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Oct. 31st, 2005 06:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
per_soloWhat IS it about "Poltergeist" that makes me regard it so as one of the better horror films of all time?
Maybe the fact that it isn't a slasher flick (God knows, I've seen a LOT of those)...perhaps that it attempted to do a "These could be people you know" type of thing...
Perhaps, between it and Alien, it's one of my earlier memories of recall in regards to a movie, period.
Or, perhaps it's because it employs one of my favorite (when used well) tactics in a good "suspense" movie...the fake ending. You know...where, at one point, all seems said and done, good has prevailed..BUT WAIT...They have to spend one last night in the house before moving...and all hell breaks loose.
Fortunately, most of the movies that either touched or scared me as a child, I own...in some format or other..."Poltergeist", "Alien", and, strangely enough, "Watership Down" are the first ones to come immediately to mind.
And now, in honor of Halloween, and the fact that I'm watching Poltergiest...here are some cute little bits of trivia about the movie (Thank you IMDB). :-) Yes, I'ma geek...do you want to see the card? I Do find it amusing that one of Spielberg's fears mirrors one of my own, way back...a Tree, outside his window...
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The hands which pull the flesh off the investigator's face in the bathroom mirror are 'Steven Spielberg' 's.
The weird way the family members descend the stairs at the beginning of the film was created by having the actors walk backward up the stairs and playing the film in reverse. The same effect was used later in the movie during the scene showing video playback of the ghosts.
The house that gets sucked into a black hole at the end was actually a model about 4 feet across. The model took several weeks to complete. The scene was shot as follows: camera placed directly above model, which was mounted over an industrial strength vacuum generator (the front door was facing directly up, straight at the camera). The model also had about 100 wires attached to various points of the structure. These wires went down through the back of the house, and down through the vacuum collection sack. The camera was turned on, and took 15 seconds to wind up to the required 300 frames per second. When ready, the cameraman gave the cue. The vacuum was turned on, the wires were yanked suddenly, and several SFX guys blasted the house with pump-action shotguns. The entire scene was over in about two seconds, and they had to wait until the film was developed before they knew if they would have to do it again. Luckily, they got it right on the first go. The finished scene was sent to 'Spielberg, Steven' , who was on location shooting E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). He gave it to a projectionist, who assumed it was just the dailies from ET. The scene came on, and the projectionist said Holy shit! What was that? Spielberg had the remains of the model encased in perspex, and it is now sitting on his piano. The model itself was worth well over $25,000.
Heather O'Rourke, who played the little girl Carol-Anne, and Dominique Dunne, who played the teenage daughter, are buried in the same cemetery: Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles. Dunne was strangled into brain-death by her boyfriend in 1982, the year of the film's release. Six years later, O'Rourke died of intestinal stenosis.
The film was originally given a R rating, but the filmmakers protested successfully and got a PG rating
During the scene where Robbie ('Oliver Robbins' ) is being strangled, the clown's arms became extremely tight and Robbins started to choke. When he screamed out, "I can't breathe!" 'Steven Spielberg' and Tobe Hooper thought that the boy was ad-libbing and just instructed him to look at the camera. When Spielberg saw Robbins's face turning purple, he ran over and removed the clown's arms from Robbins's neck.
Drew Barrymore was considered for the role of Carol Anne, but 'Steven Spielberg' wanted someone more angelic
The sound effect for the beast that attacks the house at the end of the movie is the source for the current MGM lion roar
The skeletons that emerge out from the swimming pool while Diane searches for help are actual skeletons. Actress JoBeth Williams didn't know this until after the scene was shot.
'Steven Spielberg' had a major hand in the production of this film at the same time that he was directing E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). He later said "If E.T. was a whisper, Poltergeist was a scream".
Despite being a horror/thriller film, there are no murders or fatalities depicted in the film.
The shot of the chairs that position themselves in the amazing balancing act on the table was all done in one take. As the camera panned along with JoBeth Williams, who was getting some cleaning materials, several crew members quickly set an already organized pyramid of chairs on the table, then took the single chairs away before the camera scrolled back.
JoBeth Williams was hesitant about shooting the swimming pool scene because of the large amount of electrical equipment positioned over and around the pool. In order to comfort her, 'Steven Spielberg' crawled in the pool with her to shoot the screen. Spielberg told her, "Now if a light falls in, we will both fry." The strategy worked and Williams got in the pool.
Both of the terrors that plague Robbie came from 'Steven Spielberg' 's own fears as a child, a fear of clowns and a tree outside his window.
The swirling, flickering lights coming from the closet during the rescue scene were achieved using a very simple effect by having an aquarium full of water in front of a spotlight. Then a fan blew on the surface of the water to make it swirl
In addition to the two times that the Beast appeared in the movie (the face that appeared in the closet and the creature that guarded the kid's door), the script had it appear during the scene where the family and investigators are looking at the tape of the manifestation. The giant ghost that they saw visually slowly resolved itself into the image of a face of a cruel old man: the man we know in the later films as Henry Kane.
