up as well in the effects department as that film, because Spielberg took the knowledge of effects he used in films like Poltergeist and augmented it with the skills of folks who worked in CGI. So my experience with this movie was being, oh, maybe 11-12 years old when it came on HBO or Showtime or Cinemax, one of the three cable channels that came with a special “box” and allowed you to see The Movie Channels (not usually capitalized) with your shiny new cable tv subscription. I am about 1 year younger than the main characters (like El and Mike) of Stranger Things would be, to give you an idea of the time period. So like a lot of cable networks over the years, once they got permission to play a movie, they would run it into the ground, and we would watch it over and over before it got swapped out. Once VCRs got more common, we got ourselves quite a film collection. 😉 And yeah, it creeped me out, but I was so fascinated with it. Kids often do get fascinated with what scares them. But to this day, even while showing it to my teenager, I look away from the screen from when the steak starts erupting until the camera turns toward the staircase! Don’t care how old the effects are, my imagination loves to fill in the gaps. I do love that the boy wrecked the clown. That clown was asking for it. It’s one of those, “Look what Grandma sent you, honey! Isn’t that sweet of her?” toys. Ugh.
In my city the graveyard for those who lived and worked in the workhouse is now a car park (parking lot). The bodies are still there but no headstones to say who they were. If you don't know, a workhouse was a place where poor people who didn't have homes were given accommodation and work to do as a way of paying for their stay. (it sounds much nicer than it was)
There are 2 sequels to this movie. The actress playing the youngest daughter died before filming of the 3rd movie was completed if I remember correctly.
Moving cemeteries is not an uncommon practice. It's not an every-day kind of thing, but it's not as rare as you might think. However, it's typically done under very respectful circumstances, with religious guidance appropriate to to those interred there. But it has also happened in the past where headstones are moved and then construction done over the actual remains.
There were many haunting and "haunted house" movies before this, "The Amityville Horror" for one. To my knowledge, this is the first one to call the spirit a poltergeist though.
The 80s were a different time. lol. I couldn’t have been more than 10 years old the first time I saw Poltergeist. My parents never shied away from letting me see scary movies. Freaked me out! And had me keeping a close eye on the big old tree outside my window! Glad it still holds up for a younger audience! 🎃
The older daughter was killed by her ex before the film came out. The younger sister died after the second movie came out I believe. The older sister was the sister of Griffin Dunne who played Jack in An American Werewolf In London.
The imploding house was done by using a deconstructed model house connected by strings. The strings were pulled and the house pulled into toward a center point. It was pretty groundbreaking at the time.
And they put it on a vacuum cleaner and filmed it in slow motion. Someone who had to check the dailies and thought it was footage for E.T. thought "WTF was this?"
Good old flick! It has a bit of it ALL. It's got its spooky scenes, its harrowing scenes, its astounding scenes, its gross-out shock scenes, its warm sentimental moments, and funny moments. All the desired elements. A tad bombastic and overblown with the visual effects and the score at times (I think), but it's a Spielberg flick so THAT's to be expected. Oh, and if you want more 80s poltergeist action then try one called The Entity.
20:50 Relocating cemeteries for new housing happens A LOT!!! As he said it's kept out of the media. These are usually 150+ year old cemeteries without large headstones and there wouldn't be any living relatives to visit.
It's neat how foreshadowing is woven into portrayals of silly domestic life early on. The profound disrespect for the dead which turns out to be a pivotal plot point in the third act is shown early on in how they treat poor Tweety: Diane tries to flush him, Dana scoffs at Carol Anne's earnest prayer, Robbie casually suggests desecrating the corpse, and even E. Buzz tries to eat him. Finally, even Carol Anne instantly forgets about her beloved pet and asks for a goldfish. Then of course, the foreshadowing reaches its peak when the pool workers literally dig up the grave and fling it aside, just like Teague did when he built the neighborhood.
The scene where the mother is dragged up the walls is filmed the same way as the first kill in Nightmare on Elm Street; a stationary camera in a spinning room.
I remember when I was like 6 or 7 I went to my grandmother’s house and she was watching this movie and it traumatized me. I only recently went back and watched it
The pink gunk on them is ectoplasm or slime as they call it two years after this came out in Ghostbusters and is supposed to be a real phenomenon when dealing with the afterlife as it comes into contact with our physical reality.
hey V I know you did it a while ago but love the change in the shade of hqir. also creepy facts the young girl who played carol anne died tragically but also the girl who played dana (dominique dunne) was murdered by her boyfriend after filming this movie. he abused it is rumored you can see bruises on her neck in a scene in the end when she gets out of her friends car and screams. dont know how true that is but you can see what looks like hickies or bruises. RIP to both wonderful humans
Tbf, there are plenty of places in the world where bodies are left to decompose in a plot and later the remains are moved somewhere else (such as a communal grave) to make room for new people. If you think about it, keeping a grave plot in perpetuity for one person is kind of strange. The issue in this movie (plot-wise anyway) wasn't that they were "moving" the bodies, it was that they weren't actually moving them and just building over them.
I remember standing outside the theater waiting for the previous session to finish, you could hear everyone screaming in the theater and I looked at my step brother and we wondered what we were getting ourselves into. I was about 15 at the time.
You were more right than you know when you said, 'Those are real dead bodies?' Because it was cheaper, _real_ human remains were used for the pool sequence. Apparently, it was an unspoken trend amongst special fx people.
