Shoot The Flick
Poltergeist (1982)
[music] Hey there, welcome to Shoot The Flick. I'm Frankie Spaz. And I'm Scott Eisenberg. And we are a married couple who like to shoot the shoot about movies. That we do. That we do. And this week is the last entry into a spoopy month. Indeed, you know, we have to thank Brucker for last week. That was amazing. Yes, that was very fun. Brucker for Nightmare on Elm Street. But this week we are watching another pretty iconic 80s horror film. Scott, what movie did I introduce you to today? You showed me Poltergeist. Released in 1982. And I didn't realize how much this movie is in pop culture. Yeah, well, I mean, the most iconic thing that I think everybody kind of knows this movie for is the little blonde girl in front of the little TV screen being like, "They're here." Well, yeah, it's the poster. Yeah, that's like the most iconic thing probably from this movie that everybody knows. But there are other things as well. A lot of behind-the-scenes stuff too that's pretty interesting about this movie, which we'll talk about. I only saw this for the first time a few years ago. I don't know what compelled me to watch it, because if you all have been watching this show for a minute, you know, that Frankie is not the biggest straight horror fan. Nope. Usually if I'm into horror, I'll mix it with another genre, and that'll make me more down to clown. Usually sci-fi. Sci-fi or comedy. Well, yeah. Or something of that nature. However, I really liked this movie the first time I watched it. Probably the element that I enjoyed most about this movie was that there is a distinct mom boss energy to the movie. A lot of strong female characters, sort of running the show. But even still, there were times we sat there with the mother, especially, and we're like, "What are you doing?" Well, I mean, yes, I would say that the "What are you doing?" aspects of the movie were more directed towards both the mom and dad as a unit in this family. But we'll talk about that stuff as we go, but I feel like there's also just in horror movies in general. I feel like we've talked about this in the past. There has to be a certain element of stupidity or incompetence for the movie to happen. Yes, but even still, in the same breath, you sit there and you're like, "What are we doing here?" Like, it's jokingly about the whole, like, last 10 minutes of this movie. Yeah, well, yes, yes. But even in the beginning, because in case you couldn't tell from the title, this movie is about a house, and there's a poltergeist in it, so it's funny because when the poltergeist first really started making their presence known, the reaction of certain family members was interesting. Scotty and I were saying they were like, "If this happened in our house, we'd be gone. Gone. Out the door. Frankie, get the dog, and get some clothing bag, and we were out the door." For whatever reason, it's not because the movie has to happen, so that doesn't happen in this movie. It's just kind of funny, but I did enjoy this movie when I watched it and I immediately put it on our list for this show, because I wanted to kind of, let's be honest, show off to Scotty. Hey, I saw a horror movie that you haven't seen, and it's good, so ha-ha, and I feel accomplished now. So, Scot, generally speaking, before we get into this, did poltergeist live up to the hype of its infamy? Did you dig it or was it overblown? I think it lives up to what it is. I think it's a good movie. I don't think it's a great movie. I think it's a good movie. I think it's a good Spielberg movie. It's funny because this has Toby Hooper's name on it. I was gonna say, we have to remember who was behind this movie, but it wasn't just Toby Hooper. Yeah, it wasn't just Toby Hooper. It's got his name on it, but it definitely does not feel like Toby Hooper. When you look at Toby Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre, that's a gritty movie. This is very light and playful for part of it, and then we kind of get serious for a little bit, and then we end playful again. Well, you mean just like, when you say light and playful, do you mean like just the spook of it all? Yeah, like the spook of it all, like we end on a joke. Sure, oh yeah. What's funny too is that I've never seen the sequel, but I know that the sequel also ends on a joke, like a very family sitcom type joke. So I think part of the appeal of this movie is that like you get to know the family a little bit and they do seem very lived in, they seem relatable. They don't seem like a cookie cutter, family necessarily, that like is so TV perfect. No, no, they're definitely not perfect. Like they're definitely a more relatable, like seemingly normal American family, you know what I mean? Yeah, I agree with that 100%. This feels like a real family that exists. You have the work dad who is the real estate agent, you have the mom, the teenage daughter, who's a little rambunctious, you have the son who, you know, is kind of just a normal son boy. Yeah, it's just kind of like a normal little boy that you know is always playing around and stuff. And then you