Poltergeist (1982)
This film series has a laundry list of history. If you are ignorant of the "curse" or why this trilogy has such a taboo feeling attached to it, I would recommend watching the series Cursed Films. It is a Sudder series. If you have Prime Video, you can easily add the Sudder expansion for just $4.99 a month. However, you get a free 7-day trial through the Prime add-on. Therefore, you can just activate it, find the show, watch episode two, then cancel. The series is only five episodes at the moment. However, I found this to give a great background on the "curse" of Poltergeist.
On to the film, is it really a poltergeist haunting we watch unfold? That is hard to say. This type of haunting is, by far, the rarest. Not much is known about it because of its rarity. There's a lot of speculation on what it is, such as children's spirits, vengeful spirits, a community of angry spirits, etc. The standard definition you're going to find is "noisy ghosts." But, aren't the majority of hauntings noisy? Poltergeist hauntings also seem to work as they haunt a particular person or set of people, such as a family or roommates (meme: and they were roommates). So, they seem somewhat similar to demonic hauntings in that sense. They are attached to some living being. The issue is "experts" can't agree on what makes a poltergeist a poltergeist, so who knows if we do see this haunting here. But, it's a fair shot at it.
In the movie, the neighborhood was built on top of a cemetery. The company conveniently only moved the headstones. The film alludes to this in the middle when Lewis talks to Steve about the plans for a new home to be built for him and his family. The company is also going to "relocate" that cemetery. So, yes. Rather disrespectful to the dead and their resting place. I understand the mass anger. However, why this family? Because Carol Ann let the spirits in? Does their house conveniently have a portal or vortex? Some very unclear aspects as to why only this family and their home but no one else's. Some believe that a living person, in this case, would be Carol Ann, unknowingly controls all the spirits. However, why her and not Ben's kids next door?
Poltergeists are also terrifying as they slowly grow in intensity over time, though most come and go quickly from cases that have been studied. The pacing in the film is incredible. We jumped right into it, and it never lets up. However, when you sit down and take it in, the haunting does start out very slow and very passive then turns into a monster and a half despite the decent pacing.
One poltergeist story you may know, the Conjuring series picked up on. The Hodgson family is one of the most notorious "real" poltergeist accounts. However, the film leans it more toward a demonic presence instead. The case has a lot of controversies, including the two girls faking much of the haunting. However, it isn't easy to find another well-known example to share. Please share if you have any.
We watch as some other dimension takes over once it goes full-swing. If you are familiar with the trilogy, you know when Tangina claims, "this house is clean" was bullshit. Whatever it was, taking Carol Ann out of the dimension after she leads those tortured souls to freedom just makes it more pissed off. Like the living, the dead don't seem to be happy when they don't get their way either. It is hard to say if this entity wanted the kids because they are easy targets, and it can hide itself for their living auras or because it wanted more power. Either way, it knew the family's fears hence the point of clearing your mind. Most malevolent energies feed off fear. Therefore, when trying to expel it, you must be in a clear headspace.
We don't get a happily ever after ending either. The family decided to move, but the home is swallowed into the other dimension, in the end, and that part of the neighborhood gets a little fucked up, to say the least. They are also not free from the presence. However, rolling the TV out of the motel room in the rain was a light and humorous note to end this one.
Despite the fact the haunting is very rare and seemingly unknown for what classifies it as such, the film was excellent in capitalizing on what could be a poltergeist haunting—a portal to the other dimension—the one right next door to the living.
I don't believe in the Poltergeist movie/trilogy curse, but there is one aspect of the behind-the-scenes production lore that creeps me waaaaaay the freak out. The clown doll almost killed Robbie! Or rather, the clown doll almost killed Oliver Robins, the child actor who played Robbie Freeling. According to the x-ray commentary on Amazon Prime, Hooper and Spielberg just thought the kid was doing a great job acting until they noticed his face was turning purple. Ugh. There's a logical explanation, of course. The doll was mechanized and there was a glitch or design flaw .... Nope! Clown dolls are evil. End of story.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother firmly believed our haunting was a poltergeist. Her belief was based on some reference she found back in the 1950s or 60s that claimed poltergeists were mischievous prankster spirits. Annoying at times but essentially harmless. So I went to see Poltergeist with my older cousins in the summer of 1982 at the ripe old age of 11 thinking it wouldn't be very scary. I lived with a poltergeist, right? Wrong! On both counts. Our haunting was most definitely not a poltergeist and that movie gave me nightmares. I slept in a colorful circus-themed bedroom growing up, so yeah. Zoinks!
I'd also say, from my most recent research, that this movie's fictional depiction of a haunting does not meet my understanding of poltergeist activity. The chairs moving and stacking, the lights flaring and flickering, the voices in the TV. OK, that could read as poltergeist. But the child abducting tree, the sucking esophagus of evil in the closet, and the whole causation being tied to the house built on a graveyard? Nope. Not poltergeist.
As I said in last week's discussion question, I'm conflicted about poltergeist activity. Poltergeists are associated with a living human agent undergoing emotional, psychological, &/or physical stress resulting in some form of manifestation, probably psychokinetic in nature. Since most modern cases have been proven to be hoaxes, some paranormal researchers have entirely dismissed this category of haunting. I'm not willing to go that far. However, I agree with you that my conception of a poltergeist is more akin to demons than a ghostly type of haunting tied to a once living, breathing soul.
I'd say thank you for the Shudder tutorial, except I just spent an hour browsing their movie and series catalog which is an hour I should have used to polish my horrible thesis synopsis. LOL. Maybe I'll actually do the free trial thing in Nov or Dec.
Hi Alexis, thanks for the tip on *Cursed Films*. I might check that out. It is really heartbreaking that the two actors who played the girls are no longer with us, especially Dominique Dunne, victim of domestic violence.
ReplyDeleteI got the impression the ghosts/ghost was picking on this family because the dad worked for the builders of the development. Mr. Teague, his boss, might have lived somewhere else so maybe Dad was the only representative in the neighborhood. By the way, the guy who played his boss, James Karen, was a famous tv commercial and voiceover actor. I always remember his voiceover for "Buttertop Bread"--maybe because it was so annoying!
Speaking of poltergeists, there's a very, very scary episode on *Paranormal Witness* where a family experiences a disruptive haunting. There's something about a small cat figurine--maybe the ghost made it appear in the home, or was moving it around, or something. Anyway, the dad throws it away in the outside trash. The next morning, the family comes downstairs to find the word "Cat" scrawled all over their kitchen walls hundreds of times. Incidentally, I love *Paranormal Witness* and I think it stands out among "ghost" tv shows because it's just witness accounts of hauntings along with dramatizations. Not guys running around with EMF recorders.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI love that you ask the question of if this is really a poltergeist movie or not. In my mind, it ended up being more of a demonic presence with other ghost souls also residing in the house.
ReplyDeleteI also loved that we didn't get a happily ever after ending. I thought that was interesting and set the movie up for a good sequel, while also as a stand alone leaving me satisfied. I know you are picky about endings, so what did you think of leaving the house uncleansed properly and the family just leaving?