0:58 If you want to see another great movie about a haunting ALSO released in 1982 (3 months after this one) I highly recommend "The Entity" it's actually based on the 1974 case of Doris Bither, a woman who claimed to have been repeatedly sexually assaulted by an invisible assailant, and who underwent observation by doctoral students at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Early horror films, from Halloween to Jason and even Freddy, have bright and colorful scenes, yet the scares come through, and Poltergeist, along with Rosemary’s Baby, leads the way.
Imagine watching this movie on the exact type of TV in the film. when i saw this film in 82 our homes looked just like theirs, it happened in real time for us.
I loved this movie like you said today were so used to seeing horror movies that don't have a lot of effort. The one thing i appreciated about this movie was the effects.
I wouldn't say this was the first film to depict a haunting; Amityville Horror (1979), The Entity (1981), The Changeling (1979), 13 Ghosts (1960), The Haunting (1963)... All great spooky films worth watching BTW!
Most of Gen X's clown trauma started right here with this movie. And the voices of Carolanne and expert who gets her out are so perfectly haunting!! Yay for practical effects - I have never seen anything scarier than that mirror scene in all my life.
Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean rides also used real skeletons in their original incarnations because at the time nobody made good life size articulated props, so it was just easier and cheaper to buy real articulated human skeletons from medical schools and suppliers. It was only when suppliers started making good synthetic equivalents for use in medical schools that Disney replaced them.
This film terrified me as a child. I was a seven year old Catholic kid, raised to fear God. To this day my traumas haunt me. Even the mere mention of Poltergeist fills me with existential dread. Which is why Poltergeist is my all time favorite horror film. BTW, the actual house that this movie was filmed in is currently on the market for sale. I'm sure people are dying to get a look at it. ;)
There is a curse attributed to this movie. Four different actors from the 1980s horror franchise Poltergeist died within a 6-year span. Dominique Dunne was murdered. Julian Beck succumbed to stomach cancer. Will Sampson suffered from a degenerative disease. And Heather O’Rourke’s death at the age of 12, was deemed “distinctly unusual.”
@@joealvarez8733Nothing truly dies. Like a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, death only transforms into a different state of being - Taylor (Poltergeist II The Other Side)
The dad is the dad from The Incredibles! Such an iconic voice, can't ever unhear it :P or un see his face now haha but yeah this movie is amazingly done. Just the right amount of scary and wtf! Super eerie haha
Up until the late 90's, nearly every skeleton was real, whether in a classroom or a movie. The flesh however, is rubber. Fun fact. I was heading to a trade show with a vampire corpse made of a plastic skeleton which caused TSA to do a luggage search after seeing the xray. I got to utter the phrase "Be careful of the severed heads, they may still be damp." Once in a lifetime event.
It's my favourite horror movie ever: not haunted old mansions, not explicit gore (not entirely at least), not tons of blood, not mass killing, just a growing sensation of chill and tension inside your own house that rises up by moment. The American dream turned in the American nightmare.
While Spielberg was filming Raiders of the Lost Ark at the end of one day, he sat down to what he thought he was going to watch dailies of the film. The editor of Poltergeist sent him the film section of the house imploding. He freaked out and said “what the hell is this?“ before he realized what was going on.
Watch the 1970's 'The Hills Have Eyes'. Where it was filmed, our friends had a vacation lake house where i used to go where they had jet skis and motorcycles.
Craig T. Nelson, who played the father, absolutely knew the skeletons were real because he asked the crew why the bodies smelled so bad...there's a video somewhere where he recounts the conversation. It wasn't even unusual. The Goonies did it to some extent, and many older horror films such as The House on Haunted Hill did so as well. The setting was very much the point: to take a ghost story and put it in suburbia instead of an old, decrepit house on a hill. And all the actors who died (including one in the sequel) died AFTER this film was completed, from natural causes totally unrelated to the film, which doesn't stop people from making up silly stories.
The Twilight Zone episode "Little Girl Lost", about a girl who mysteriously vanishes in her room, but her parents can still hear her voice, may also have been an inspiration for this film...at least Richard Matheson, who wrote it, seemed to think so!
The actress who plays the older sister , is the Real Sister from the actor who was in the movie " American Werewolf In London " Jack. She was killed by her bf.
11:18 That awkward edit was because the Diane offered to go to Pizza Hut.. The Steven then said, "I hate Pizza Hut." Then they decided it may not be a good idea to offend such a big company. 13:29 The distorted voice effect is achieved by reversing the audio, adding an echo, and then reversing it again. 17:16 This red-headed actor was in the movie Network. She was on screen for 5 minutes and won a Best Acting Oscar. 18:14 Those are Steven Spielberg's hands. 19:02 For the answer to this question, look up the video "Eddie Murphy White people and Hauntings" 26:59 This creature was filmed in a large water tank 29:00 This house was a very expensive miniature; only one was made. It was sucked into a powerful vacuum while filmed with a high speed camera. It also had internal cables inside to make sure it fully collapsed on it's way. Enjoy some creepy laughs after the credits Poltergeist 2 is worth a watch. Poltergeist 3 is utter crap; notable only because Heather O'Rourke (Carole-Anne) passed on during filming.
The skeletons were real, but the rotting flesh was all fake. They were all specially cleaned and prepared, not just dug up out of the ground! They used real skeletons because bizarrely, they were cheaper to hire than replica plastic ones… and no, the cast was not aware until after. JoBeth Williams was not best pleased when she found out. And yes, the compositing of the “objects flying around the kids’ room” looks a little shaky to modern eyes, but it was the absolute state of the art for the time. The work that went in to making it look as good as it did was incredible, and I highly recommend reading up on it.
