I Wish I Could Un-See: Poltergeist

Parents generally get a good sense of what will and won’t scare they child. Mine were no different; I got to see a lot of movies well before I was at the recommended age range because of my parents understanding that I was a reasonably mature kid. In some senses. This means I got to see a lot of rated R films while I was in the single digits. So, then, what would the harm do of having four or five year old Johnny watch something that was PG rated?

Perhaps they didn’t know that the film had only been re-rated PG after arbitration. Perhaps they didn’t know I had a freaking tree right outside the room that I shared with my sister! Sorry. Sorry. I’m getting ahead of myself here.

Poltergeist, released in 1982, was the work of director Tobe Hooper and producer Steven Spielberg. Or was it? The directorial and producer lines were heavily blurred in this film. While Spielberg was contractually barred from making another film, reports and rumors from the set were calling Tobe Hooper a coke-addict who was too stoned to do any work on the film. A scathing LA Times article written in 1982 quoted many different on-set sources saying that Hooper had little to do with the directing of the film, primarily working as a coach for the actors, nothing technical. Even in the official story, Hooper became hands-off after submitting his cut of the film, letting Spielberg and the editors have full control of the final cut.

The film itself? The story of a little girl named Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) who speaks to the spirits contained in the house, using the television as the medium to receive messages. (Subtextual Marshall McLuhan references?) Sadly, the voices she hears are not benign, and abduct her. Her parents, as played by Coach Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams now must not only save her from these evil spirits, but also protect their teenage daughter Dana (Dominique Dunne) and middle son Robbie (Oliver Robins). Why would there be spirits in a normal suburban house? Maybe because the realtor… didn’t tell Coach… that the house… was built… on an Indian Burial Ground! (Note that now the house would be built on a First Nations burial ground.)

You may also have heard that this film is cursed, and not because it was shot… on an Indian Burial Ground! No, the curse was due, according to Hollywood legend, to the use of actual skeletons during a horrific pool scene with the poor Ms. Dunne. All joking aside, the curse gained notoriety due to the deaths of both Dominique Dunne (who was shot after the film’s release in 1982 at the age of 22) and Heather O’Rourke, who died of septic shock in 1988 after being repeatedly misdiagnosed. Two more statistically understandable deaths were also related to Poltergeist II, but both of those actors were in their fifties or sixties at the time.

It isn’t the curse that makes me wish I could un-see Poltergeist. No, as I mentioned above, it was the damned tree scene. This scene combines a few distinct childhood scares; the way objects look in the dark, lightning, and thunder. The bedroom of the two younger kids was positioned much as mine was as a youth, with a tree outside. During a deep, terrifying thunderstorm, the kids realize by counting the space in seconds between the light and sound of the lightning, that the storm is closing in on them. When it hits, this is the point that the tree outside decides to anthropomorphize and grab the son. Looking back, this is one of the more ridiculous scenes in the film. However, to my four year old eyes, this was a terror I had never previously imagined, and it could very well happen to me. I was not previously aware that trees had the ability to turn sentient, grow mouths, and attack. This was a whole new danger.

After that during lightning storms I was acutely aware of the distinct possibility of evil tree attacks. The birch tree outside my house never looked more sinister.

A runner up, for somewhat similar reasons, would be Zack Snyder‘s 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. I was at the ripe age of twenty four by this point, and had not had a nightmare due to a film in years. This was all about to change. Much is made about the desensitizing of children to violence at the hands of video games and movies. Perhaps this is a normal thing? Perhaps I stopped watching horror films for too long? For whatever reason, my desensitizing suddenly and dramatically wore off. I realized this right as the little girl ripped the tendons out of Justin Louis‘s neck during the opening scenes. Ugh. That image, which I’ve only seen once, has replayed in my head hundreds of times, and caused me to have bad nightmares for a week. I’m not sure if it was the combination of zombies, a little girl zombie, or graphic neck damage that did it. But man. That one did a number on my subconscious that even films like Hostel couldn’t manage.