Movies

The Freelings live in Cuesta Verde, a planned community in California. Steven is a successful estate agent, while his wife Diane is a homemaker who raises their three children. After their youngest daughter, Carol Anne, starts talking to 'people from the television', a strong earthquake hits the neighbourhood and a series of bizarre events ensues.

The economic crisis that affected the United States in the 1970s, characterised by inflation, oil shortages and rising interest rates on home loans, was also reflected in the increased popularity of haunted house films. Stephen King perhaps best summarised this in his commentary on The Amityville Horror (1979), a horror hit about the Lutz family who purchase a house at a bargain price, only to discover that it is haunted. In Danse Macabre (1981), King writes that it didn't matter whether the Lutz family would survive, but rather whether their insurance would cover broken windows, damaged parts of the house, and damp walls.

Similarly, Poltergeist, directed by Tobe Hooper, is another supernatural extravaganza that builds upon the real-estate anxieties of the previous decade, adding the crisis of the nuclear family and the return of repressed colonial guilt. The result is an instant classic of the 1980s, the mischievous cousin of The Goonies (1985) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Thanks to its imaginative special effects and inventive set design — evil toys, man-eating trees and, of course, the pool scene — it feels like a wild ride through an amusement park designed by Steven Spielberg, who is credited as producer and co-writer this time around. Regardless of genre, Spielberg always speaks to the child in all of us, which is why his films fascinate and entertain, even when they frighten.

Poltergeist was a major box-office hit and received three Academy Award nominations (for Best Original Score, Best Sound Editing and Best Visual Effects). Due to the tragic deaths of actresses Dominique Dunne and Heather O'Rourke, it is also considered to be among films with "cursed" productions.