Poltergeist (1982)
In 1974, Tobe Hooper, with assistance from co-writer Kim Henkel, wrote and directed one of the most sensational, groundbreaking, and traumatizing entries in the still-young slasher subgenre of horror, introducing audiences to an entire family of inbred, redneck cannibals led by the iconic chainsaw-wielding, flesh-wearing Leatherface. In 1975, Steven Spielberg, directing from a screenplay by Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb, the former of whom wrote the novel on which the film was based, produced a landmark in the field of natural aquatic horror that rendered audiences petrified to set foot in the ocean and reminded us that not all monsters come from the safe, distancing realm of fiction. Theoretically, what should you expect when you get a horror movie that positions both trailblazing filmmakers at the helm of a supernatural horror movie? Why, the Spielbergian emphasis on humanity coupled with the Hooperian gritty, documentarian realism, of course. Unfortunately, the end result is, in actuality, a complete tonal mess lacking in anything resembling genuine, identifiable human fright. The best that can be said about Hooper and Spielberg's original haunted house ghost story, Poltergeist, is that it's far and away the best installment of the trilogy. The worst that can be said is that's damning with faint praise, because that's an incredibly low bar to live up to, and the following two sequels could neither reach nor exceed it. (At this moment, I have no opinion on the 2015 remake, though I can only imagine it's worse than this debut but better than the nadir of the series, Part 2.)
As far as all the critically acclaimed "classic" horror films I've seen in my 26 years as a devoted horror buff, Poltergeist is thankfully far from the worst. So far, Sam Raimi's straight-out-of-film-school splatter fest, The Evil Dead, holds that distinction. I would rank it alongside The Omen. Neither film is a complete disaster, but neither earned their status as indispensable classics in their respective subgenres either. What should have been a suspenseful, fun, heartwarming rollercoaster ride that deploys bump-in-the-night frights and preys on universal childhood fears to accentuate a story about one family's resilience and determination to find their child ends up being an exhausting, overlong, ear-splitting, repetitive, lackadaisically paced technical exercise in flashy, empty spectacle. Oh, and as for the spectacle itself, it's really nothing special. Cinematic technology has come a long way since 1982, and viewed through a modern lens in 2025, the so-called "special" effects in Poltergeist (of which there are many) don't pass the smell test.
In the planned community of Cuesta Verde, California, the all-American Freeling family live a blissful life together in an idyllic suburban neighborhood surrounded by an array of lush, green mountains, interchangeable homes resting side by side, and populated by happy children who ride their bikes carefree in the street and play (mostly) harmless pranks on the weird-looking, beer-guzzling guy while he's riding his. This is the type of neighborhood where everyone knows everyone and the term "neighbor" refers to more than just someone you see and wave to every now and again. The patriarch of the family, Steven (Craig T. Nelson), is a successful real estate agent who bought his home from his employer, Lewis Teague (James Karen), a man he doesn't necessarily like, and who hasn't been entirely transparent regarding his methods for constructing the neighborhood, but hey, if keeping your mouth shut buys you and your family this level of comfort and security, would you put up much of a protest? Steven's wife, Diane (JoBeth Williams), is a spirited, young-at-heart stay-at-home mom who dotes endlessly on her three children: 16-year-old Dana (Dominique Dunne), who loves her family but would prefer to spend most nights talking on the phone to her boyfriend or sleeping over a friend's house; 8-year-old Robbie (Oliver Robins), who harbors a constant fear of the giant tree standing outside his bedroom window and the oversized clown doll positioned absurdly on a chair facing his bed; and the youngest, 5-year-old Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke), an adorable, perky cherub who loves to insert herself in the banter between her older siblings and has an affection for what many would consider the least enjoyable pets.
In the opening scene, everyone in the family except the dog is asleep and the only sound is of the Star-Spangled Banner playing on the TV in the living room. Suddenly, the music stops and the TV cuts to static. Carol Anne awakens from her sleep, as if called upon by someone or something we can't hear, and walks downstairs into the living room, sitting before the television. As the static continues to sizzle, Carol Anne begins calling out to someone, her "hellos?" growing loud enough to wake up the rest of the house. Diane, Robbie, and Dana exit their bedrooms and walk quietly downstairs. Steven awakens on his living room chair. All four of them stare confusedly at Carol Anne as she tries to communicate with the static screen, although oddly enough, for some reason they stay silent and don't think to question her as to why she's talking to the TV or to whom she believes she's speaking.
