Poltergeist (1982) by Tobe Hooper

Director: Tobe Hooper

Year: 1982

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Haunted House

Plot:

Moving into a new house, a family finds that their suburban home is built over the unmarked graves of a burial ground and subject to a series of increasingly violent ghostly attacks, forcing them to rely on paranormal helpers to stop their antics.

Review:

This is one of the best haunted-house films. Among the better qualities here is the fact that the film really manages to play quite well with the ability to generate a viable atmosphere which quite a few films in the genre never quite manage. This starts with the fact that the house looks creepy to begin with, which always helps, but the inside isn't so it looks like a normal house and this one looks like it could happen to a normal everyday family. That's what makes what happens at first such a nice twist in that the poltergeists don't want to harm and instead want to play. The early set-ups here where they initially get possessed by the spirits in the house of the electrical charge floating across the room from the TV set to the wall socket leading into the earthquake that signals their arrival to chair-stacking and the great scene in the kitchen where instead of picking up the chair and throwing it across the room at the characters the poltergeists have fun by sliding it across the floor, which is a little creepy and the false sense of security is just right to lure you off track all give this a solid sense of eeriness in these segments.

Once the film gets going and their true nature becomes apparent, it has one great chill after another when they bring in the paranormal team by bringing in these high-tech equipment and other gizmo's is shocking because that starts in on the more thrilling scenes. From the crew's first experience in the haunted room or the chilling sequence of the hallucination of the one victim pulling his face apart and their spectral encounters seen on the video monitors, there's quite an impressive amount of enjoyable scenes here that really pick the action up in this section. Once we learn of what has happened to the house, it just becomes a roller-coaster ride through to the end as it takes that creepy backstory and flows together nicely with the ending. That action-packed ending is another spectacular sequence full of new ideas about not only battling the demons but also the different ways of battling the house itself which creates quite a thrilling and spectacular sequence that leads into the fine finale.

Not only is there yet another truly engaging and spectacular confrontation with the main ghost in the bedroom which is exceptionally thrilling but after escaping the spirits the family gets out of the house and into the front yard when dozens of skeletons begin to pour out of the ground. That is such an action-packed ending that it just makes the beginning of the film seem like nothing really much happened and definitely sends this out on a high note. Alongside the chilling effects work done on the ghosts, here are the film's positive points and hold this up over its minor flaws that don't really have many detrimental issues. The main issue of contention here is simply a point of getting kind of tired of having the house be haunted by having it rest on an ancient burial ground. It's way too clichéd and falls into the same lack of creativity that so many use, but it sticks out as clichéd. Otherwise, there's not much wrong here.

Overview: *****/5

One of the greatest haunted house films of all time, this is still an immensely impressive and impactful genre effort that doesn’t have much in the way of flaws holding it down. Those with an interest in this style of genre effort, are appreciative of the content within this one, or are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here while only those turned off by these factors should heed caution.