My parents and sister took me to see this in theaters when I was 8. It scared the shit out of me. They made me close and hide my eyes at the face peeling scene. My sister had seen it already and warned my parents about that scene, so they made sure I didn’t see it. That really didn’t matter because the entire premise of the movie and how it was done was terrifying to my little 8 year old brain lol
Yes mam Heather O'Rourke passed way not to long after Poltergeist 3, she passed out while at a table and they rushed her in and needed to correct an issue and passed away during that. Also Nov 4th 1982 was, very sad and heartbreaking day, Dominique Dunne passed away in her and her man's home from her partner beating her to death.
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"they are real bodies... there are real bodies!"
Yes. Real bodies during filming.
No way!!!
They was real
@@DPYROAXIS then there is the problem, lol
There's some debate about it, but some of the crew did testify under oath that they used real skeletons. However, they were not bodies exactly - they were bleached and completely clean skeletons, and they added a bunch of stuff to them to make them look like they were decaying corpses.
@flingonber still pretty bad taste in my opinion. That's why I'm being cremated.
The use of "practical effects" is an understatement.
A very early film in the Industrial Light & Magic stable.
It’s sad that both daughters in this film passed away. Steven Spielberg used his own childhood fears for the son Robbie. He was terrified of a tree outside his window and clowns
Dominique Dunn didn't just "pass away." She was brutally murdered by her ex boyfriend. And from what I read, he only served a couple of years, or some bs like that. Griffin Dunn is her brother who starred in several movies including An American Werewolf in London.
I heard the murderer became a chef in Colorado
@@SurvivorBriYeah, I would never say Heather’s death wasn’t tragic, because she suffered from a painful condition and died so young. But Dominique’s death is the stuff of nightmares and it sounds like the consequences were disgracefully insufficient. Some crimes are so grotesque and so telling that I can’t imagine letting the culprit breathe another breath as a free person. How could anyone trust a man loose, who murdered his own partner with his bare hands?
Correction: apparently the killer changed his name to John Maura and last known to being working as a General manager for food and beverage dept of a retirement community in San Rafael, CA
I don’t get it. I just don’t find clowns to be scary. From “IT” to Art the clown. Just nothing scary about clowns.
I think that Chewbacca face was scarier.
"There's no gore in this movie, right?"
Bathroom mirror chuckles
So, it's like Innerspace and has one gore scene?
I love watching a classic through a modern lens and with someone who wasn’t born when the movie came out. I love the perspective!
One of the workers digging out the backyard for the swimmingpool, is Billy (Sonny Landham) from Predator.
The guy even Arnold was a bit afraid of as he supposedly had some temper problems.
@@raggarbergman Yeah, a known side effect of using anabolic steroids, which most bodybuilders did back then.
Sonny had a bodyguard on Predator to protect the rest of the cast from him.😁
You know I've watched this film and Predator countless times in my life and that only just clicked when I read your comment.
@@raggarbergmanBull. Arnold wasn’t afraid of him. They just assigned a bodyguard to Sonny for insurance purposes.
Back when all the tv stations went off the air by 12am until the next morning. I don't miss that. 😂
The oldest daughter is the one who was murdered after filming this movie. The youngest was in the sequels before she passed away at 12.
Yeah, the TV static was always creepy… then this movie came out and Spielberg was clearly just building on the feeling of unease that static caused in all of us. Clever, tbh. That’s why this “family friendly” scary movie is genuinely unsettling. Not sure it should have been considered family friendly, but it was seen that way. I mean, not young kids but still. They were fine with us tweens seeing it.
Yep I remember when you were lucky to have 2-3 good VHF channels and they went off the air after the late night news until 5-6am.
TV stations went off at 12 AM at the height of the early '90s. In the '80s tv stations went off at 10:00 PM, so in this movie is safe to assume the tv is off at 10:00 PM, not at 12 AM.
One thing I love about this movie is that it doesn't follow the usual "wife see creepy shit and the husband doesn't belive her because he doesn't." Love that the ghosts were pretty much open with that theyt were there to all of the family members. :)
And how they filmed when Diane litterary climbed on the walls was that they built a set piece they could rotate and placed a camera in it. So when they rotated it , it looked like she dified gravity. Her flashing was apparantly not planned though. :)
Man, maybe the flashing wasn’t planned but I dunno how they thought that was gonna turn out! It’s a great effect, though.
And yeah, Spielberg always had that down to earth, real people reaction quality back in the day, instead of dumb, unlikely tropes. It defined film of the time. Close Encounters and Jaws both had that feel to them. You can still relate to the characters because they’re just… people. People in crazy situations. I love that.
The film is said to be cursed as one of the actresses, Dominique Dunne, Dana, was strangled by her ex-boyfriend in September 1982 and died at age 22.
Heather O'Rourke, Carol Anne, passed away in January 1988 at 12 as she had stenosis in her stomach caused by Crohn's Disease. POLTERGEIST III was the last film she had made.
A stage light fell off the roof of the soundstage and nearly killed both producer Steven Spielberg and Jobeth Williams after they got out of the swimming pool, and if they hadn't got out in 10 seconds t, they would have been killed
Most of the skeletons in the swimming pool scene were 100% real as they were used for medical services and schools and hospitals. There were even rumors that most of the skeletons came from cemeteries.