have the little daughter who starts talking to static. But she's just so cute. Okay, so let's get into the preliminary fun facts of this thing. So it is technically directed by Toby Hooper. But when you see though that the guy that made Texas Chainsaw Massacre made this, you think, well, it's unbelievably tame. But then you realize that this is produced and co-written by Steven Spielberg, the same year that ET came out. Yeah, and then everything starts to kind of fit into place. Everything makes a little more sense. So the story is that while Steven Spielberg was preparing for ET, he had a clause in his contract with Universal that basically said you can't do shit else while you're prepping for ET. You can't make another movie. No, no, sir. But he wanted to make Poltergeist. It was his original story. He wrote the script with two other guys who we'll discuss in a second. But this was basically his baby. So there is a lot of chatter, a lot of speculation that this movie was more directed by Steven Spielberg than Toby Hooper. But you know, he couldn't technically put his name on it in that way. And when you know that information, it does make a lot more sense. You know, if you watch this and ET back to back, I feel like they would be in the same neighborhood. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And the two other writers that wrote the script for the original Poltergeist are named Michael Grace and Mark Victor. And they are also behind the masterpiece that is Cool World. You ever seen Cool World? That's the one with the cat. Well, no, that's more I think you might be thinking of Fritz. Oh, no, Cool World is the one where basically Brad Pitt is in a cartoon world and he plays a detective in a cartoon world. But it's like, I'm pretty sure it's all rated or you know, but it's great. It's bad. It's bad. Interesting. Okay. It's bad movie. But anyway, this is also like I said, the year of ET. So ET was completely taking over the world in 1982. Every Oscar that Poltergeist was nominated for, ET1. It was score, visual effects and sound editing. Yeah. ET took all of that and then some. Yeah. And then Poltergeist made a shit ton of money. It was a $10 million budget and the movie made $77 million. It's got a solid 3.5 out of five stars in Letterbox. All that good stuff. But ET dominated everything. Yes. Despite the fact that Poltergeist made a great amount of money, ET of course paid more. It was the number one film of the year. This was the highest grossing horror film of 1982, but it was the eighth highest grossing film of the year in between 48 hours. Yeah. Okay. And my one of my faves, the best little whorehouse in Texas. Also very good, which I thought about for a while doing on the show, but I'm like, nobody knows what that fucking movie is. And I'm like, Scott probably won't even like it. So I just showed it to him on a whim one day. And he was like, Oh, it was good. I was like, damn it. It was a lot of fun. That was a fun movie. I recommend if you haven't seen it, go see best little whorehouse in Texas, Dolly Parton and Bert Reynolds, baby, Reynolds singing their little hearts out. Honestly, it might be one of my favorite Bert Reynolds movies. Make it around with you. Oh God, but Bert Reynolds sings in that, by the way, which might be even more terrifying than anything in this movie. But it's okay. It's really fun. It's funny. So watching this movie, just a general concept, since we have to compare this to ET, I think this might hold up better than ET. I mean, I haven't seen ET in a long, long time. Don't get me wrong. ET is a good movie. It's a good movie. It's definitely more wholesome, I would say. Also, the girl, the little girl from this movie was nominated for a young artist award and guess who took it. What's the name for ET? The little girl. Who's the little girl from ET? Barrymore? Yes. Oh my God, I just got so scared for you. This movie is the highest-grossing horror movie of that year. Indeed. But I don't think it's the highest rated horror movie of that year. What's the highest rated? Well, I think it's the one that became a cult classic, and that's the thing. Oh, is that 82? That is 82. Yeah, well, the thing is better than this, for sure. The thing is amazing. But the thing bombed like crazy because we wanted happy aliens. Wait, because that came out the same. Did that come out the same day as ET? I think it came out like a week later. Yeah, I think that's like the lore. I think it bombed so bad because it came out right around ET. But if I had to pick between watching ET and watching this, I'd rather watch this. But that doesn't mean ET's bad. It just means I haven't seen it in a long, long, long, long time. No, again, I'm not saying ET's bad. I'm just saying. But they definitely have similar vibes. Oh, they definitely have similar vibes. Like charming white Midwestern neighborhood vibes. Indeed. One more focus is more on the adults, one focuses more on the kids. But yeah, if you had, you were saying if you had to pick between one of the other watch, you'd probably watch this. Yeah, I'd probably watch this