Slideshow
POLTERGEIST
U.S., 1982
Directed by Tobe Hooper
With JoBeth Williams, Craig T. Nelson, Beatrice Straight, Dominique Dunne, James Karen
Written by Steven Spielberg, Michael Grais, Mark Victor
Approx. 114 mins. DCP.
“The story takes place in a new suburban housing estate in California, a classic Spielbergian habitat of kids Edenically riding around on their bikes, making mischief with their remote-control toy racing cars. Steve Freeling, played by Craig T. Nelson — later to be the voice of Mr. Incredible — is an employee of the property company that has been putting up these homes on the site of a former 19th-century settlement. He has evidently been rewarded with living in one of these state-of-the-art houses. Go-getting salaryman Steve is bit of a Ronald Reagan fan (he’s seen reading the president’s biography in an early scene). His fresh-faced wife, Diane, played by the excellent JoBeth Williams, has maybe has more of a Carter-era hippyish background, and is seen smoking a joint while the couple loll around on the marital bed. (Post-coitally?) They have a smartmouthed teen daughter Dana (Dunne), a younger son Robbie (Oliver Robins) and a blonde-haired angelic infant daughter Carol Anne (O’Rourke). It is young Carol Anne who is to sense something strange in the TV which (in that distant broadcasting era) stops transmitting after the national anthem is played last thing at night and the screen goes to a fuzzy white noise. Reassuring patriotism is replaced by evil. Approaching the TV screen, putting her face right up close to the set, she senses something there, something which only she can see and which invades their happy home.” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
Reviews
“After a quarter-century, POLTERGEIST remains one of the most popular movies whose reputation rests almost exclusively on behind-the-scenes diversions.”
– Eric Henderson, Slant Magazine
“[It] raises interesting psychological issues in the context of a baroque ghost story. It's a devastating commentary on the tv-oriented suburban lifestyle. Finally, it demonstrates the power and efficacy of the story told from the child's point of view.”
– Bruce McCabe, Boston Globe