[Closed] Poltergeist – The Movie

This movie genuinely gave me nightmares as a kid, I watched it once when I was about 8 (with my parents) and it really freaked me out. Especially the bit with the steak bursting open with maggots and the ghost hunter ripping his face off. I avoided it for YEARS afterwards and finally at the age of 45 saw it again.

Honestly, I am embarrassed that 8 year old me found Poltergeist scary. It's bordering on satire at points. The bit where the dad takes the ghost hunters up to the haunted room is properly played for laughs. But I could only think about the stuffed toy under the bed...

I remember watching Jaws when I was about four and I wouldn't go to the loo afterwards...

Just for shits and giggles tell them halfway through that your house is built on an ancient Saxon burial ground……

For a start The Exorcist wasn't scary - biggest pile of hyped-up horror poo ever. Just laughable.

And go on, scare the kids, it'll be fun! 👻👻

Watched this recently, had high hopes as others have said as it terrified me as a kid. It's good, but not scary as an adult. We live in different times now. Funny in parts, all over the place really.

No saying that as an adult I can't be scared by a movie. Some Lynch films give me the willies, The Shining can still freak me out consistently.  But those 80's horror movies haven't aged well.

Edit: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre STILL freaks me out!

Who else had the catalogue from the video shop lying around the living room on top of the box of tapes? With all the video nasties listed. C.H.U.D was one I always wanted to watch but never got to.

Reminds me, when we were kids our dad took us to visit an uncle who had a pirated VHS of Evil Dead which he suggested we all watch. My dad was umming and aahing saying he was unsure about letting us kids watch that. Which only added to the fever pitch of excitement as we'd obviously heard about it. So anyway we all sat down to watch it, us kids sat cross-legged about four inches away from the TV 🙂

We were falling about laughing all the way through like Bart & Lisa...

Fun fact: despite this being a film about disrespecting the dead, they used real medical cadavers in the 'pool scene', because they were cheaper.

Surprised Spielberg isn't being pursued by angry demons.

I thought it was pretty good when it was first released but, like all of that genre, it has been overtaken by exposure.

Not that scary by today's standards - it was one of those films we video'd off the telly and watched over and over BITD, great film. 🙂

That said, I probably wouldn't watch it late at night in the house on my own, but then I am a big massive chicken. 🙂

Watched this recently, had high hopes as others have said as it terrified me as a kid. It’s good, but not scary as an adult.

see also, Omen

Watched it the other night, still a good film story-wise but as others have stated it hasn't aged well and some of the special effects do look dated like when he's tearing his face off.

I also didn't mind the remake with Sam Rockwell.

I've never understood all the hype with the exorcist, Chainsaw Massacre but then I've never understood all the hype with the God Father or Scarface either.

It's less scary for us as adults. I think we've become used to TV being ultra-realistic and it feels aged because it no longer meets our expectations and we might struggle to take it seriously.

Young children are still going to get absorbed in the story. Depends on the age of the kids I guess but there were definitely parts that scared me. I think for most kids, it's the parts they relate to the kids in the movie, being alone in their room at night. For me, I always remembered the scene with tree coming through the window.

If you've seen it before it's not likely to have the same effect, not that I get particularly scared by any film, tense maybe and the last one that did that to me was Free Solo! My kids don't particularly like anything with supernatural aspects though. My daughter (18) got as far as the floating toys and she decided that was enough. Actually I think it was when Carrie Anne ran through her mother. Still I think the later doorway monsters are probably the scariest things - the long boned ghost and throat to hell particularity freaky - so I didn't push her to watch this far. These are still great effects (face rip was always weakest) as is the end with graves popping up and the house vanishing.

Does anyone who watched Poltergeist as a child leave the TV on with one of those static screens?

I once had a dog who would stare at random corners of a room and whine.

I remember watching Jaws when I was about four and I wouldn’t go to the loo afterwards…

My Father took me and my sister to see that when it came out. I'd have been about 7 at the time.
I suspect his real reason was to stop me and sis constantly asking 'Can we go to the seaside' as he was always busy with work 😆

My now 31yo son recently reminded me how watching Wolf Creek 16 years ago still haunts him.

If you really want to mess them up watch When The Wind Blows or the original Watership Down.