again. It's just a fun movie. But also, I think this one I again feel is more emotionally powerful with like the mom daughter energy. Like the woman that plays the mom, she gives a really good performance when her daughter, for lack of a better term, before we get into like the actual plot, when her daughter goes missing, and she's trying to reach out to her and find her and get her back. Like it's all, it's very emotional. Like I found myself getting a little choked up at some points when she was trying to reach out to her daughter and get her to come back. That it, I feel like it definitely is more powerful in that respect. Yeah. So I think it definitely is, it's, I think it's scary. I think parts of it are scary for sure. But I think it's more emotionally like powerful. Yeah, it's the family trying to stick together through something so tragic that how do you even like begin to explain? Yeah, you can't help but try to put yourself in the family shoes and be like, what would you do in this situation? You know, like, how would you act? It's, it's, it's crazy. But yeah, I think, I think we're ready to get into the nitty and the gritty. Let's let's do it. All right, so we have to talk about how this movie opened first and foremost. Going into the opening credits of the movie, we start off on Star Spangled Banner. Yeah, I meant to look this up. So at the end of the broadcasting day, which I guess happens really early in the morning, they played the Star Spangled Banner and then would like cut the broadcast off and it would be just static. It was just a weird thing to be like, oh, they just play the Star Spangled Banner? Yeah, because I don't think like the major, because this is also, we have to remember, it's the 80s. So there aren't like 700 channels. So I think it like the major networks and it also was in 24 hours. So the major networks would go up to a certain point and then they would conclude this concludes our broadcast day and then we'd go to static or like the, you know, like the bars and the beeping sound. I feel like that's the tea. I'm sure our older listeners are laughing at us right now being like, you fucking idiots. Yeah, that's what it is. It was a weird thing and that with the Star Spangled Banner being like played multiple times in this, it's just it's just a weird way to start a horror movie that you're not expecting. We also had the discussion of, can you fall asleep with the TV on? Oh, yeah. So, because I always used to when I was a kid, I would have the TV on when I would fall asleep as a kid for like a while. Like that would be like the routine for me and my sister because we shared a bedroom. And then at one point, because the TV, when it's static, it's like flashing light, you know, and Scotty was like, I could never sleep like that. Yeah, I would be woken up. It would be done. Like I had to shut the TV off at the end of my night whenever I was going to sleep. I'm like, I'm done. Goodbye lights off. We're all we're good for the night. So it's just funny because the dad's passed out on the couch. Mom's asleep. The brother's asleep. The older sister's asleep. The dog's going around stealing snacks. The dog, the golden retriever is so freaking cute. But for some reason, his name is E buzz like E period buzz. I choose to ignore that and just call him buzz because I just I don't understand. Like I feel like they wrote it that way because it's quirky, but I'm just like, it sounds stupid. I feel like Ebenezer buzz. Like please stop it. I feel like it's got to be a reference to something. I don't know. Call him buzzy. Like why do you call him E buzz? That doesn't even roll off the tongue normally. Well, I'm trying to think of like maybe it's buzz Aldrin. No, but I'm like, but that's an A. Buzz Aldrin. Aldrin starts with A. Well, I assume Buzz wasn't his real first name. Well, I don't know. What was his name? I have no idea. I'm just damn it. Do I have to Google Buzz Aldrin and this fucking poltergeist episode? Yes. Google Buzz Aldrin right now. Okay, fine. I will. Let's Google Buzz Aldrin. Oh, Edwin Eugene. So maybe it is like a maybe you cracked it. Holy shit. That was just a wild guess. Did you actually crack the code? Edwin Eugene Aldrin, which by the way, of course, you fucking change your name to Buzz. But okay, so E buzz. Wow. This family's really with it, man. That's crazy. Anyway, now that we've wasted time on that. That's great. Let's continue with the story. So as the TV is flashing static and it's got it's a completely dark living room and all the light is just taken up by the static of the TV. Everyone in the house is asleep and this little five year old girl named Carol and comes down the stairs. She's like the cutest little blonde hair blue-eyed child he ever saw in your life. She's five years old. She sits in front of the TV and starts talking to the TV like having a conversation with the TV and it's creepy as fuck and the family all hears it and is creeped out and then we just move on to the next day. And we don't address it. No. But before we continue, let me let me introduce our family here. So first