*********************************************************************************************************
There...all you never cared to know about "Poltergeist". Have a Happy Halloween. :-P
Maybe the fact that it isn't a slasher flick (God knows, I've seen a LOT of those)...perhaps that it attempted to do a "These could be people you know" type of thing...
Perhaps, between it and Alien, it's one of my earlier memories of recall in regards to a movie, period.
Or, perhaps it's because it employs one of my favorite (when used well) tactics in a good "suspense" movie...the fake ending. You know...where, at one point, all seems said and done, good has prevailed..BUT WAIT...They have to spend one last night in the house before moving...and all hell breaks loose.
Fortunately, most of the movies that either touched or scared me as a child, I own...in some format or other..."Poltergeist", "Alien", and, strangely enough, "Watership Down" are the first ones to come immediately to mind.
And now, in honor of Halloween, and the fact that I'm watching Poltergiest...here are some cute little bits of trivia about the movie (Thank you IMDB). :-) Yes, I'ma geek...do you want to see the card? I Do find it amusing that one of Spielberg's fears mirrors one of my own, way back...a Tree, outside his window...
*******************************************************************************************************
The hands which pull the flesh off the investigator's face in the bathroom mirror are 'Steven Spielberg' 's.
The weird way the family members descend the stairs at the beginning of the film was created by having the actors walk backward up the stairs and playing the film in reverse. The same effect was used later in the movie during the scene showing video playback of the ghosts.
The house that gets sucked into a black hole at the end was actually a model about 4 feet across. The model took several weeks to complete. The scene was shot as follows: camera placed directly above model, which was mounted over an industrial strength vacuum generator (the front door was facing directly up, straight at the camera). The model also had about 100 wires attached to various points of the structure. These wires went down through the back of the house, and down through the vacuum collection sack. The camera was turned on, and took 15 seconds to wind up to the required 300 frames per second. When ready, the cameraman gave the cue. The vacuum was turned on, the wires were yanked suddenly, and several SFX guys blasted the house with pump-action shotguns. The entire scene was over in about two seconds, and they had to wait until the film was developed before they knew if they would have to do it again. Luckily, they got it right on the first go. The finished scene was sent to 'Spielberg, Steven' , who was on location shooting E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). He gave it to a projectionist, who assumed it was just the dailies from ET. The scene came on, and the projectionist said Holy shit! What was that? Spielberg had the remains of the model encased in perspex, and it is now sitting on his piano. The model itself was worth well over $25,000.
Heather O'Rourke, who played the little girl Carol-Anne, and Dominique Dunne, who played the teenage daughter, are buried in the same cemetery: Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles. Dunne was strangled into brain-death by her boyfriend in 1982, the year of the film's release. Six years later, O'Rourke died of intestinal stenosis.
The film was originally given a R rating, but the filmmakers protested successfully and got a PG rating
During the scene where Robbie ('Oliver Robbins' ) is being strangled, the clown's arms became extremely tight and Robbins started to choke. When he screamed out, "I can't breathe!" 'Steven Spielberg' and Tobe Hooper thought that the boy was ad-libbing and just instructed him to look at the camera. When Spielberg saw Robbins's face turning purple, he ran over and removed the clown's arms from Robbins's neck.
Drew Barrymore was considered for the role of Carol Anne, but 'Steven Spielberg' wanted someone more angelic
The sound effect for the beast that attacks the house at the end of the movie is the source for the current MGM lion roar
The skeletons that emerge out from the swimming pool while Diane searches for help are actual skeletons. Actress JoBeth Williams didn't know this until after the scene was shot.
'Steven Spielberg' had a major hand in the production of this film at the same time that he was directing E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). He later said "If E.T. was a whisper, Poltergeist was a scream".
Despite being a horror/thriller film, there are no murders or fatalities depicted in the film.
The shot of the chairs that position themselves in the amazing balancing act on the table was all done in one take. As the camera panned along with JoBeth Williams, who was getting some cleaning materials, several crew members quickly set an already organized pyramid of chairs on the table, then took the single chairs away before the camera scrolled back.
JoBeth Williams was hesitant about shooting the swimming pool scene because of the large amount of electrical equipment positioned over and around the pool. In order to comfort her, 'Steven Spielberg' crawled in the pool with her to shoot the screen. Spielberg told her, "Now if a light falls in, we will both fry." The strategy worked and Williams got in the pool.
Both of the terrors that plague Robbie came from 'Steven Spielberg' 's own fears as a child, a fear of clowns and a tree outside his window.
The swirling, flickering lights coming from the closet during the rescue scene were achieved using a very simple effect by having an aquarium full of water in front of a spotlight. Then a fan blew on the surface of the water to make it swirl
In addition to the two times that the Beast appeared in the movie (the face that appeared in the closet and the creature that guarded the kid's door), the script had it appear during the scene where the family and investigators are looking at the tape of the manifestation. The giant ghost that they saw visually slowly resolved itself into the image of a face of a cruel old man: the man we know in the later films as Henry Kane.
*********************************************************************************************************
There...all you never cared to know about "Poltergeist". Have a Happy Halloween. :-P