My auntie let me and my older brother watch An American Werewolf In London when I was about six. My brother was ill at the time and that night he had a bad fever plus insane nightmares. My parents had to get the on call doctor out because my brother was freaking out so much. The film plus that scared the shit out of me and I didn’t watch it again until I was in my twenties.

Pfft - La Cabina for the most utterly terrifying film ever.

If you know, you know.

Poltergeist was always more of a Spielberg film than a horror film, if that makes sense? Feels like Raiders with ghosts...

Haven't watched it since I saw it at the cinema, but one horror film that left a mental mark on me was The Serpent And The Rainbow. Can't even remember why now, and suspect I'd find it laughable if I watched it again.

Well... we watched it. Not the horror-fest that I remember!

Poltergeist was always more of a Spielberg film than a horror film, if that makes sense? Feels like Raiders with ghosts…

I agree. More of a family comedy/fantasy with some creepy bits.

Whilst Spielberg produced it and Tobe Hooper directed it there were so many "Spielbergisms" in there. Camera angles, visual jokes, interactions with minor characters and so on. The scene with the guy on the BMX and the RC cars or the one with the neighbour and the TV remote control could have come from Close Encounters or Jaws.

Next week.... Gremlins!

My auntie let me and my older brother watch An American Werewolf In London

I stumbled across this when i was a young teenager, and I remember it just scaring the total crap out of me. Nightmares, the works, I had a paper-round at the time and there was one house with a giant fat Lab, it was a great soft thing, but one morning it came bounding around the corner barking it's stupid head off, and I nearly shat myself...Haven't watched it since, never will.

Cross over children.
All are welcome.
All welcome.
Go into the Light.
There is peace and serenity in the Light.

Pfft – La Cabina for the most utterly terrifying film ever.

If you know, you know

+1. It's a classic.

There's a load of quality horror on the iplayer all nicely grouped together under >categories >movies >Halloween
There's also a rather good episode of 'Mark Kermode secrets of cinema' on horror which I've just finished watching and enjoyed treamondously.

An American Werewolf In London

Best. Film. Ever. It's got everything!

Freaked me out as a kid and I still can't watch supernatural horror though after reading this thread i might give it a watch and slay those demons!

Another classic tonight on the Horror Channel is The Thing with Kurt Russell.

Wow mostly that was really good fun and not scary at all. Loved the 80's vibe but how is the mum now 10 years younger than me?! I remember finding the closet scene really scary and intense as a child and then the meat and maggots scene has made me realise why I have a real dislike of maggots now. I don't have kids but this has reminded how something that seems insignificant to an adult can have a deep seated affect on a kid.

Who remembers Cat's Eye? That troll stealing young Drew Barrymore's breath was rather creepy.

I must be one of the few people that actually enjoyed Halloween 3. It has nothing to do with Michael Myers but I quite enjoyed the idea of the chipped masks which would unleash all sorts of evil when activated by the trippy Halloween broadcast.

Silver Shamrock...

What!? Poltergeist is not scary? That film shit me up for years. Most scared I've ever been watching a film. Can't believe it's a PG!

What!? Poltergeist is not scary? That film shit me up for years. Most scared I’ve ever been watching a film. Can’t believe it’s a PG!

I was just thinking that.. The scene where the guy vomits up a weird skeleton zombie thing covered in ectoplasm I remember being particularly disturbing.

Poltergeist 2 is actually pretty good, some say better than the first. You get a proper back story for the ghosts as well as the creepy pastor in the hat singing and telling the family at the door.. 'YOU'RE ALL GONNA DIE IN THERE, YOU'RE ALL GONNA DIE'
Well spooky.

I think that creepy pastor would still give me the sh1ts today.

Pfft – La Cabina for the most utterly terrifying film ever.

If you know, you know

<nods head sagely>

An American Werewolf In London

I lived on Dartmoor for a while, late 80s. The only telephone box stood on the road next to the Haytor Hotel, on the edge of the moor, just within the lights from the pub. I was fine as long as I didn't wander into the darkness across the road.

A year or two later I was living in London. The problem with deserted tube stations late at night is that there are a hell of a lot of weird noises from odd places, almost like they were designed to scare the crap out of you even if you haven't watched a film about a werewolf eating people in deserted tube stations late at night.