things first, we have a father who's named Steve and he's played by Craig T. Nelson, Mr. Incredible himself. Indeed. Hey, come on. We're superheroes. What could happen? He is like a very like big strong man in the movie. So you would just assume that he is like the guy that comes to the forefront and sort of takes charge of everything. And he does in somewhat, but for the most part, it's the mom. The mom is really the driving force of the story. Well, I think Craig T. Nelson is the backbone. Yes, because he is the real estate agent. He's not only just a real estate agent. He is the best. Well, yes, but his company built this community that they're living in. I forget what it's called, but it's this like little built community in California. And they were responsible for, you know, taking this big chunk of land, building homes on it and getting people to live in these homes and making this neighborhood. And I think it's been around this neighborhood for a while, because they mentioned at one point that Carol Ann was born in the house. Yes. And she's five. So it's been around for a minute. Yeah, Diane is the mom. And she's played by Joe Beth Williams, who when I watched this the first time and even this time, I was like, she looks familiar. What is she from? What is she from? And when I looked her up at IMDb, I'm like, I don't really recognize any of these other titles that she's in. Like, what do I know her from? I think, honestly, that it's just, she seems like a mom. She seems familiar because she's got one of those faces. Yeah, she's got one of those faces and she's she seems like someone that's played a mom on a sitcom in the 80s. She just seems like somebody's mom. But her and Steve have three children. They have Dana, the teenage daughter, who's played by Dominic Dunn. They have Robbie, who's played by Oliver Robbins. He's the little boy. And then the five year old girl is played by Heather O'Rourke. And another thing that this movie is sadly known for is that I don't really know. So it's actually pretty sad. So two of these kids are now deceased. Oh, shit. Like their actors, two of them are deceased. Oh, damn. Dominic Dunn, actually, it's really, really sad. Not that long after the movie came out, she was killed by her boyfriend. Shit. Yeah, she had broke up with him earlier in the day and then he came back and literally strangled her to death. Oh, damn. And she was only like 22. So that's why she's not in the sequel to this movie. She's off a college because her actress, unfortunately, passed away. And then Heather O'Rourke, she actually passed away only six years after this movie was made. She was only 12. She died of an intestinal disease. And she, it was a really complicated situation. She went to shock and sepsis. And it was a whole thing. And she unfortunately passed away from that. But she was also super, super young. So the movie also has that sort of dark cloud over it where fuck. Yeah, it's actually pretty terrible and sad. And not only does it have like that stuff, but it also has, I know, it has the burial ground stuff too. Right. Well, that's, yeah, that's what's crazy about it. Because this movie really revolves around a lot of fucking dead people. And then on top of that, you have two very young female actresses that died in very, very devastating ways that worked on this movie. So it's, it's just really sad. It's crazy. It's, it's, it's more well known because of Heather O'Rourke, because she is so like, she's like such a cute little girl. And she is there because she is such a cute little girl. Yeah. And she was put in this really scary movie. I think there were times I read that like, she genuinely got so scared that like, they had to stop filming. And like, Steven Spielberg just had to like go up to her and like, give her a hug and stop her from crying. I'm like, Oh my God, Jesus. Oh, you couldn't lie to her. Like we lied to Danny Torrance all those years ago. Told him he was in a comedy in the shining. Oh my God. Yeah. So this family is cute, wholesome family. Parents get high. Yeah, that's a cool parents because they smell weed in their room. But yeah, like little things start happening. Like their family bird dies. There's these big dark clouds that come in. There's one thing where they're they do a little bit to like, establish the neighborhood and like, the just the, you know, Midwestern white neighborhood nests of it all. Like they have this one scene where this guy's flying down the street in a bike and he's got a case of beer in his hands. And then there's these kids on the sidewalk and they're playing with remote control cars and they like trip him on his bike and beer goes everywhere. It's it's kind of fun. It is also very Spielberg in that way. Yeah. But um, did you happen to recognize the guy flying down the bike with the beers? No. It was a Dirk blocker. Oh, the name sounds familiar. It does. He plays Hitchcock on Brooklyn nine nine younger Hitchcock. