Poltergeist (1982)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1982
	Director: Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Eaten Alive, Salem's Lot)
	Actors: JoBeth Williams (Wyatt Earp), Heather O'Rourke, Craig T. Nelson (Scream Blacula Scream, The Devil's Advocate, The Incredibles)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Horror
	Conditions of visioning: 02.09.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Paranormal events occur in a suburb house of the Midwest, and the little girl of the family (O'Rourke) is particularly sensitive to them.
Review: As I will probably soon meet Tobe Hooper at the MotelX festival in Lisbon, I wanted to watch some of his movies. Poltergeist was written and produced by Steven Spielberg who was at that time shooting E.T. He wanted Hooper to direct the movie because he had been scared by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but he was very present on set and in post-production and his trademark is clearly visible in the movie: suburb houses, nice family with plenty of kids, bicycles, filming people from the back or off-screen, several conversations taking place at the same time... I read spielberg and Hooper wanted to revisit the haunted house genre and I think they succeeded: the movie is unique and it is what made is successful, very different from the old gothic haunted house stories (still told this way nowadays in some movies) or from the house of horror film for teenagers filled with jump-scares and bloody deaths (most common). It is actually closer to possession movies like The Exorcist and has this 80's style that I love for telling a story. The construction of some scenes is excellent, like the whole family relationships in the first half-hour, the 15-minutes whispered scene in the middle (I had never seen that in a movie!) and the ending that totally surprised me. The quality of the Blu-ray edition is good but not excellent. I was startled by two very abrupt cuts in the editing (looking like censorship but has no reason to be) and three scenes in which you get a glimpse of a stuntman in a corner of the screen! According to some websites, the movie is one that contains the most revealing or continuity mistakes! Is this due to the tiredness of Spielberg when post-producing it at the same time as E.T.?
Rating: 7 /10