Poltergeist (1982) on Netflix
Steve and Diane Freeling's home is in Cuesta Verde, California. Their youngest child, Carol Anne, talks to the static on the television, and a ghostly hand comes out of the screen.
- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb7.3/10196,987 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Trailer
Plot summary
Steve Freeling sells real estate in Cuesta Verde, and his wife Diane looks after their three children, Dana, Robbie and Carol Anne. One night the youngest, Carol Anne, begins talking to the television while it shows static. The next night a pale hand reaches out of the screen, and an earthquake wakes the household. A glass of milk shatters, spoons and forks bend, and chairs and tables move. Then a thunderstorm stirs the old tree in the yard. A limb smashes the window of the children's room, seizes Robbie and drags him into the rain, and while the family runs out to reach him, Carol Anne vanishes through a closet doorway. Her voice comes from the television. Martha Lesh, a parapsychologist, arrives with Ryan and Marty to study the house, and they find more than one ghost at work.
Cast
Show all 15 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Poltergeist (1982)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The Directors Guild of America investigated whether Steven Spielberg's public statements were undercutting Tobe Hooper's official directing credit, and an arbitrator ruled that MGM/UA had to pay Hooper $15,000 because its trailers gave producer Spielberg a bigger credit than Hooper. The DGA had sought $200,000 in damages.
- Poltergeist was initially rated R by twenty-four MPAA reviewers over its gory bathroom scene, but Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper disagreed with the rating and won a change to PG on appeal.
- The franchise is believed by some to be cursed because of the premature deaths of several people connected to the film, among them Heather O'Rourke and Dominique Dunne, a notion that was the focus of an E! True Hollywood Story.
- Diane's climb up the walls of the house was shot with a static camera inside a rotating set, the same trick used in Royal Wedding to make Fred Astaire look as though he were dancing on the ceiling.
- Make-up and effects artist Craig Reardon built the film's crawling cancerous steak to Tobe Hooper's specifications, but Steven Spielberg vetoed it, so Reardon made sure whatever he prepped was approved by Spielberg as well as Hooper in advance.
- An alternate version of "Carol Anne's Theme" has lyrics; it is unofficially titled "Bless This House" after a line in the chorus, and it was not used in the film but appeared on the original album.