The film was nominated for 3 Oscars
Best Visual Effects, Best Original Score, and Best Sound Editing, but lost all to ET, THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL.
In Poltergeist (1982), there is a poster on the children's bedroom wall for the 1988 Superbowl XXII. In an eerie and tragic coincidence, on the day of Supebowl XXII, actress Heather O'Rourke (Carol Anne) suddenly fell ill, and died the following day of septic shock due to intestinal stenosis.
And for those who believe in the curse say the skeletons are the cause as the spirits were not happy regarding of how their bones were used.
There are also two deaths from the sequals also blamed on the curse.
@@raggarbergman there is one death that should be omitted from “curse” because the one Actor knew he was dying of cancer *before* he even took the role.
@@emanymton713 True. And to be honest you can see that he was dying to when you know it.
@kylereese4822 what's the significance of 4822? Shouldn't it be DN38416? 😀
People remark on how audiences reacted to "The Exorcist" and "Jaws" (fainting, vomiting, running out of the theater, etc.), but I can attest that "Poltergeist" was also freaking people out it 1982. I remember my parents were literally shaking with fear, there were people in the audience crying, etc. I was 12-13 at the time and I don't think I got a good night's sleep for about a week.
Totally! This thing terrorized me - mostly because of that flippin' tree! Had one outside my window and never slept right again while we lived there XD
@@otterpoetsame. The clown is what scared most of my friends. But the tree trying to 'eat' Robbie did it for me. Had a tree outside my bedroom window that freaked me out after seeing this movie as an 8 year old.
Parents took me to see it when I was 8….nightmares followed.
As a 25 year old im curious, were people back then scared of these movies (poltergeist, jaws, exorcist, etc) because it wasnt topics that were talked about in the social norm, or because people never saw movies like that. Personally, i think i grew up desensitized to horror movies and my personal paranormal experiences so nothing really scares me when it comes to movies, so id like to hear from those who experienced the mentioned movies in their hayday.
@@killerr721 as I said above, I was 8 when my parents took me to see it in theaters, scared the shit out of me and gave me nightmares. Scared my mom too if I remember correctly. Pre-internet there wasn’t a lot about paranormal stuff to be had unless you went to the library and specifically researched it. It’s crazy to think now, but we were just a lot more….ignorant? It sounds bad but I don’t mean it in a bad way, we just didn’t have access to the kind of information available now nor the means to access it other than on paper in a library. So I don’t know if it was because it was so out of the norm, or just the thought of something intangible being able to screw with you so much.
Saw this when it first opened, in a full theater. The scene where the technician begins ripping his own face off caused the audience to shriek wildly for quite a long time until it ended. I've never heard an audience react that way since.
My heart just melted when Carol Ann opened her eyes and whispered "Hi daddy.". 😢😄
"Poltergiest" is indeed one of the finest horror classics for sure. And it was also the only horror movie that made me cry. I think it might be the film's theme song that was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, or the part that the daughter was taken into another plane of existence. Or maybe both.😢
The black Hope Horror is the inspiration and the TRUE story behind the movie Poltergeist. The Black Hope Horror happened in Crosby, Texas and just like in the movie it served as a new location for future homes. However, there was one major problem with the location this subdivision was located at. The subdivision was built over a cemetery that was supposed to be located in another area. The people who had commissioned the project said they moved the bodies and the headstones, but that wasn’t the case. Families ended up moving in and that’s when the real problems started to happen. People started noticing their homes come with more than they bargained for, eventually, the truth came out and all hell broke loose. There is a book on what happened to one family that will give you sleepless nights.
"Poltergeist", isn't about an actual poltergeist, it drew inspiration from real-life events. The "Popper Poltergeist" plagued the Hermann family in 1958.
It's based on various baseless claims. It would be like saying independence day is inspired by morons who claim they were anal probed.
It might give me sleepless nights if I thought for a minute that it was actually true. I expect it's about as true as Amityville...i.e. not at all, but profitable for the family.
The scene where the mom was being moved up the walls and ceiling were done by building a rotating room and keeping the camera still.
Called a gimbal
Camera moves with the rotation, if it didn’t then the wall would become the floor from the cameras perspective. The camera has to move with the room to maintain the illusion of up still being up.
@clonexx
I think they meant the camera stays still at the pivot point. It doesn't move around in the room. Although, as you said, it rotates or pivots in the room
@ Possible, for sure. How it’s written just sounds like the camera would be stationary and not spinning with the room. But obviously the camera has to be steady or the shot would look pretty janky heh
It was originally filmed with nasty black tentacle-like goo on the ceiling. For some reason they decided to redo it with a clean ceiling.
I’m so glad you liked it. I grew up with this movie. It’s strangely realistic. This is one of the most realistic portrayals of a family I’ve ever seen in a movie. And I also love the way that they portrayed marijuana use not as some horrible thing, but as something that in moderation even a very successful loving family can use it. And this was in the 80s, all of it very realistic. Thanks for the entertainment.
Well the skeletons were real - because real ones are cheaper to buy than realistic fake ones - but they were hardly "corpses". The clothes and any flesh you might think you see were all added by the effects team. Real skeletons are very thoroughly cleaned and disinfected before being made available to colleges and universities as teaching tools, they aren't just dug up out of the ground. The actors didn't know though so that's true.
Mr. James Karen is not only responsible for moving the cemetery, but leaving the bodies, but he's also responsible for a Zombie outbreak
I was a freshman in high school when this came out. I'm pretty sure I screamed when the clown attacked Robbie. I was shaking for over half an hour after the movie ended. The big screen makes it so much more frightening!