The following morning, the bizarre occurrence is never brought up. Life goes on as blissfully and problem-free as usual. But over the next several days, strange occurrences begin to manifest, starting with the sudden death of Tweety, Carol Anne's pet bird. The chairs at the kitchen table are pushed out after having been pushed in. The silverware becomes contorted. At first, Diane assumes her children are just being irresponsible and forgetting to push their chairs in after they eat breakfast. And birds die all the time out of nowhere, right? Then one stormy night, Carol Anne is woken from her sleep once more by the static on her parents' TV, crawls out of bed, and sits in front of it, this time answering questions only she can hear. A mysterious force in the shape of a hand detaches itself from the screen and flies into the wall behind Steven and Diane's bed, creating an in-home earthquake. When Diane, Steven, and Robbie wake up, Carol Anne innocently yet ominously announces, "They're here."
After seeing that not only are the kitchen chairs pushed out but intricately stacked atop one another on the table, Diane believes her daughter's assertion about "the TV people." Rather than responding with fear, Diane finds herself elated at and intrigued by the possibility of another life force infiltrating their routine existence. However, her attitude promptly changes one harrowing night when the tree in front of Robbie's room comes alive, smashes through his window, and attempts to swallow him whole, and Carol Anne is abducted inside her closet. While everyone else frantically searches in and around the house for her, Robbie and Diane come to realize that she's been enslaved in a paranormal dimension where her voice can emanate through the static on the TV screen, and the only way to bring her back is with the help of a trio of well-meaning but hopelessly amateurish parapsychologists led by the empathetic Dr. Lesh (Beatrice Straight). But real hope arrives in the form of a small elderly lady named Tangina Barrons (Zelda Rubinstein), who knows a thing or two about the spirit realm and has cleaned more than her fair share of haunted houses in the past.
It's difficult to pinpoint exactly where Poltergeist went wrong. As I stated before, the two talented filmmakers who put their heads together to create this inexplicably popular tale of the supernatural each contributed an indelible addition to the horror genre. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remains one of the all-time greatest slashers that paved the way for future classics like Halloween and Friday the 13th, and Jaws retains its position at the pinnacle of natural horror films that pit mortals against the razor-sharp teeth of our most feared aquatic predator: the shark. With a screenplay by Spielberg, who wrote alongside Michael Grais and Mark Victor, and Hooper orchestrating the spooky goings-on, you would expect a recipe for spine-tingling success. Perhaps Poltergeist demonstrates that Spielberg's talents rest more behind the camera than on the page. Or that Hooper is more in his element when writing about human monsters, and is afforded the freedom to cut loose with an R rating. Maybe the result would have been different if they had swapped duties and Hooper wrote the script while Spielberg directed. Maybe they should have written the script together, as opposed to Spielberg writing with two (forgive me for saying) never-heard-of-before nobodies with no experience in the horror sphere. Who can say? I guess we'll never know what could have been.
Either way, Poltergeist suffers most from its commitment to a kid-friendly PG rating. Don't get me wrong, horror doesn't need to go full bloody R to achieve goosebump-raising results. Look at Spielberg's earlier horror classic. (Though in all fairness, how Jaws, a movie that features four people, including a child, being throttled, mauled, and devoured underwater by a shark, managed to swim away with a child-appropriate PG rating will always mystify me.) But in the case of Poltergeist, neither Hooper the director nor Spielberg the writer are able to conjure a palpable sensation of danger, tension, suspense, or excitement. The latter's direction is as static as the TV screen frequently displayed and as lifeless as the multitude of entities haunting the Freelings' household. The former's writing, meanwhile, is toothless and overly dependent on the abundance of special effects deployed to bring his titular phantoms (back) to life, at the expense of the still-living humans populating his story.
The following year, Sidney J. Furie would release a similarly plotted supernatural horror film titled The Entity, starring Barbara Hershey as a single mother of three who finds herself being repeatedly assaulted by a trio of invisible sadistic misogynists, even as a kindhearted but skeptical psychiatrist played by Ron Silver strains to convince her it's a psychological manifestation of repressed childhood trauma. While the world may have been exposed to the "originality" of Poltergeist first, The Entity was actually made several months prior, and is a vastly superior film in just about every conceivable way, beginning with the fact that its titular antagonist(s) does more than pop up from a coffin and make its target scream in a jump scare. It doesn't just threaten violence against its victims, only to not do anything particularly violent. It actually causes physical harm and puts Hershey's life at stake, resulting in a legitimately terrifying horror movie experience.
