Poltergeist (1982)

It doesn’t take long for strange things to begin happening at the nice suburban home that is the central location of Poltergeist. The youngest daughter of the Freeling family, Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke), begins talking to the television—the famous “They’re here” line—and the silverware starts bending, the dog barks at a spot on the wall, the chairs move away from the dining room table, and then they appear on the top of the table. Even scarier stuff follows: a tree attacks the son (Oliver Robins) through his bedroom window and the closet “takes” Carol Anne into another dimension filled with demons and evil spirits. A parapsychologist (played by Beatrice Straight) and her team begin investigating the various odd phenomena, but it takes the arrival of Zelda Rubinstein’s clairvoyant Tangina to explain what’s going on in the house. She’s hilarious, by the way: “Ya’ll don’t mind hanging back? You’re jamming my frequencies.” She helps the parents realize that the housing development sits atop what was once a cemetery, but the bodies weren’t moved. Tangina’s explanation is pure hokum, something about the dead not knowing they’re dead and wanting Carol Anne’s lifeforce? And there’s an evil presence that uses the little girl to keep the others restrained? Nevertheless, they concoct a plan that requires Diane (JoBeth Williams) to retrieve Carol Anne from some sort of demon by using a rope that connects two different dimensions. After the rescue, everyone thinks everything is okay again until a clown doll takes the son and the mom is attacked in bed. The closet once again tries to take the kids, but it looks too much like a colonoscopy video now to be as frightening as it was when the film was originally released. The final sequence with skeletons in the unfinished pool and bodies erupting from coffins is perhaps the scariest. Poltergeist is justifiably famous for its moments of fright, and Rubenstein should have been nominated for her over-the-top performance. It hasn’t necessarily held up well in comparison to current special effects, but some sequences still have to power to make a viewer jump. 

Oscar Nominations: Best Original Score, Bests Sound Effects Editing, and Best Visual Effects