Poltergeist is based in Questa Verde, a fictional town in the Simi Valley of California
Dominique Dunne’s situation was so tragic. She was in an abusive relationship and he murdered her. Prior to that, she guest starred on an 80’s show called Hill Street Blues, playing a domestic violence victim. Her bruises and injuries seen on screen were real and used for the episode. The images can be found online.
They were like "It sucks that your boyfriend beats you but hey, since you already have the bruises, let's use it"? lol. Sounds like BS to me. Abuse victims usually go to great lengths to hide their abuse.
I really love this movie. 100% agree on how the family dynamic really makes the film. Also, for me personally, I love the late 70s, early 80s, Spielberg era. It brings me back to my childhood. So oddly enough this film is always really comforting to me lol.
Poltergeist is definitely a Horror classic with a great cast and have
an awesome Saturday Vicky.📺 👻Their Here👻💻
My mom took me to see this in theaters when I was FOUR. On the one hand it sparked a lifetime love of horror films that persists to this day; but on the other hand, very few films actually scare me anymore. I love the “Sometimes spooky happens, and can’t be rationed with or dealt with in any way” paranormal horror aspects of the movie, which is sadly kinda rare for the genre.
Poltergeist 2, when u meet Reverand Kane, is also good.
26:32 The whole room and camera rotate. The technique was used before with Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling in Royal Wedding and Lionel Richie's music video "Dancing on the Ceiling".
I fell in love with horror in the 2nd grade when the video for Michael Jackson's Thriller came out. Poltergeist was one of the first horror films I saw. I remember imagining the ripped face man coming to me while I slept and ripping my face off. I loved film so much that I became an actor. I had the honor an privilege of being in a film with James Karen, who played Steven's boss in this film. I also almost got the opportunity to work with Ola Ray who played Michael Jackson's girlfriend in the Thriller video, but she had to pull out of the project due to a family emergency. James Karen also is in one of my favorite zombie films, Return Of The Living Dead. I think you'll like that one.
Both times the Skull ghoul popped out as a giant head and then as large torso with a stretched out face, I was like "I didn't know this movie was a rollercoaster!". 💗💗💗💗
I still don't know how they got a PERMIT to build a SWIMMING POOL over a GRAVEYARD.
Edit: to DIG a SWIMMING POOL
I had heard that the puppet used for the closet demon was actually the first design (deemed “too scary for a horror comedy“) for the librarian demon at the beginning of Ghostbusters.
The EFFECTS in THIS movie are actually a combination of BOTH practical (physical) and optical (like at 8:34, 8:43, 12:27, 12:37, 18:51, 19:16, 19:23, 23:25, 27:01, and 28:58). No, they really didn't have cgI back when this movie was made, but there were OTHER OPTICAL techniques. I would say that the PHYSICAL effects in this movie still look great! Not so much the OPTICAL ones though.
Can you imagine being the therapist Robbie will eventually go to, and hear him tell how a tree tried to eat him and his sister being sucked into a TV? I suspect, in his later years, Robbie would be committed to a mental hospital. At the time this movie was being filmed, Speilberg was filming ET, and in his contract, he could not be involved in 2 movies at the same time, to get around that, he is only credited with the production in Poltergeist.
Or maybe he and/or Carole Anne become very successful occult investigators, like in The Conjuring! Don't forget, the paranormal team got some things on tape, probably more than we saw (they'd have been crazy not to take advantage of the roomful of madness and had plenty of time to do so), so there's definitely proof all this went down, to say nothing of all the witnesses who saw the house get pulled into another dimension!
@@HandofOmega Possibly, but, being traumatized like that as a child, I would tend to think they needed mental health therapy.
Absolutely love that you think the film has reached it's climax when they get their daughter back but something doesn't feel right and then it really goes crazy with the actual finale.
My uncle took my cousin and I to see this when it came out in theaters, we were like eight or nine years old. I had nightmares about that tree for years.
The coolest thing about these movies was recapping them for your buddies at school the next day, cause A LOT of them were not allowed to watch this kind of movie and it's not like you could see things online (hell a lot didn't even have a vcr at home), so the only way they had to be exposed to horror was to hear the recaps of those with less responsible parents.
A good recommendation of a hunting place would be The Shining (1980) 😊
The Shining was released in 1980.
@ my bad I put the wrong number
I was wondering if you would recognize the father. He voiced Mr. Incredible. But yeah, classic movie. One of the great examples of how they used practical effects to create such a masterpiece. Movies just aren't made like this anymore.
Poltergeist 3 is also wild, probably my favorite of the series. A good architectural horror vibe with that one as well.
Poltergeist was based on a paranormal event called " the black hope curse" . Unsolved Mysteries did an investigation of their own as well.
"Poltergeist", isn't about an actual poltergeist, it drew inspiration from real-life events. The "Popper Poltergeist" plagued the Hermann family in 1958.
@kylereese4822 yes I know what a poltergeist is. It's a german word when translated into english means " noisy ghost or noisy spirit." It's just what steven spielberg decided to name the movie.
I finally watched this movie a couple years ago and it has become one of my favorite horror films. I love how light hearted it is while being so dark at the same time. Also the "this house is clean" line always reminds me of Ace Ventura and gives me a chuckle.