Poltergeist, by contrast, is frighteningly determined to appeal to the widest audience possible, presenting the trappings of a haunted house spook fest to make audiences of all ages jump in their seat every now and again, but abstaining from putting any of its characters in actual bodily harm, thus ensuring a rating that opens the doors to bucketloads of families (not excluding children) and secures the highest box office ratings imaginable. The problem with that is this is a horror movie, and horror is not intended to be a child-friendly genre. Cater too much to their delicate sensibilities, scaring them enough to make them jump and giggle without filling their heads with subsequent nightmares, and you risk alienating the more mature audiences hungry for real, hardcore horror. Such is the case with Poltergeist.
The best scenes in Poltergeist are the early ones dedicated to establishing the tight-knit relationships between the Freeling clan and their neighbors. This is where that Spielbergian innocence and warmth is most apparent in the writing. When we're first transported into the central suburban home, Steven is watching a football game with a group of his rowdy, drunken, overenthusiastic guy friends. Their program is interrupted by an episode of Mr. Rogers, as the next-door neighbor, Ben Tuthill (Michael McManus), shares a remote with Steven, and anything they watch appears on the other's TV. When Steven kindly asks Ben to turn the channel back to their game, the two ostensibly grown men engage in a childlike tug of war, switching back and forth between their preferred programs. As the Freeling kids sit at the table eating breakfast, Robbie and Dana bicker playfully as a little brother and big sister might, throwing food at each other, mimicking the other's voice. And cute little Carol Anne thoughtlessly joins in on an argument that doesn't belong to her, so as not to feel left out of the bigger kids' talk. These early instances of familial bonding are endearing and help establish a connection between the audience and our relatable companions on the opposite side of the screen. The best horror movies, after all, are those that take the time to flesh out their protagonists and their relationships to one another before any violent or unnatural activity takes place. That way, once the source of horror rears its ugly head, we feel for the recipients of its attacks and root wholeheartedly for their survival and triumph. A stellar example of this would be The Exorcist, a fellow supernatural haunter that defines its 12-year-old victim of demonic possession beyond her possession, establishing a warm bond between her and her mother in the process. However, there's a sweet spot that must be hit to dodge the risk of numbing your audience to the impact of the eventual horrors that will tear its characters, well defined as they may be, apart and test their love for one another to the limit, and Poltergeist misses it by a wide margin, taking way too long for the titular activity to intensify.
At first, the brand of horror is fairly mild: chairs going from being pushed out to elaborately stacked atop one another on the kitchen table; spoons and forks bent out of shape; a tree that seems as if it's staring into a little boy's bedroom; tiny specks of light shooting out from the TV screen. It's not particularly scary, just a little out of the ordinary, and the filmmakers even sprinkle in some lighthearted humor to keep the atmosphere light and family-friendly. On a stormy night, Steven tells his timid son to count every time lightning strikes, that way, as the number of seconds increases before the next boom of thunder, he'll know the storm is moving further away. Then, after Steven returns to his bedroom, a loud crash of thunder descends from the sky, and Hooper smash cuts to a shot of Carol Anne and Robbie sleeping between their parents. When Carol Anne sits in front of a small TV in the kitchen, the screen having cut to static, Diane insists that isn't good for her, so she absentmindedly turns the channel to a war film, just in time for a violent scene of bloody combat and agonized screaming. (Oh yeah, that's much better for a child's eyes than staring at static!)
Once the poltergeists make their presence unquestionably known, along with their anger and resentment toward the living, Hooper transforms Poltergeist into an extravaganza of special effects, and as I stated earlier, when viewed nowadays, the effects are anything but special. In fact, they are such trash. Phony-looking, over-insistent, and repulsively flashy. If you're going to make a horror movie that prioritizes "eye-popping" visuals over infinitely more crucial concerns like narrative coherence, intellectual dialogue, or character individuality, it's weird that the visuals would be as ugly and transparently artificial as the ones employed here. The primary type of effect in Poltergeist pertains to lighting. Specifically, an unlimited supply of flashes of blue and yellow lights to signify the presence of multiple restless spirits taking up residence in the Freelings' home. Initially, these specks of light flash around inside the TV, then release themselves from the screen into the walls. Eventually, they shine all around the house. I don't know about you, but for me, flashing lights, no matter how colorful, don't send the chills up my spine. It just feels like I'm watching a display of fireworks on the fourth of July. If only Poltergeist were even that entertaining.
