HUMANITY AND HORROR MIX PERFECTLY IN 'POLTERGEIST' Miami Herald, The (FL) - June 7, 1982 Author: BILL COSFORD Herald Movie Critic The kids k...

Fright master Tobe Hooper’s 1982 movie has Steven Spielberg’s fingerprints all over it, but has a disturbing, satirical edge that’s all its own

(Originally posted on 2/26/04) Although I was disappointed to find that my favorite scene from 1982’s Poltergeist -- the one with the paranormal expert tearing his face off in front of the bathroom mirror -- employs a lame fake head...

Given the talents, Poltergeist is an annoying film because it could have been so much better. Certainly, the subject is interesting, a persistent parapsychological phenomenon that defies scientific explanation, yet refuses to go away.

Read the Empire Movie review of EMPIRE ESSAY: Poltergeist. Managing to cause ripples post release — two sequels, a TV series plus a real life "Curse Of...

Special effects in the movies have grown so skilled, sensational, and scary that they sometimes upstage the human actors. And they often cost a lot more. In "Poltergeist," for example, the cast is made up of relatively unknown performers, but that's all right because the real stars are producer Steven Spielberg ("Raiders of the Lost Ark"), director Tobe Hooper ("The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"), and their reputations for special effects and realistic violence. Their names on this horror film suggest that its technology will be impeccable. And they don't disappoint us. This is the movie "The Amityville Horror" dreamed of being. It begins with the same ingredients (a happy American family, living in a big, comfortable house). It provides similar warnings of doom (household objects move by themselves, the weather seems different around the house than anywhere else). And it ends with a similar apocalypse (spirits take total possession of the house, and terrorize the family). Even some of the special effects are quite similar, as when greasy goo begins to ooze around the edges of a doorjamb.

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PG • 1 hour 54 min • 1982

Credited to Hooper, but every inch a Spielberg film, this is a barnstorming ghost story, set in one of the small suburban houses Spielberg knows and loves, wher