This movie was released the year I was born, but I didn't see it until I was in high school. I'm grateful for that, as I enjoyed the movie at that age. I would have been traumatized if I had seen it when I was younger. Spielberg produced the movie, but he couldn't direct it due to the fact that he was busy directing E.T., which was being filmed at the same time. VERY ironically, the filmmakers' motive for using real skeletons as props in this movie (and it was only the bones that were real, the rest was practical effects) was the same motive that led the dad's boss in the film to do what he did: greed! At the time, it was substantially cheaper to use real human skeletons (which they had imported from India, IIRC) than it was to make or purchase imitation ones. You are absolutely right that the cast was unaware that the skeletons were real at the time of the filming. JoBeth Williams (who played Diane) was especially upset when she found out she had been in a water tank with actual human skeletons when filming the swimming pool scene during the film's climax. The scene where Diane was literally being "driven up the wall" and across the ceiling was done by using a rotating set. The monster that appeared outside the children's bedroom door was a miniature filmed in a fish tank full of water, which gave it that eerie floating effect.
I was 12 when this came out. My mom worked the night shift in an old hotel and in the summer I’d go to work with her. I’ve always been a night owl, so I’d stay up and must have watched this a dozen times that summer, usually alone between midnight and 4 AM. The only part that really bothered me was the clown.
The skeleton monster at the top of the stairs was Tweetie. If you look at it closely, you can see it’s a bird.
When the older daughter comes back from the hotel at the end of the night, she has a hickey.
When we were looking at houses, my notes on the place we ended up getting were “creepy ass Poltergeist tree in the back yard.
My experience with the movie will be at the end.
Her going up the wall is a simple, if expensive, trick. They just build a rotating room on a hydraulic whatsis (I know not words but concepts), fasten the lights and camera securely, call, “Action!” and JoBeth Williams screams and writhes as the room turns under her and the camera films it as though she’s the one moving. Same trick was used in the Lionel Richie video, “Dancing on the Ceiling,” which was inspired by Fred Astaire’s dance in “Royal Wedding” back in 1951.
Seriously, things like this are the reason a lot of people groan about CGI taking over… not because it isn’t an amazing tool, but because the best results usually come from a blend of the two. See Jurassic Park for supporting evidence. Few movies have held up as well in the effects department as that film, because Spielberg took the knowledge of effects he used in films like Poltergeist and augmented it with the skills of folks who worked in CGI.
So my experience with this movie was being, oh, maybe 11-12 years old when it came on HBO or Showtime or Cinemax, one of the three cable channels that came with a special “box” and allowed you to see The Movie Channels (not usually capitalized) with your shiny new cable tv subscription. I am about 1 year younger than the main characters (like El and Mike) of Stranger Things would be, to give you an idea of the time period. So like a lot of cable networks over the years, once they got permission to play a movie, they would run it into the ground, and we would watch it over and over before it got swapped out. Once VCRs got more common, we got ourselves quite a film collection. 😉
And yeah, it creeped me out, but I was so fascinated with it. Kids often do get fascinated with what scares them. But to this day, even while showing it to my teenager, I look away from the screen from when the steak starts erupting until the camera turns toward the staircase! Don’t care how old the effects are, my imagination loves to fill in the gaps.
I do love that the boy wrecked the clown. That clown was asking for it. It’s one of those, “Look what Grandma sent you, honey! Isn’t that sweet of her?” toys. Ugh.
In my city the graveyard for those who lived and worked in the workhouse is now a car park (parking lot). The bodies are still there but no headstones to say who they were.
If you don't know, a workhouse was a place where poor people who didn't have homes were given accommodation and work to do as a way of paying for their stay. (it sounds much nicer than it was)
There are 2 sequels to this movie. The actress playing the youngest daughter died before filming of the 3rd movie was completed if I remember correctly.
I think that's why a bunch of scenes were filmed just showing the back of her head for a bunch of shots.
@@daveb947 That's exactly why, yes.
One of the few movies, that can manage to give me chills, after many many watchings...
Moving cemeteries is not an uncommon practice. It's not an every-day kind of thing, but it's not as rare as you might think. However, it's typically done under very respectful circumstances, with religious guidance appropriate to to those interred there. But it has also happened in the past where headstones are moved and then construction done over the actual remains.
There were many haunting and "haunted house" movies before this, "The Amityville Horror" for one. To my knowledge, this is the first one to call the spirit a poltergeist though.
Nope. 'The Haunting '
4:04 Spielberg PRODUCTION of a Tobe Hooper film
Rumors spread that Spielberg basically directed it too because Tobe Hooper was incompetent.
Let's face it. It's a Spielberg movie 😅. Or at least 50/50
@@clarkness77 would you say the same of the Richard Donner directed movie The Goonies?
Hard to say cuz I never got into goonies. But every shot in poltergeist feels like pure Spielberg theres no denying it
The 80s were a different time. lol. I couldn’t have been more than 10 years old the first time I saw Poltergeist. My parents never shied away from letting me see scary movies. Freaked me out! And had me keeping a close eye on the big old tree outside my window! Glad it still holds up for a younger audience! 🎃
The older daughter was killed by her ex before the film came out. The younger sister died after the second movie came out I believe. The older sister was the sister of Griffin Dunne who played Jack in An American Werewolf In London.
She died while filming part 3
A great series of films.. Btw one of the dad's latest best known roles is voicing the dad in Pixar's "The Incredibles".
For seasoned citizens, he's known from Coach.
@@bryanb3352 I remember that too yep!
I can't be the only one who loves that her upper lip is just a line. ❤ A very narrow line.
