Last Updated on July 23, 2021
THE BLACK SHEEP is an ongoing column featuring different takes on films that either the writer HATED, but that the majority of film fans LOVED, or that the writer LOVED, but that most others LOATH. We’re hoping this column will promote constructive and geek fueled discussion. Dig in!
POLTERGEIST (1982)
Directed by Tobe Hooper
“Deep down you’re a fraud, a fake, a flashy flutter of a film.”
Oh, Poltergeist. Why are you so beloved? Why, after nearly 30 years, do people still hold you in such high regard when you know deep down you’re a fraud, a fake, a flashy flutter of a film? You’re slow, dull, and ultimately uninteresting. You masquerade as something elite and of great importance when you know damn well that you’re nothing more than part of the black sheep of cinema.
Is Tobe Hooper why people like you? Doubtful, the dude made only one memorable movie, and if anything, it was more a product of time, place and chainsaw over excellent filmmaking. Is it Craig T. Nelson? Shit no. He’s Coach. Not the guy from Poltergeist. The Spielberg factor? Perhaps. After all, the guy could release a film about a flaming bag of poo with swooping camera angles and daddy issues and cast Tom Hanks as the fire marshal. Everyone would proclaim its brilliance and use of great social commentary. What about that four-foot-something lady? Bingo. Beyond the excellent tagline of “They’re heereee,” which no one can deny, and the beard of Spielberg, Poltergeist is remembered because of one little, creepy lady who stole the show. Without the strange Zelda Rubinstein as Tangina, without that voice and those glasses, no one would care about this movie. At all. (Ok, that clown is freaky too.)
A couple months ago I caught Poltergeist at a midnight screening. I wanted to like it because it is a classic, held in such high regard. Now I hadn’t seen the thing since on TBS as a kid, but even as a young Doom, I wasn’t impressed. Sure, Zelda and the whole TV thing was freaky, but it just didn’t click. So at that fateful midnight screening, I realized that Poltergeist is no better than any other lame haunted house movie. It’s just bigger, sounds better, and looks more dandy.
Perhaps Poltergeist’s failure comes from the fact that it strives to be four-class material. In an article for Entertainment Weekly, god himself Stephen King wrote, “Big movies demand big explanations, which are usually tiresome, and big back stories, which are usually cumbersome.” This is the death nail here. Everything is too lush, too pretty, too perfect. Even Jerry Goldsmith’s score is too classy for horror. Not that the genre can only have death metal or Carpenter keyboards, but Goldsmith’s stuff sometimes overtakes the movie. That’s fine with something big like Star Trek or Total Recall where we can got lost in the moment, but his score isn’t tense. It’s annoying and distracting.
Now I got nothing against kids, but little ones in movies, if they’re given a dominate role, always ruin the damn thing. They’re kids, too young to understand what they’re really doing, and therefore they take me outta the movie. Yes, they’re cute. They always sport a little grin. Yes, they can’t help it. But all I can picture is the director off camera giving instructions (think Phantom Menace and the damage that can be done). It takes me outta the thing and reminds that I’m watching a some little snot act. Can’t have that. The only way children work as the star of a horror flick is if they’re damn evil little squirts. Menacingly evil: killing cats, burning folks, chopping something up, planting evidence. If they ain’t doing that, then what am I watching? I know, Coach is actually the lead as the dominating character, but he’s not the center of focus. At the same time, having Carol Anne moan, “Mommy where are you?” over and over is more grating than goosebump inducing. And the fact that she has to keep saying it with that lame echo doesn’t help anything.
Big budgets and horror mix like hookers and sundresses. Every mega-dollar horror venture has been underwhelming and saturated because directors and producers can’t keep anything in their pants. Hollywood always seems to believe bigger is better, but more often than not, low budgets, something to restrict what a movie can do, always makes the genre better. Low budget means inventiveness, not a reliance on special effects. But hold on. It’s not that horror can’t be classy or big budget. Silence of the Lambs is both, but it feels realistic and gritty, not pricey and bloated. No one can knock Poltergeist’s effects as it was the best the 80s had to offer, but Hooper and Spielberg made the mistake of revealing too much cleavage. Sure, there’s some nice simple teases like the sliding chairs, but its not groundbreaking nor frightening. And the money shots, the big effects, don’t work. Take the scene where the Coach rescues his son from the tree. Evil Dead’s hyperactive trees are twice as scary, twice as f*cked up. And the animated ghosts look too much like Ghostbusters. I know this one came first, but the imagery of Ghosterbusters stands as much more dominated and realistic.
With the more money pumped in, the more the thing needs to appeal. Poltergeist, in horror terms, is a safe movie, a cute one that’s aimed at the whole family. (Ok, so the whole pot scene doesn’t seem family orientated nor is the face-ripping off dream sequence, but it was the go-go 80s.) Lord King also nailed what happens with budgets and back stories. A little about Coach’s job as a Realtor is fine, but the movie dwells on the damn thing far too long and tries too hard to explain what’s going on with Carol Ann stuck in the TV. Keep some mystery. Isn’t that the success of all great horror?
If it wasn’t for Zelda’s perfect casting, this would be yet another forgotten haunted house flick, not the supposed classic it is. And that makes it a f*cking black sheep.
Disagree? Buy the DVD and discover the f*cking black sheep for yourself.
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