The Freeling family live in a master-planned, SoCal-valley suburb where Mr. Freeling is a real estate developer. They’re a normal family with normal problems when one night, they awaken to see their daughter talking to the static in the TV. They brush it off as sleep-walking, but strange “disturbances” begin to occur around the house, such as objects moving or bending on their own. This comes to a head one evening—as an intense storm rages, the tree in their yard tries to devour their son and their daughter is zapped into another plane of existence. The Freezings contact Dr. Martha Lesh & team to investigate (what is determined to be a poltergeist intrusion) and retrieve their daughter. Mr. Freeling discovers that their suburb tract is built on top of a cemetery. Meanwhile, the hauntings continue, more experts are brought in, and through gory intervention, their daughter is recovered. The Freelings decide to move and abandon their haunted home when the spirits come out to socialize, one final and horrific time.
“Poltergeist” is a spooky and dark-humored film that has its DNA all over a bunch of modern horror imagery, from “Stranger Things” to “The Ring”. Famously, the flick has been tied up in a controversy over creative and directorial credit; Spielberg wrote and produced the film but contractually could not direct it (so Tobe Hooper was brought in). But the film sits in this unmistakable place between “Raiders of the Lost Arc’s” spooky visual effects and “E.T’s” suburban setting and design. Throw in the family banter, the kids, and the famous “Spielberg Shot” (panning into characters faces, wide-eyed and in awe) and you have what feels pretty much like a Spielberg film. The movie is genuinely pretty creepy and the visual effects straddle uncanny and gory. For me, the one thing lacking was a “big bad”. There is the notion of “the beast”, but in general, the film is just a series of bad events happening to a family before they give up and bounce. Still, behind the spooks and gags is the allegory that, if you disregard and disrespect the past, you’ll eventually have to answer for your sins. I find that lesson hard hitting.