Tobe Hooper who did Texas Chainsaw. Absolutely drips with Spielberg's influence though.
This was released in US theatres as a PG !
The eerie Atmosphere of Film is still unmatched by anything up until today
The imploding house was done by using a deconstructed model house connected by strings. The strings were pulled and the house pulled into toward a center point. It was pretty groundbreaking at the time.
And they put it on a vacuum cleaner and filmed it in slow motion.
Someone who had to check the dailies and thought it was footage for E.T. thought "WTF was this?"
Good old flick! It has a bit of it ALL. It's got its spooky scenes, its harrowing scenes, its astounding scenes, its gross-out shock scenes, its warm sentimental moments, and funny moments. All the desired elements. A tad bombastic and overblown with the visual effects and the score at times (I think), but it's a Spielberg flick so THAT's to be expected. Oh, and if you want more 80s poltergeist action then try one called The Entity.
20:50 Relocating cemeteries for new housing happens A LOT!!! As he said it's kept out of the media. These are usually 150+ year old cemeteries without large headstones and there wouldn't be any living relatives to visit.
It's neat how foreshadowing is woven into portrayals of silly domestic life early on. The profound disrespect for the dead which turns out to be a pivotal plot point in the third act is shown early on in how they treat poor Tweety: Diane tries to flush him, Dana scoffs at Carol Anne's earnest prayer, Robbie casually suggests desecrating the corpse, and even E. Buzz tries to eat him. Finally, even Carol Anne instantly forgets about her beloved pet and asks for a goldfish. Then of course, the foreshadowing reaches its peak when the pool workers literally dig up the grave and fling it aside, just like Teague did when he built the neighborhood.
JoBeth Williams permanently found her way to the GOATed mother hall of fame with this one. She's amazing in this.
The scene where the mother is dragged up the walls is filmed the same way as the first kill in Nightmare on Elm Street; a stationary camera in a spinning room.
I remember when I was like 6 or 7 I went to my grandmother’s house and she was watching this movie and it traumatized me. I only recently went back and watched it
The pink gunk on them is ectoplasm or slime as they call it two years after this came out in Ghostbusters and is supposed to be a real phenomenon when dealing with the afterlife as it comes into contact with our physical reality.
hey V I know you did it a while ago but love the change in the shade of hqir. also creepy facts the young girl who played carol anne died tragically but also the girl who played dana (dominique dunne) was murdered by her boyfriend after filming this movie. he abused it is rumored you can see bruises on her neck in a scene in the end when she gets out of her friends car and screams. dont know how true that is but you can see what looks like hickies or bruises. RIP to both wonderful humans
Tbf, there are plenty of places in the world where bodies are left to decompose in a plot and later the remains are moved somewhere else (such as a communal grave) to make room for new people. If you think about it, keeping a grave plot in perpetuity for one person is kind of strange.
The issue in this movie (plot-wise anyway) wasn't that they were "moving" the bodies, it was that they weren't actually moving them and just building over them.
I remember standing outside the theater waiting for the previous session to finish, you could hear everyone screaming in the theater and I looked at my step brother and we wondered what we were getting ourselves into. I was about 15 at the time.
You were more right than you know when you said, 'Those are real dead bodies?' Because it was cheaper, _real_ human remains were used for the pool sequence. Apparently, it was an unspoken trend amongst special fx people.
The cast didn't know until afterwards. Reportedly, it didn't go down well.
0:58 If you want to see another great movie about a haunting ALSO released in 1982 (3 months after this one) I highly recommend "The Entity" it's actually based on the 1974 case of Doris Bither, a woman who claimed to have been repeatedly sexually assaulted by an invisible assailant, and who underwent observation by doctoral students at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Early horror films, from Halloween to Jason and even Freddy, have bright and colorful scenes, yet the scares come through, and Poltergeist, along with Rosemary’s Baby, leads the way.
Imagine watching this movie on the exact type of TV in the film. when i saw this film in 82 our homes looked just like theirs, it happened in real time for us.
I loved this movie like you said today were so used to seeing horror movies that don't have a lot of effort. The one thing i appreciated about this movie was the effects.
I wouldn't say this was the first film to depict a haunting; Amityville Horror (1979), The Entity (1981), The Changeling (1979), 13 Ghosts (1960), The Haunting (1963)... All great spooky films worth watching BTW!
Most of Gen X's clown trauma started right here with this movie. And the voices of Carolanne and expert who gets her out are so perfectly haunting!! Yay for practical effects - I have never seen anything scarier than that mirror scene in all my life.
Weird fact, Hollywood has used real skeletons in movies before. It was apparently cheaper to do so.
Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean rides also used real skeletons in their original incarnations because at the time nobody made good life size articulated props, so it was just easier and cheaper to buy real articulated human skeletons from medical schools and suppliers. It was only when suppliers started making good synthetic equivalents for use in medical schools that Disney replaced them.
This film terrified me as a child. I was a seven year old Catholic kid, raised to fear God. To this day my traumas haunt me. Even the mere mention of Poltergeist fills me with existential dread. Which is why Poltergeist is my all time favorite horror film.
BTW, the actual house that this movie was filmed in is currently on the market for sale. I'm sure people are dying to get a look at it. ;)
Dude I just woke up and I already see this reaction come outta nowhere. That’s crazy!
One of the few horror movies where none of the characters die.
Except for the creepy clown. RIP Clown.
True, but sadly the two girls died IRL.
