ThiefHott Too much of everything

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

MusicChat It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

paulclaassen This is a true classic. The haunting starts innocently and is initially seen as 'fun' by some of the family members, but then soon turns dangerous and scary. This is a very effective set-up that prepares us for what is to come. The characters a very likable, especially Craig T. Nelson as the cool and collected Dad; and Heather O'Rourke was equally good as the film's main victim. The visual effects were really good. The film did get quite weird towards the end, but it was all good and well within the film's theme.

Sam Panico F a movie is a great film, does it matter who made it? I come from advertising, where it's hard at best to figure our credit and uncouth to loudly demand it. So the controversy about this film - whether Spielberg or Hooper directed it - doesn't really matter to me Because the important thing is that it's a great movie.Steven and Diane Freeling (Craig T. Nelson from TV's Coach and the voice of Mr. Incredible from The Incredibles and JoBeth Williams, Stir Crazy) are living the American dream. After all, Steve is a successful real estate developer. They have three great kids. And they've recently moved into a planned community called Cuesta Verde. Sure, the newer houses in the plan look much better. And you can't even watch a football game without losing what channel you're on because the houses are so close together. But it's the American Dream, right?That TV is the fixation of America in this movie, starting with the National Anthem and continuing with the people inside the TV that fascinate their youngest daughter, Carol Anne (who would sadly die at the age of 12 of cardiac arrest and septic shock caused by a misdiagnosed intestinal stenosis). The connection between the hand that emerges from the TV and the young girl is so powerful that it shakes the entire town before she announces the film's best-known line, "They're here." All hell breaks slowly loose over the following day. A glass of milk breaks out of nowhere, drenching daughter Dana (Dominique Dunne, daughter of writer Dominick and brother of Griffin, she would be killed by her stalker ex-boyfriend John Thomas Sweeney at the age of 22). The son, Robbie (Oliver Robins, Airplane 2), has his silverware twist and turn after he uses it. Furniture slides and rearranges at will, even in front of more than one person.Here's the beauty of this film. These teases start slow and you expect the Val Lewton jump scare model, where the pressure will be let off after a minor scare. But once a tree emerges from the backyard to crash through the window and pull Robbie outside, the movie jumps onto a rollercoaster track. While saving their son, Carol Anne disappears into the closet and can only be heard through the TV set.They turn to parapsychologists Dr. Lesh (Beatrice Straight, Chiller), Ryan (Richard Lawson, Scream Blacula Scream, Sugar Hill) and Marty, who discover that there is more than one ghost. That info is confirmed when Steven finds out from his boss Lewis Teague (James Carren, The Return of the Living Dead, Invaders from Mars) that Cuesta Verde was built over an Indian cemetery.Dana and Robbie are sent away and Tangina Barrons (Zelda Rubinstein, Teen Witch, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon), a spirit medium, is called in for help. She explains how they have to get Carol Anne back from spirits that are not at rest. There's also another ghost, the Beast (which uses the same sound effect as the MGM lion roar), who has their daughter restrained. Diane enters a portal to the beyond to bring her daughter back and they both emerge covered in ectoplasm as the house is said to be clean.Steven believes that it's anything but, so he gets the family ready to move. On their last night there, he goes to quit his job while Dana goes on one last date before leaving town. The Beast attacks, turning Robbie clown doll into a demon and pushing Diane all over the walls of her room before throwing her into the backyard hole that is due to be a swimming pool. The bodies of the dead begin to explode from the ground, some in coffins, some just covered with filth and rot. Steven screams into his boss's face that he may have moved the cemetery's headstones, but the bodies were left behind. Finally, the house collapses within itself as the family drives away. As they stay in a Holiday Inn, unsure of their future, the TV is pushed outside.Poltergeist is really a must see horror film. It sets up so much so effectively and does a great job of paying off each scare. It'd be followed by two sequels and a TV series, which we'll definitely be getting to.

Julian R. White I watched this movie as a kid and only recently rewatched it recently. I love the monstrosities that it creates, obviously being something different than just ghosts. It makes me feel bad for the family, and depending on how much you believe in this kind of stuff, it can be a problem people really experience. The ending however leaves you somewhat unsure of what will happen to the family, and if their reputation will rebuild itself. Great effects for its time though, really can give you a good scare if you're fragile enough, haha.

jillmillenniumgirllevin Poltergeist: Tobe Hooper; Steven Spielberg. In the clichéd phrase: This is a movie that those who like this kind of thing will like. A movie I wanted to like, but found dated and disappointing. The performances are adequate, although the family are disconnected and loveless; why, for instance, include an elder daughter who gets less than five minutes of screen time? (And given my arithmetic , would have been born when her mother was sixteen.) As so often in Spielberg, a child is endangered; as so often in Spielberg, the child is rescued, in this case, safe in her mother's arms, and covered in red-orange jello. Unsurprisingly, the visual effects now seems a bit quaint,, which is not the movie's fault. What is its fault is its failure to make us care about its characters. For example, when the medium asks which is the authoritative parent, the couple are at a loss. Also objectionable — one hopes then as now — is JoBeth Williams's costume for the final showdown, a not quite crotch length tee shirt and visible white panties — enough, presumably, to satisfy male voyeurs — and in the bathroom is subjected to a kind of supernatural rape. But hey — a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do, and she couldn't be expected to know that "this house is not clean" before she luxuriates in the tub, thinking all is well. Unless, that is, she'd ever seen a horror movie, which would have alerted her that as a woman with a daughter, she'd constitute the Final Girl. Given the running time, she should also have known that the house is most definitely not clean, and that she'd have to face a final showdown with fierce and enraged ghosts and spirits. I admit to being puzzled by television's being the conduit to their world. Is the message that TV is dangerous? or that children shouldn't be allowed to watch it? or that they should be taken to the movies instead? Presumably not this film, which in my admittedly conservative view is too gruesome for preteens (although they probably love it). If there's a Lubitsch touch, let's propose a Spielberg touch, and assume that had Spielberg had time to direct it, it would have been a different and better film. But if he had, we might not have ET (with its feisty single mother and convincing children), and that we would miss more acutely than this film with its unconvincing family.