Chad

These "2009 DVDTalk Horror Challenge Day #" threads are for the discussion of the films in the 31 Films in 31 Days subset.

General discussion on the 2009 DVDTalk Horror Challenge goes here, your list for the Challenge goes here.

The plan is for everyone to watch this film on the October day in the thread title, and to start discussing it the morning of the following day. You may start discussion early if you want, but the preferred plan is for this to be as much of a group exercise as possible, with all of us viewing it "together" and discussing after.

Of course, you are totally encouraged to participate in these threads even if you haven't watched the movie on the designated day. Even if you haven't watched it in years, or are not participating in the Horror Challenge, please feel free to chime in.

Spoiler tags will not be needed, as it will be expected that anyone here has seen the film.

Do not read this thread if you have not seen the film, unless you don't mind the ending being spoiled for you.

Darkgod

I still till this day am terrified of the clown. When I was little, I was terrified of clowns because of this movie.

MrTerrific

What a great movie! It had been too long since my last viewing.

And I know it's directed by Tobe Hooper, but it's obviously directed by Spielberg. It has that Spielberg feel to it.

NoirFan

I'm looking forward to watching this in HD for the first time tonight. Still irritated at the lack of an actual SE though.

llandros

Love this movie so much - always has been one of my favorites. Enjoyed the True Hollywood Story about the supposed curse around the movie as well. One of my high school friends growing up said that he would not watch the movie because everytime he did, someone he knew would die. Of course, had to laugh it off but not quite two years ago, I watched the movie and the same friend died in his sleep less than 2 months later. Curse? No. But definitely an eerie coincidence to say the least. Have seen it again since then and nobody died, but still was bizarre. Just adds to it's creepiness for me.

jmsmath

It's been so long since I'd seen this!!! I liked it even more than I remember. Watched it on Blu-ray and it looked great. I had forgotten all about Dr. Lesh and I really think she was the star of the movie.

takingchase

I actually just watched this for the first time. It wasn't bad. I definitely agree it has a big Spielberg vibe

Ginwen

I hadn't watched this for a long time. I enjoyed it, but some of the explanation of ghosts, poltergeists and the spirit world was so hokey that those parts were kind of hard for a cynic like me to watch. I forgot that everything with the tree and all happened so early in the movie, I remembered it as being more towards the end.

smashthesymbols

Yesterday was my first time with this movie too. I really enjoyed it, but I didn't find it remotely scary.

I have to agree about Spielberg too. He may not have officially directed but there is no way he didn't have a heavy influence. It just feels too much like Spielberg.

clckworang

I was very young when this movie came out, but I still remember that it was a big deal. Everyone I knew was talking about it. I watched it several times back then and loved it. When I went to watch it for this challenge, I realized it had been a long time since I had seen it. I still only have the first DVD release of this movie.

So, Saturday I had an out-of-town wedding to attend. I flew up Saturday and brought Poltergeist, some other DVDs and my laptop along with me. Watching it on my 15" laptop, I was really impressed at how good the DVD looked. Then I put it in my friend's DVD player to finish it once I got to his house and realized just how wrong I was.

Watching it again was like a stroll down memory lane. Everything looked so familiar, and by that I mean everything in the house. I saw all of that son's Star Wars stuff and I remember having all of that: the Yoda puppet, the Darth Vader action figure case, even the C-3PO light switch on the wall. Hell, much of the furniture looked like stuff in my family's house. All of that really made this movie a treat to revisit.

smashthesymbols

Sounds like you need to upgrade. The Blu-Ray looks fantastic.

slop101

I saw this in the theaters the weekend it came out (I was 10) - it scared the shit out of me, and to this day was the only movie to give me nightmares (just on the night I saw it).

And now, almost 30 years and hundreds of horror movies later, I think Poltergeist is my favorite horror flick, or at least top-3.

Cardsfan111

I'm a big Poltergeist fan. For the challenge, I watched II & III (since they're on my unwatched pile). Both were disappointing in a lot of ways. The original film's ending seemed so perfect...did anyone expect the TV to come rolling out of the hotel room?

The sequels just seem so unnecessary (though that could possibly be said of many horror sequels in the 80s, I'm sure). I think the original Poltergeist film stands head and shoulders above the films that followed it. The story and the way everything came together at the end couldn't be topped.

clckworang

The second one certainly isn't up to the standards of the first film, but I think it has some effective scenes. And the preacher guy is very creepy. Although I don't agree with them, I've had many friends tell me that they like the second one more than the first, or at least were more scared by it.

I definitely need to upgrade. Been hoping for the Blu-ray to come down in price.

Trevor

Same here.
It was gorgeous on blu-ray. But yeah, seems like there could/should be a bunch of supplemental material. A making of, commentaries, deleted scenes.....
I thought the same thing. The tree scene scared the crap out of me as a kid, and I wasn't expecting it so early. Between this and the tree scene in The Evil Dead I stay out of forests.
Surprised that so many of you seemed to have not seen it before. I guess I'm older than I like to admit.
Yep, I remember this being HUGE, and I think I sat in the theater to watch it two or three times in a row once.