Aside from the flashing lights, Hooper employs a pink jelly-like substance to complement a misjudged gross-out sensibility, reserved for the end of the false climax when Diane and Carol Anne return from the spirit realm. These two are so doused, you're tempted to spread some peanut butter on them and enclose them between two slices of bread. (Why it's mandatory that Steven place them in a water-filled bathtub remains unanswered.) Speaking of Hooper and Spielberg's sloppy decision to insert a gross-out element to the ghostly proceedings, there's one almost gag-inducing moment where Marty (Martin Casella), one of Dr. Lesh's bumbling assistants, sneaks into the Freelings' kitchen while everyone else is asleep to prepare himself a late-night snack. As he's chewing on a chicken leg, he feels something... not quite kosher, and spits it out onto floor. Upon closer inspection, we see a horde of worms spewing out of the chicken. As someone who eats a rotisserie chicken every Monday for dinner, including the leg, this visual is an effortlessly effective gagger. Nauseated, Marty runs to the bathroom, gags in the sink, and splashes some water on his face. All of a sudden, there's a gash on one side of his cheek. He can't resist picking at it, and chunks of blood and flesh begin to splatter into the sink. When Hooper's camera cuts back to the mirror, Marty's head has too visibly become replaced by that of a cheap, rubber doll, lessening the cringe-inducing effectiveness that characterized the start of the set piece. He continues peeling the skin off his face until all that remains is a skeleton. Because this is what James Berardinelli would refer to as a HINO (horror in name only), this gross set piece is spinelessly revealed as a hallucination. Apparently, these spirits are angry enough to make you think you're skin is peeling away, but not enough to actually follow through with it. Maybe they're just trying to impart a good message: don't steal food that isn't yours! I certainly know I'll think twice.
None of that is even half as risible as the scene where Dr. Lesh, Marty, and Ryan (Richard Lawson) open the door to Carol Anne and Robbie's bedroom and are confronted by the spectacle of numerous objects flying around the room in a circular, twister-like fashion. A lamp harp slides comfortably beneath its shade and a bright light turns on. A plastic toy cowboy comes alive and makes a yee-haw gesture. All these materials fly before the widened eyes of the three horrified psychologists, eager to make themselves seen yet careful not to cause them any harm. It all looks so fake and silly, not the least bit scary. In the darkly amusing subsequent shot, Lesh's hands tremble as she attempts to calm herself with a sip of tea. Sadly, I don't share in her mind-boggled shock.
The worst part of Poltergeist's unwavering emphasis on unconvincing practical effects is the fact that they take precedence over the characters witnessing them. While the spectral lights are flashing throughout the home, the actors are given nothing to do other than stand around and react to the ostentatious phenomena before them. At one point, Ryan is sitting with his back turned to his surveillance camera. He's supposed to be watching the screen for any poltergeist activity, but is instead doodling in a scrapbook to stave off falling asleep. (Trust me, his boredom is the most warranted and personally identifiable emotion expressed onscreen.) Eventually, a series of white lights manifest in the air above the staircase, taking the form of people rushing down the stairs. Marty, Ryan, Lesh, and the Freelings stand motionlessly in open-mouthed amazement and horror. That's their sole purpose within their own story: to stand around, watch a bunch of pretentious otherworldly effects, and give simultaneous expressions of that now-well-known "Spielberg wonder." The only member of the gallery who stands out is Diane for her initial enthusiasm toward the possibility of a dimension separate from our own, contrasted with her eventual grit and determination to rescue her little girl from the clutches of a vengeful captor.
Of course, a big reason why Diane is as admirable and compelling a character as she is is because of the actress embodying her. JoBeth Williams submits the most game performance to supply this otherwise dull and meandering tripe with a spark of life and energy. She plays Diane as the epitome of the "cool mom," someone who gives her children everything and anything they could possibly want. When Carol Anne finds her trying to flush Tweety down the toilet (in a scene that actually makes no sense because she flushes the toilet while still holding the bird in her hand?), Diane indulges her wish to give it a proper burial in the backyard. The second Carol Anne's grief subsides and she asks for a goldfish, guess what takes up the frame in the subsequent shot. In bed with her husband, she smokes a joint and laughs hysterically at anything her husband says. Williams' most telling moment occurs when Steven arrives home from work one night, and Diane is eager to show him "something." She sits Carol Anne in a circle drawn on the kitchen floor, supplying her with a helmet, and watches with Steve as their daughter is carefully dragged to the end of the room. Williams bounces up and down and cheers like someone who was a cheerleader in their high school days, while Nelson collapses in a corner, ostensibly freaked out but looking exhausted from work more than anything else.
