POLTERGEIST, conceived, co-written, co-produced, & essentially co-directed by Steven Spielberg, battled his family feel-good opus E.T. the Extraterrestrial for attention in the summer of 1982. The existential crisis of the ‘Freeling’ tribe ceded tribute rank to the can-we-keep-it-as-a-pet? quandary of ‘Elliott’ & sibs, that heart-warmer (burner to a silent minority) claiming the year’s top spot while this scare fest of ill-planned suburbia had to be content with #8. To each their own (the magnanimous way of saying “I give up”), but from our haunted end of the subdivision, you can keep the goody two-shoes of the burping space frog: we’ll man the den and face down kidnapping spirits from the grave. ‘Face down’ hopefully not the kind that falls apart with a squish into the bathroom sink. *

‘Cuesta Verde’, California. Laid back real estate agent ‘Steve Freeling’ (Craig T. Nelson, 37),  dream wife ‘Diane’ (JoBeth Williams,33) and their three chipper offspring enjoy suburban bliss in the development Steve helped sell. When wee daughter ‘Carol  Anne’ (adorable 5-year-old Heather O’Rourke) lets them know they’re hosting unseen squatters (here inject one of the most famous sentences in pop culture history) surprise becomes nervousness begetting fear that manifests cross-dimensional horror. With a sudden plunge in resale value. A team of parapsychologists (watch that mirror, bud!) and a take-charge medium (Addams family cousin?) provide temporary help, but what’s in (and under) the Freeling’s TV, toys, closets and swimming pool isn’t easily put off.

Having shown what he could do with housebound terror via The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Salem’s Lot and The Funhouse, direction was assigned to Tobe Hooper, with Spielberg (shuttling between this and E.T.) on hover: he wrote the script with Michael Grais and Mark Victor. $10,700,000 laid on jolting special effects, Jerry Goldsmith provided soundtrack mood, and Spielberg’s preternatural gift for evoking middle-class Americana was blessed with the casting, which couldn’t have been better.

Burly but nimble, Nelson combined funny with forceful. Little O’Rourke was a natural, charming without a trace of cloying. As teenage sis ‘Dana’, Dominque Dunne (21 playing 16) gets some choice moments but is given less to do than the others. As tree-swallowed, clown-tackled kid brother ‘Robbie, Oliver Robbins, 10, is—like O’Rourke—unaffected and likeable. Zelda Rubenstein gets the memorably showy role of spiritualist ‘Tangina, a ‘ghostbuster’ without gear. Best of all is Williams, who seamlessly channels mother love with equal measures of patience, tenderness and ferocity: it’s a stellar performance that—if the myopic awards bestower’s didn’t stiff genre work—should have earned her an Oscar nomination.

The Oscars did allow nominations for Music Score, Visual Effects and Sound Effects Editing, but lost all to E.T., the cheat for Visual Effects especially asinine: we cry foul at the quiche slurping suckups in the Academy. The winning hand came from the excited vox populi, who eagerly fed their jolt genes with $76,606,000 on the home front, $47,000,000 abroad.

“Cross over, children. All are welcome. All welcome. Go into the light.”

114 minutes, with Beatrice Straight, Martin Casella (face-collapsing fella), James Karen (real estate developer—what chance that he’s sympathetic?), Richard Lawson and Michael McManus (snotty neighbor ‘Ben’).

* “Game over, man! Game over!”—is Poltergeist the best fright flick of the be-gnarled 80’s? Certainly in terms of relating to characters and setting. It depends how yucky or merciless one needs their peril play. At any rate, Carol Anne & Co. were dang sure in bloody good company: Aliens, The Thing, The Evil Dead, An American Werewolf In London, Predator, The Howling. Don’t forget to close The Gate.

Spirits refuse to croak—four years later came Poltergeist II, two years after that witnessed  Poltergeist III and then a remake snuck out of the closet in 2015. 

Williams, at one time: “I think there’s a danger of being typecast as the all-American mom forever.” Well, she was nigh on perfect, but need not have worried. Fond recall: seeing her in this and then The Big Chill, in each instance with much missed buddy Jay Amicarella (1955-2014). We were gobsmacked by how enchanting she was. Twenty-seven at the time, we weren’t necessarily thinking in terms of ‘mom’.