Think of it more as a fun-ride than a horror movie.
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"They're heeeere."
Before you get to my comments on the 1982 ghost story "Poltergeist," I thought it would be good to hear from an expert in the field of parapsychology, so I asked my friend and neighbor Loyd Auerbach to make a few prefacing remarks. Loyd is the Director of the Office of Paranormal Investigations, and he's been investigating psychic phenomena for close to thirty years. He is the author of seven books on the subject, teaches at HCH Institute and JFK University in California, and is on the Boards of three major parapsychology organizations. His media appearances on TV, radio, and in print number in the thousands, including a recent appearance on ABC's "The View." In addition, he's a professional mentalist and psychic entertainer, performing as Professor Paranormal, a title that follows him into his more serious work. Yes, Loyd is a real-life ghostbuster, whose Website, www.mindreader.com/loyd.htm, is as fascinating as he is.
Take it away, Professor:
As a parapsychologist who focuses on field research and investigation of cases of apparent apparitions, hauntings and poltergeists, I'm both a fan of and critical of movies that present the phenomena, the methods of investigation, and the terminology.
I have very much enjoyed "Poltergeist" every time I've seen it, as a fan of science fiction and some horror. But from a parapsychologist's perspective, there were a few things right and more things wrong with the way the phenomena and the investigation were portrayed.
A poltergeist, an old German term translated as "noisy ghost," does indeed have to do with physical effects such as moving objects --often destructively so. But parapsychologists have known for decades that the word better describes a situation caused by the subconscious mind of a living person, generally someone in the household undergoing emotional and/or psychological stress. The effects are caused by psychokinesis (PK), also known as mind over matter.
Most often, the results of a poltergeist "attack" are more like those of telling a bunch of sloppy kids to "run wild" than what was seen in "Poltergeist." Unlike that film, we do not get reports of all the items in a child's room flying around at once (such as the scene where the parapsychological team first went up to the children's room), or children-grabbing trees, or little girls or houses vanishing into other dimensions and so on. Spielberg and Hooper's "Poltergeist" initially presented a similarity to actual poltergeist cases, but things went far beyond what any parapsychologist would experience in even the "worst" cases.
The researchers themselves were generally presented in ways that are not so far from reality, but unlike in the film, where the team had access to all sorts of fancy equipment beyond even what reality TV series pay for (it was a Steven Spielberg production, after all), the equipment parapsychologists and ghost hunters have doesn't come close.
"Poltergeist" is a sci fi/horror film--personally I'd classify it as science fiction--and as such is lots of fun. But close to the real thing? If that was the reality of what we investigate and encounter, I certainly would not have stayed in this field for as long as I have. I'm brave, but I'm not stupid!
The Film According to John:
Thanks, Loyd. Like you, I'm of a similar skeptical mind about "Poltergeist." It's a fun film, an entertaining film, an occasionally frightening film, but it shouldn't be a film by which to judge real-life parapsychologists (or poltergeists and hauntings, if you believe in such things). "Poltergeist" is Hollywood, after all, with typically Hollywood ghosts and typically Hollywood exaggeration. Heaven help us if such demons as the ones depicted in this movie actually frequented our homes.
Now, here's the thing: Co-writer and producer Steven Spielberg and director Tobe Hooper ("Texas Chainsaw Massacre") wanted to do something a little different in the way of a ghost story. Rather than setting it in a conventional haunted house, they decided to place their tale in a tranquil Southern California housing tract, with a tranquil, almost fairy-tale musical score by Jerry Goldsmith. Their idea was to show how spirits of the dead can exist anywhere, even where you least expect them. Of course, Spielberg was riding high at the time, having already made "Jaws" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," and he probably would have directed "Poltergeist," too, if he hadn't been working on "E.T." the same year. As it was, Spielberg probably did more than just write, produce, and edit the film. He probably gave Hooper a good deal of advice in managing it as well, hearsay indicating that he directed a few scenes himself. In any case, "Poltergeist" shows all the signs of a Spielberg picture, from the happy family to the "lost" kid to the elaborately exaggerated special effects.
So, what's a "poltergeist"? Loyd called it a "noisy ghost." My Random House Dictionary defines it as "a ghost or spirit supposed to manifest its presence by noises, knockings, etc." But that's something of a misnomer in the case of this movie because what we have in "Poltergeist" is a full-fledged haunting, something the movie's characters even mention.
The family involved are the Freelings: Dad Steve (Craig T. Nelson), who sells houses in the fictional Cuesta Verde housing track; Diane (JoBeth Williams), his wife; Dana (Dominque Dunne), their teenage daughter; Robbie (Oliver Robins), their eight-year-old son; and Carol Anne (Heather O'Roarke), their five-year-old daughter, the only one in the family who can hear the spirits living with them. A trivia footnote is that two of the three actors playing the children died relatively shortly after making the movie, Dunne strangled by an ex-boyfriend the year of the movie's release and O'Roarke a few years later of an intestinal inflammation.
In the story, the first indications we get that things aren't all they appear is when we see a monster tree outside Carol Anne and Robbie's window and a clown doll in their bedroom that would scare the bejabbers out of anyone, child or adult. When the poltergeist (or spirit) shows up, the Freelings think it's kinda fun. The spirit rearranges furniture and moves objects across the kitchen floor. Things soon turn bad, however, when the tree tries to eat the boy, and the spirit inside the house kidnaps the little girl, taking her into some other dimension.
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