Look
at the fear on JoBeth Williams' face as she rolls up the ceiling –
the whole set was rotating for that scene, with a fixed camera. And
when the skeletons were coming out of the pool at her? Apparently,
those were real cadavers (they definitely were for the second one
anyway. It's sort of a rumour about this one, but still).
My
point is that this is one of my favourite practical effect-laden
films. Definitely my favourite one about ghosts (there's such a
profusion of crappy ghost movies). The family is great: believable
without being annoying. The poltergeist itself isn't explained too
much, and it has a range of activity that is both original and creepy
throughout. So many ghostly staples of cinema originate from this one
film.
It's
one of fairly few modern horrors that I can safely say is a classic.
A large part of that is the huge amount of work that went into making
it, but the script was also brilliant. It worked with the actors to
create believable characters, while keeping lean and not having any
boring dialogue.
The
story is driven along by all of this and seems to follow the ghostly
set menu for films like this, but then it gets weirder and weirder (with several fake-outs that they were in the clear).
The wackiness is impressive in that it's never not scary, while
simultaneously being surprisingly fun.
It's
really quite silly, and I don't think there's any really deep message
here (other than maybe don't disrespect native American stuff?), but
it's a very enjoyable film.
Poltergeist: 79.0