In 1982 Steven Spielberg and director Tobe Hooper teamed up to bring the horror flick Poltergeist to the big screen starring JoBeth Williams, Craig T. Nelson, Zelda Rubinstein, Beatrice Straight, Dominique Dunne, and Heather O’Rourke. The film was a major hit, but through the years has also been labeled with a curse due to the untimely deaths of both Dunne and O’Rourke. Now the iconic horror film is getting the 4K treatment with an all-new release.

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Poltergeist follows suburbanites Steve and Diane who suddenly experience paranormal activity in their home. What starts off as minor excitement quickly turns into nasty ghostly encounters. The disappearance of their daughter Carol Anne forces the Freelings to bring in parapsychologists and a professional exorcist to exorcise their home.

 

I can honestly say I have never been a big fan of the haunting ghost side of the horror genre. With the more recent films like Insidious and The Conjuring franchises I have found myself enjoying them more, but of them all Poltergeist was one that I loved and was terrified of the first time I saw it. I haven’t watched it in some time so was concerned that the film might come off too dated and cheesy at this point, but thankfully I was wrong.

 

The film still holds up to perfection as a crowing example of how this genre should be handled. At times it’s small and intimate, but as it grows it becomes so much more. It could have easily gotten silly and depending on your feelings on the film you might think it did, but it just works for me. Even at its most over the top it is engaging and frightening by the standards of its time. Sure it’s nothing compared to some of the terror we get in cinema these days, but for it to still holdup says something about the quality of the film.

 

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