Beyond her unorthodox elation at the start of the paranormal activity going on in her home, Williams paints Diane as a warm, loving mother who puts the needs, safety, and desires of her children above all else. Once the activity unveils more threatening intentions and Carol Anne is held hostage in a spiritual dimension, Williams taps into her inner mama bear, pleading with the angry spirits to not harm her baby, and return her to her family. Her initial enthusiasm morphs into a believable desperation to find Carol Anne and bring her home. Throughout the ordeal, Williams never loses sight of the hope that fuels Diane, evinced when Carol Anne's soul "runs through" her, and she's driven to tears of joy, overwhelmed with the knowledge that she's alive, sniffing her scent left on her clothing. Williams' most impressive ability is making some of the lines she's required to utter sound emotionally plausible. When it comes time to get down and dirty, however, in the gonzo, balls-to-the-wall climax, Williams doesn't flinch at submerging herself in rainwater and wet mud.
Apart from Williams, the only other actors who make an impression are Beatrice Straight and Zelda Rubinstein. As the lead psychologist who has chosen to pursue the field of paranormal research, knowing how silly it makes her look to anyone else with the same major, Straight invests Dr. Lesh with a warmhearted sincerity and unashamed vulnerability. She becomes emotionally invested in Diane's plight to reclaim her daughter and forms a bond with her along the way that's touching. Lesh may not always know exactly what she's getting herself involved with, but her sole motivation is purely to help a family reunite with their abducted loved one, nothing else. There's no cynicism or financially incentivized phoniness to her. And she has no qualms about admitting to her own fear in the face of legitimate, malicious encounters with the ghostly kind. When Diane reaches the depths of despair, Straight provides a source of comfort and assurance, holding her hands, embracing her closely. It's safe to assume Lin Shaye's modern classic ghost hunter, Elise, from James Wan's ongoing Insidious franchise, along with her two supporting doofuses, Tucker and Specs, were modeled after this trio.
On the minus side, Rubinstein is tasked with bearing the brunt of the script's dialogue. Like Williams, Rubinstein possesses the necessary conviction and energy to imbue even the most ridiculous, hackneyed pronouncements with credibility. Even still, much of the dialogue is composed of incoherent, tedious exposition about the different planes of existence, the danger of walking into "the light," and how Carol Anne's pure, uncorrupted innocence and vibrant life force are attracting the envy and fury of the spirits surrounding her. According to Tangina, Diane must forfeit everything she's ever known, ever been taught to believe, and call on every ounce of her faith in order to see her daughter again. As for the spirits, she claims they aren't aware they're dead, or aren't willing to accept it, and have become lost on their journey to the light. Carol Anne, because of her purity, kindness, and youth, must guide them to it. This is meant to paint an empathetic and goodhearted picture of a world beyond the one we inhabit. Frankly, it all sounds like a bunch of spiritual gobbledygook. Nothing slows down the momentum of a horror film faster than someone explaining to other characters what the source of their torment is and what they must do to overcome it.
At the center of the horror is little Carol Anne, and Heather O'Rourke does what's needed with the role. A beautiful little girl with long, blonde hair, a pair of endearingly chubby cheeks, and a squeaky voice charged with the innocence of childhood, O'Rourke will forever remain a child icon in the horror genre, her name eternally associated with that of Carol Anne. Nonetheless, she's not afforded the opportunity to carve out a spot in the hall of fame of the best child performances in horror. She's not onscreen for the majority of the 114-minute runtime. In the setup, Carol Anne is established as a cute, trusting, friendly little girl who adores her pets and is in communication with the spirit world. Once she's out of the picture until the end of the false climax, she's reduced to a mere voice, calling out desperately for her parents through the static on the TV. As frightened as O'Rourke sounds, I never felt a true sense of fear for her wellbeing. She constantly screams the same lines over and over again ad nauseam: "Mommy? Where are you, Mommy? I can't see you?" Yes, you can hear the fear and confusion in her tone, which certainly matters, but Hooper fails to engender a feeling of danger. Unlike Regan in The Exorcist, whose body is grotesquely violated, thrown up and down on her bed, cuts and bruises all over, a crucifix jammed repeatedly inside her, Carol Anne is given the PG horror treatment. Sure, she's abducted from her family and held captive in a spiritual dimension where she can't see or clearly hear her parents, but it seems like that's all there is to it. The spirits are simply restraining her until someone enters their plane to retrieve her. In the meantime, none of the entities are harming her physically. And when Diane finally ventures to the other side, the poltergeists put up no fight whatsoever. It's too easy to be scary or emotionally satisfying.
