A vapid, silly horror movie with occasional moments of promise that ultimately fails due to an overdose of cuteness.
Steve and Diane (Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams) are a happy suburban couple who suddenly find that their perfect house in the perfect neighborhood has begun acting funny, scaring their perfect children. They really sit up and take notice, however, when wide-eyed young daughter Carol Anne
(Heather O'Rourke) becomes possessed by late-night television and gets sucked into limbo by God knows what. Enter clairvoyant Tangina (Zelda Rubinstein), who surmises that the subdivision was built on a sacred Indian burial ground and that the gods aren't happy. POLTERGEIST is frustrating because
one gets a hint of what director Tobe Hooper really wanted to do, but it's obvious that he was restrained by producer Steven Spielberg. The problem is, some of the truly horrifying moments slip through the censorship cracks, scaring little kids (and their parents), leaving POLTERGEIST a very
disjointed, uneven movie. leave a comment