There is a curse attributed to this movie. Four different actors from the 1980s horror franchise Poltergeist died within a 6-year span. Dominique Dunne was murdered. Julian Beck succumbed to stomach cancer. Will Sampson suffered from a degenerative disease. And Heather O’Rourke’s death at the age of 12, was deemed “distinctly unusual.”
Everyone dies, my dude...it's the one thing we all have in common
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
@joealvarez8733 wow, you're quite the philosopher
@@joealvarez8733Nothing truly dies. Like a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, death only transforms into a different state of being - Taylor (Poltergeist II The Other Side)
The dad is the dad from The Incredibles! Such an iconic voice, can't ever unhear it :P or un see his face now haha but yeah this movie is amazingly done. Just the right amount of scary and wtf! Super eerie haha
Up until the late 90's, nearly every skeleton was real, whether in a classroom or a movie. The flesh however, is rubber. Fun fact. I was heading to a trade show with a vampire corpse made of a plastic skeleton which caused TSA to do a luggage search after seeing the xray. I got to utter the phrase "Be careful of the severed heads, they may still be damp." Once in a lifetime event.
It's my favourite horror movie ever: not haunted old mansions, not explicit gore (not entirely at least), not tons of blood, not mass killing, just a growing sensation of chill and tension inside your own house that rises up by moment. The American dream turned in the American nightmare.
the dog is the best part taking the bag of chips from the oldest daughter
While Spielberg was filming Raiders of the Lost Ark at the end of one day, he sat down to what he thought he was going to watch dailies of the film. The editor of Poltergeist sent him the film section of the house imploding. He freaked out and said “what the hell is this?“ before he realized what was going on.
One fact about one of the actors the older sister, was strangled to death in real life. She was only 22 years old born in 1959.
This is my favorite "scary movie". I don't even know how many times I've watched it. It's a classic.
Jaws, The Exorcist and this movie, the 70ties and the 80ties made real Classic movies with grime and effects. And the results are top notch.
My mom and I watched this when I was a child. Somehow, we expected some supernatural slapstick comedy, but what we got was supernatural horror.
Watch the 1970's 'The Hills Have Eyes'. Where it was filmed, our friends had a vacation lake house where i used to go where they had jet skis and motorcycles.
I've become so hopelessly nostalgic these days that I actually miss seeing static on a TV.
Craig T. Nelson, who played the father, absolutely knew the skeletons were real because he asked the crew why the bodies smelled so bad...there's a video somewhere where he recounts the conversation. It wasn't even unusual. The Goonies did it to some extent, and many older horror films such as The House on Haunted Hill did so as well. The setting was very much the point: to take a ghost story and put it in suburbia instead of an old, decrepit house on a hill. And all the actors who died (including one in the sequel) died AFTER this film was completed, from natural causes totally unrelated to the film, which doesn't stop people from making up silly stories.
The Twilight Zone episode "Little Girl Lost", about a girl who mysteriously vanishes in her room, but her parents can still hear her voice, may also have been an inspiration for this film...at least Richard Matheson, who wrote it, seemed to think so!
The actress who plays the older sister , is the Real Sister from the actor who was in the movie " American Werewolf In London " Jack. She was killed by her bf.
11:18 That awkward edit was because the Diane offered to go to Pizza Hut.. The Steven then said, "I hate Pizza Hut." Then they decided it may not be a good idea to offend such a big company.
13:29 The distorted voice effect is achieved by reversing the audio, adding an echo, and then reversing it again.
17:16 This red-headed actor was in the movie Network. She was on screen for 5 minutes and won a Best Acting Oscar.
18:14 Those are Steven Spielberg's hands.
19:02 For the answer to this question, look up the video "Eddie Murphy White people and Hauntings"
26:59 This creature was filmed in a large water tank
29:00 This house was a very expensive miniature; only one was made. It was sucked into a powerful vacuum while filmed with a high speed camera. It also had internal cables inside to make sure it fully collapsed on it's way.
Enjoy some creepy laughs after the credits
Poltergeist 2 is worth a watch. Poltergeist 3 is utter crap; notable only because Heather O'Rourke (Carole-Anne) passed on during filming.
They're here.
1982 was one of the best years ever!
The skeletons were real, but the rotting flesh was all fake. They were all specially cleaned and prepared, not just dug up out of the ground! They used real skeletons because bizarrely, they were cheaper to hire than replica plastic ones… and no, the cast was not aware until after. JoBeth Williams was not best pleased when she found out.
And yes, the compositing of the “objects flying around the kids’ room” looks a little shaky to modern eyes, but it was the absolute state of the art for the time. The work that went in to making it look as good as it did was incredible, and I highly recommend reading up on it.
The stuff on Robby's face is ectoplasm.
Clearly a ghostbusters moment lol same thing at the end when they come back from the other side.
Spielberg terrified us with this movie and in the same year charmed us with E.T.
This and Jaws were both rated PG when they were released. Gen X says “hi, and you’re welcome.”
My parents and sister took me to see this in theaters when I was 8. It scared the shit out of me. They made me close and hide my eyes at the face peeling scene. My sister had seen it already and warned my parents about that scene, so they made sure I didn’t see it. That really didn’t matter because the entire premise of the movie and how it was done was terrifying to my little 8 year old brain lol
Yes mam Heather O'Rourke passed way not to long after Poltergeist 3, she passed out while at a table and they rushed her in and needed to correct an issue and passed away during that. Also Nov 4th 1982 was, very sad and heartbreaking day, Dominique Dunne passed away in her and her man's home from her partner beating her to death.