Robbie is defined almost exclusively by his fears, all of which are as understandable as they are relatable. But as much as I may identify with his fear of the life-size clown doll sitting in front of his bed, Hooper and Spielberg's attempt to tap into that classic childhood nightmare image is undermined by the sheer absurdity that underlies it. Yes, the doll is freaky-looking -- with its wide eyes, jolly grin, red ball of a nose, bushy orange hair, and cap and bells, how could it not be? -- but who in their right mind thought to put it directly in front of Robbie's bed in the first place? If Steven or Diane, they should be charged with psychological child abuse. If Dana, well, that's a genius prank to play on your irritating scaredy-cat of a brother. Robbie tosses a jacket over its face to help him sleep better, but wouldn't it have made more sense to discard it first thing in the morning? Why is it still there, sitting in the same chair facing Robbie's bed, by the end of the movie? It's too dumb and contrived to put us in a child's perspective. On a positive note, once the doll inevitably comes alive and validates Robbie's second worst fear (after the tree), it is pretty cool to watch him overcome it and rip out its stuffing. It may not be scary, but symbolically it satisfies. From an acting standpoint, Robins isn't given much to play other than a timid scaredy-cat paralyzed by his own shadow, a note he performs competently. In the scene where he hears his sister's voice emanating from the TV and screams to his mom, my dad thinks he gave one of the greatest interpretations of a terrified child; I, on the other hand, think he sounded constipated.
Since Spielberg forfeited directing duties, I suppose he was denied the privilege of selecting his usual composer, John Williams, to score Poltergeist. So in what I presume would have been Williams' place is Jerry Goldsmith, who bookends the film with a deliberately serene melody that sounds like a lullaby, interspersed with a choir of children who sing "La la la" repeatedly, evoking Mia Farrow's rendition of "Sleep Safe and Warm" at the intro and end of Rosemary's Baby. Goldsmith's music achieves a similar effect: to juxtapose the innocence and happiness of childhood with the supernatural horror unfolding onscreen.
If Hooper had been a more concise director, or Michael Kahn a more ruthless editor, the ending of Poltergeist would have arrived substantially sooner, shortly after Dianne rescues Carol Anne from the netherworld and the family is packing their boxes the next day. Instead, Spielberg and his duo of nobodies, in their infinite wisdom, decide to uncover that resolution as a false ending and tack on a whole additional climactic confrontation between the Freelings and the head poltergeist. The effect is so far from climactic. It's a cacophonous repetition of everything we've been forced to endure beforehand, only this time with puppetry, the involvement of neighbors, and outer destruction. Nonetheless, the movie's idea of horror still amounts to little more than an indoor, and eventually outdoor, hurricane. Diane, Robbie, and Carol Anne are screaming their heads off as they cling to a headboard or doorframe for dear life, a supernatural wind sucking them by their feet toward a hellish portal inside the children's closet. It's no secret whether they manage to resist the pull. Once the party relocates outside the home, a literal, painfully phony-baloney twister develops. A surfeit of coffins emerge from the muddy ground displaying the decayed skeletons of the people whose headstones were removed by Mr. Teague. Do they animate and serve a function besides eliciting Diane's screams? I think you know the answer. The filmmakers want to scare up enough ticket receipts to prolong their ability to make movies, not actually frighten the kiddies permitted to attend.
Not that Diane is put in any real danger (no one in this movie is), but she's given a helping hand by the Tuthills from next door, who materialize out of absolutely nowhere and do absolutely nothing of note (besides helping Diane out of her pool). Why they're brought into the set piece in any capacity is beyond my grasp. The street outside the home erupts, fire hydrants eject water, neighbors' cars are smashed and overturned, and Dana reappears after a prolonged absence to scream her big, lamebrain line: "What's happening?" By the time the Freelings hightail it as far away as possible from Cuesta Verde and check into a motel, we're left feeling every bit as exhausted as they do, but not in an exhilarating way owing to empathy. Once the closet door opens and announces a second round of paranormal mayhem, Carol Anne, sitting up in her bed, clinging to her covers, desperately pleads, "No more!" Never have I felt more heard.
4.6/10
Comments
Post a Comment