Poltergeist
The film opens as a family winds down at day’s end, their golden retriever trotting through the bedrooms to rob the kids’ snacks as they sleep. The scene establishes Spielberg's trademark setting of middle-class normality and cozy family life that will shortly be upended.
Spielberg makes the point again over the title credits with extended shots of the Cuesta Verde development. It's a picture-perfect neighborhood, according to early-80's Hollywood standards. All the kids are blonde and white, and the all-Caucasian dads gather to watch football.
The first sign of trouble occurs when Carol Anne talks to the TV and shares her age and other personal information. The second sign is dead Tweety. Number three: freaky clouds that roll in during Tweety's funeral in the garden.
The next disturbance comes with thunder and a spooky tree outside the children's window that's bare of branches in the otherwise summery neighborhood. The dead-looking tree took me out of the story, as I wondered why the builders would leave it standing if it was dead.
Robbie and Carol-Anne inexplicably share a bedroom in their enormous house. Robbie is terrified of the tree, and the film begs the question: why doesn't he close the curtains? Or why doesn't his mom, Diane, close them? The curtains need to be open in order to make it possible for Robbie to spooked, so this contrivance could be set up in a more subtle way.
Product placement abounds in the kids' room. There is the game Clue, a Rubik's Cube, and lots of Star Wars toys. A clown doll with an evil face sits in a chair. This might be the first instance of scary clowns in films.
Robbie holds up some bent spoons at the family table, then his glass breaks by itself as he holds it. I love Spielberg's insertion of supernatural happenings into everyday life, often the kitchen. He used this technique in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, too.
The movie shows its age yet again when older daughter Dana walks out of the house and is immediately sexually harassed by construction workers. Instead of immediately firing them while cursing them out, Mom looks on fondly and chuckles. This scene would never be included today. Ironically, the actress who played Dana, Dominique Dunne (daughter of writer and journalist Dominick Dunne), was murdered in real life by her boyfriend just a few years after Poltergeist.
Serious trouble begins when the construction workers dig a hole for a swimming pool in the back yard. Poor Tweety's box is dug up by the backhoe: the first of many disturbed graves. Poltergeist might have been the originator of the "ancient tribal burial grounds" trope in ghost stories.
In a precursor to Stranger Things, Carol Anne gets sucked into the world of the TV people. Diane can hear her but not see her, just like the Winona Ryder character can hear Will’s voice over the telephone but can't touch him in the Upside-Down. It's good to re-watch this film and realize firsthand how germinal the works of Spielberg are.
Fast-forward and Dad has hired a group of paranormal researchers. Amazingly, there's a person of color among them. One refreshing aspect of Poltergeist is how the dad does not try to fix everything himself. He’s not a know-it-all and is comfortable with Diane as the heroine.
As evening falls, one of the technicians is filming. It’s fun to see the retro equipment as he wields a microwave oven-sized video camera. Diana is dressed for a momentous occasion in a fabulous karate outfit. She steps aside to reveal the wonderful Zelda Rubenstein as Tangina, who utters the classic line, "you all mind hanging back? You're jammin' my frequencies." It's lucky for us that Tangina's presence is so quirky and charming because she proceeds to dump a massive amount of information about Carol Anne's true predicament.
In a humorous moment, Diana and Tangina debate about who should enter the ghost dimension to save Carol Anne.
Tangina says, “I’ll go.”
Diana responds, "but you've never done this before!"
Tangina answers, "you're right. You go."
Later, after they rescue Carol Anne, Tangina poses for the camera. She is "ready for her closeup."
There are themes of feminine love and maternity: Dr. Lesh and Tangina shower Diane with kisses. Mother and child emerge from a passage like newborn foals, coated with red yuck. Tangina orders them into the water to come back to life. Tangina is the midwife. The men hang back - it's not their show.