It holds up extremely well for me too.
I agree here too. The ending to the first was perfect. But the sequels aren't as horrible as many sequels, and I enjoyed watching them yesterday.
II and III both had some really creepy moments, with that preacher guy standing out.

NoirFan

Seeing Heather O'Rourke in this again, and being reminded of her early death, was saddening. I remember having a massive crush on her when I was ten or eleven, around the time of Part III, and being quite distraught when she died. I'm sure we were deprived of at least one Maxim cover ("She's baaaack! Heather O'Rourke is all grown up!").

GenPion

I'm sorry to say I missed out on watching this when the rest of you did, but man - I just had to add that I absolutely love this movie. It's one of my all time favorites and it is so well crafted it would be hard for most films to top. Anyone considering the Blu-ray should go for it, it's like watching the film for the first time all over again.

Cardsfan111

I've thought a bit more about the ending to this movie, which I described as perfect earlier. One great thing about it was how it went above and beyond what most horror movies of this type do. Many films have that moment where you think the danger is over only to discover the bad guy strikes one last time. In Poltergeist, you have that sense when they retrieve their daughter that the battle has been won. Instead of one last quick strike, however, there's still a great deal of action left.

Abob Teff

An excellent pick ... also surprised at how many people have never seen this before.

And yes, I did shut the TV off during the clown scene. I still cannot watch it.

Cardsfan111

I also credit Poltergeist with causing me to count the seconds between lightning and thunder.

Darth Maher

I still have not yet watched Poltergeist during the challenge. But I figured that now was as good as any to chime in about the movie. I did suggest it and all...

I first saw this movie on VHS while visiting some friends of the family back in 1983 or 84... can't remember exactly. This was back when not everyone had VCRs (we certainly didn't... our friends had like 4) so we felt privileged that after a day of swimming and boating, we had the opportunity to watch Poltergeist. My younger sister had seen most of it on Beta a few months prior, but I had not. However, my babysitter had given me a complete rundown of everything that happened in the movie after she saw it in the theater. So, even before seeing the movie, I was afraid of clowns... just based on her synopsis. I didn't even own a clown, but I was afraid one would come out from under the bed to get me. I was scared as hell when I first laid eyes on the actual clown in the movie. My imagination had conjured up nothing even remotely as freaky as the one they used. And I thought I was scarred before...

Anyway, so it's my mom, my sister and I watching Poltergeist alone in the guest bedroom. I'll admit it, I think we all probably ended up sleeping in one bed that night. So many things about the movie still get me today when I think about it: The clown (obviously), the music (that is one eerie score by Jerry Goldsmith), the speech by Tangina... "It liiiieees to her....." Yikes! And one thing that I never picked up on until I first saw it on DVD... you can actually hear the whispers of the ghosts in the TV when Carol Anne is talking to the static. The sound was probably so muddy on VHS that I never noticed that before.

We saw Poltergeist II opening day. I had a baseball early in the afternoon and I was catching. After the game, I hopped in the car all full of dirt and my mom, my sister and I went to see it at the theater. It had it's moments and Kane was pretty creepy, but for the most part, it fell short. I remember the teaser for this one: Starts with a slow zoom into a dark room with the phone ringing, finally a hand picks up the phone and the camera pans to Carol Anne answering saying "They'rre Baack." Then the camera zooms back super fast accompanied by a creepy sound effect and then we see flashes of scenes from the first Poltergeist (I could be wrong, they might have been from Poltergeist II), then the title comes up. Sitting there seeing this teaser in a dark theater... I was scared.

Darth Maher

Me too!

Dude... that is FREAKY!

Just something about that movie...

Trevor

Me three.
One of the best teasers ever.

indiephantom

I always have to remind myself that this is Tobe Hooper. The acting is just fantastic throughout and it has such a consistently creepy and fun tone. It's the perfect double-bill with E.T. always. Spielbergian suburbia par excellence.

DRG

Just watched 1 and 2, planned on watching 3 but the damn disc won't play that side. Anyway...

Poltergeist brought back some great memories. This was one of my horror 'gateway films', as my parents wouldn't let me watch many R-rated horror films at the time but PG was allowed. It's still a great, effective film. The entire plot device of Carol Anne being taken by the spirits cleverly answers the common haunted house dilemma of "why don't they just LEAVE?" I also think it's a wonder that despite being a polished, PG-rated, big budget Spielberg production (at the height of his mainstream success), this movie doesn't feel watered down.

I hadn't seen part 2 since its original release on VHS. It's not bad as far as sequels go, but showing 'the other side' as some goofy new-age, never-ending skyscape undermines the mystique of it all. Plus, the Native American spiritual stuff didn't quite work for me in the context of what we were given in part one.