Poltergeist is a pretty good movie.

[Gingerbread Demon]

It's not the greatest production movie but in terms of atmosphere it is one of the classics and spawned that famous quote "they're here"

I always bitch a bit about poltergeist because it's one of Spielberg's good movies but he chickened out when it came to the horror part and there are scenes were you see what hints of what originally was going to happen but they scaled it back. For example the ceiling scene with the wife. It was supposed to be a whole lot darker and gorier but again they chickened out on that and this could have been one of the great horror movies had they gone with their original plan.

To keep the topic alive are there any other horror movies you think could have been done differently and you think might have been better for changes?

 

[auntiehill]

Since Poltergeist is all about the threat from the supernatural, I think this topic would be better suited to SF/F.

 

[Vanyel]

It's a great movie. I watch it around Halloween every year. Tangina's speech is the highlight of the movie. Here's a breakdown of the speech and why it works.
http://commentaramafilms.blogspot.com/2011/10/great-scene-poltergeist.html

 

[auntiehill]

Zelda Rubinstein is a supernatural force all her own.

 

[Tosk]

I'll admit, it surprises me to see Poltergeist, a PG movie, referred to as having "chickened out".

I think it's a fabulous movie, and I love everything about it except the resolution to the tree subplot.
If only the sequels were even close to the first one in quality. Darn.

 

[Tosk]

In 1982 PG-13 (today's norm) didn't exist. But soon it had to as POLTERGEIST and others pushed the PG envelope to its limits. (JAWS won its PG on appeal despite the horrific wash of Alex Kintner blood. They arguably gave Spielberg a free pass of sorts. You see thousands die in PG-13s now but the vast majority of the dead fail to bleed at all.)

It was two years later when the dam finally broke, thanks to (IIRC) Temple of Doom and Gremlins.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I think GD the OP is selling POLTERGEIST quite short. Gore isn't required for pure horror. Intensity, skeletons, maggots, malevolent ghosts and excessive slime can do the trick just as well. Pretty good is an understatement. Like JAWS, it probably just barely avoided the R-rating which later films like THE CONJURING series got on intensity alone. It falls just a tad short of E.T. but it's certainly equally-well-acted. Even if the last 20 minutes seem to indicate Tangina lied through her teeth on the house-cleaning issue. The final moment with the TV is perfect.

Well not really pure gore as such what I meant was in the original plan from what I have read some scenes like the ceiling one were to go a lot further then a PG and the wife was supposed to be assaulted by whatever was holding her up on the ceiling. That would have pushed it beyond a PG rating and made the scene far scarier. You can see bits of that in the scene they put and the aftermath a bit and that would have added more tension to the movie. When I first heard about the movie in the 80s I thought it would be a really dark horror.

How exactly did Tangina lie through her teeth?

I'll admit, it surprises me to see Poltergeist, a PG movie, referred to as having "chickened out".

See my comment above to the other poster.

I also reported the thread and asked if it could be moved to SF F

 

[Vanyel]

Sometimes less is more. Just like Jaws. The shark was supposed to have much more screen time, but it didn't because of the mechanical shark's failures. "The Beast" was threatening Diane, it didn't have to anymore than that to be scary. Being thrown on the wall, then the ceiling and off is scary itself, especially since we thought the threat was over. Having Diane further assaulted would have been overkill.

Tanhina didn't lie. In all her experience she never felt anything like what punched a hole into our world. She thought that without Carol Anne and her light, the others would be free to continue on and the hole would close.

Spielberg was a writer of the movie, he was not its director, and he knew that less is more. I doubt he would have done it any differently. Now, while he wasn't the director, it is rumored that he did check the dailies everyday.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Sometimes less is more. Just like Jaws. The shark was supposed to have much more screen time, but it didn't because of the mechanical shark's failures. "The Beast" was threatening Diane, it didn't have to anymore than that to be scary. Being thrown on the wall, then the ceiling and off is scary itself, especially since we thought the threat was over. Having Diane further assaulted would have been overkill.

Tanhina didn't lie. In all her experience she never felt anything like what punched a hole into our world. She thought that without Carol Anne and her light, the others would be free to continue on and the hole would close.

Spielberg was a writer of the movie, he was not its director, and he knew that less is more. I doubt he would have done it any differently. Now, while he wasn't the director, it is rumored that he did check the dailies everyday.

Oh I get that less is more but if the Beast did that why did it then lift up her shirt and expose her panties the way it did?

 

[Tosk]

Because Reverend Kane is a perv.

If you wanna see a Poltergeist movie that really chickened out, there's always the remake that's so bland most people forget it exists.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Because Reverend Kane is a perv.

If you wanna see a Poltergeist movie that really chickened out, there's always the remake that's so bland most people forget it exists.

They tried to do a remake. That is a sin

 

[Tosk]

What a nice looking family. I hope nothing bad happens to them.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

What a nice looking family. I hope nothing bad happens to them.

Nothing a horde of demons can't cure

 

[Vanyel]

Oh I get that less is more but if the Beast did that why did it then lift up her shirt and expose her panties the way it did?

It's showing its power. It didn't need to rape her to do that. Making her get out of the house, the skeletons in the pool (which were real), the demon in front of the children's room, elongating the hallway (using a simple camera trick) making her even further away from her children. All of that would scare a mother far more than raping her would. Raping her would have taken away the terrifying mystery of "the beast." It would reduce it to being a rapist, not a demon, or whatever it was. To be clear, I'm not saying a rapist is not terrifying. But in the stakes between herself and the safety of her children, her fear was for them. I'm not a parent, but I'm sure there is very little of herself, if anything, a mother wouldn't sacrifice to protect her children.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

It's showing its power. It didn't need to rape her to do that. Making her get out of the house, the skeletons in the pool (which were real), the demon in front of the children's room, elongating the hallway (using a simple camera trick) making her even further away from her children. All of that would scare a mother far more than raping her would. Raping her would have taken away the terrifying mystery of "the beast." It would reduce it to being a rapist, not a demon, or whatever it was. To be clear, I'm not saying a rapist is not terrifying. But in the stakes between herself and the safety of her children, her fear was for them. I'm not a parent, but I'm sure there is very little of herself, if anything, a mother wouldn't sacrifice to protect her children.

I agree with all that but from what I read about the movie that was an idea they were thinking of for that scene but it was scrapped

 

[Tosk]

Did you know that after Poltergeist III, Carol Anne changed her name and moved to a town in Washington called Twin Peaks?

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Did you know that after Poltergeist III, Carol Anne changed her name and moved to a town in Washington called Twin Peaks?

Haha Laura Palmer poor thing went to another weird place

 

[Anwar]

My major problem with the movie is that I find it hard to believe that none of the construction people dug and found the unmoved bodies while they were building the houses.

 

[Oddish]

Tanhina didn't lie. In all her experience she never felt anything like what punched a hole into our world. She thought that without Carol Anne and her light, the others would be free to continue on and the hole would close.

Maybe she didn't detect it because the root of the problem (the violated cemetery) hadn't been resolved.

Or, maybe the lost souls moved Onward, but the Beast (which could hide itself from a human psychic) was still present.

Did you know that after Poltergeist III, Carol Anne changed her name and moved to a town in Washington called Twin Peaks?

Would that it were true. The actress's actual fate was far sadder.

My major problem with the movie is that I find it hard to believe that none of the construction people dug and found the unmoved bodies while they were building the houses.

Very true. I could see them missing a bird in a cigar box (nice foreshadowing), but even one seven-foot casket would be far harder to miss. And I know they have to dig deeper than six feet to put up a house.

 

[Tosk]

And I know they have to dig deeper than six feet to put up a house.

Rudimentary Google says that house footing standard depth in the US is only five feet. And can be as little as one foot. So plenty of wiggle room to excuse it. I know in the real world the chances of missing every casket building all those houses seems quite low (especially as they'd have to be putting in all manner of piping), but...we're talking about a world where a tornado steals a tree and no one seems that freaked out about it.