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. But I just thought that was like a little funny detail that you would enjoy. Got to the Hitchcock clip here. We got to get the hospital and we got to get there fast. Then I should drive. Why you? I have nothing to live for and I drive like it. Okay, let's do it. Watch Brooklyn nine nine. It's really funny. It is. Um, but then there's a storm a coming and all the kids get scared. The little ones climbing to bed with mom and dad and they're all freaked out. And then the day ends again and the TV does the this concludes our broadcast day and it goes to static and it happens again. The TV people start talking to Carol and we get the most famous line of the entire movie. Yes. And then we get taken up a notch after that for sure. No, I do want to talk about one other thing before we get into the next day because we just basically got to the next day. Yeah. Whose idea of these parents? Hey, son, you know what we're going to do? We're going to take a clown, a creepy looking clown. Oh my god. And this whole hat has the foot of your bed. There's this like clown marionette that they have in the little kids's room because the because Robbie and Caroline share room. And I don't know. This definitely seems like one of mom's like family heirlooms that she's like, Oh, I had it in my room and I was a kid. Now I'm going to put it in a rocking chair at the foot of your bed. So you have to stare at it every night when you're trying to go to sleep. And like, oh my god, we'll talk about it because it comes back later and it's just insane. But it reminds me, I stayed at somebody's house for college and they put me up in this room for like a couple weeks and it was a room filled with dolls. Creep me the fuck out. I'm like, why do you have this room? Like, why would you do this to people? So the next day, things get a little more crazy. They're eating breakfast, all the kids and suddenly the kid's glass of milk just shatters in his hand and glass and milk goes everywhere. The silverware is bent. The dog starts acting weird, which that's how you know something is really a muck, a foot even. But then the chairs start moving on the road. Like there's this great sequence where mom's like, oh you kids, you need to learn how to push your chairs in when you're done eating. She walks out and then comes back in the kitchen, all the chairs are pulled out again. She looks at Caroline and she's like, did you do that? Uh-uh. So then she pushes all the chairs back in. She walks off somewhere else in the kitchen, the camera pans over to her and then it pans back to the dining room table and the fucking chairs are a pyramid on the fucking table. And she's like, and she looks at Caroline and she's like, is that the TV people? My question is, so do you think when we pan to the side, there's a bunch of PAs who are now running to try and stack these chairs? I don't know. I don't know if it was that or if it was just a straight cut. I'm trying to think. I'm like, was there a cut that I didn't see? I don't think there was. I could see them just being like, that is kind of funny. But yeah, so mom immediately believes that there is something a foot here. This is where we were like, hmm, maybe you shouldn't be so, you know, easy going about this. Like, you should be freaking the fuck out and calling your husband be like, we need to get out of here right now. No, she decides to draw a circle on the floor. She's like experimenting with this thing that pulls the chair, pulls Caroline, that pulls her. Yeah. And when he comes home from work, Steve, she's like, okay, you have to watch this. Oh my god, isn't it crazy? Like, at one point, she's jumping up and down and cheering about it because the chair, she puts the chair once by the room and it just like consistently keeps moving to the other side of the room and the same thing with Caroline and same thing with her. And it's like, um, okay, what are we doing about this? We should be leaving. That's what we should be doing. We should be gone. Get the hell out of the house. Like, I don't care if this is the only thing it does. Yeah, even if it's just fucking with you. I am getting out of this house. Yeah, like, you can't possibly think that that's just like a fun little game. Like, they go to the neighbor after that and they're like trying to explain it to the neighbor and asking him like, if you experience something similar to this. And it's just like, even if he has what logical explanation is there for that? So I'm trying to think, though, I the family's getting a pool put into their house. Oh, yes, the pool is a whole thing. They mentioned that this is just started basically now. They hadn't mentioned any weird stuff before this. So I was like, is them digging up the pool causing this? Yeah, maybe is the pool, the inciting factor of the poltergeist. So you tell me this is the only family on the fucking block that's got a pool? Maybe. Maybe that was allowed at first. I don't know. Maybe they changed the zoning laws. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. But regardless, shit starts getting really real. Because obviously there is still this looming thunderstorm. And we didn't even talk about the creepy looking tree. So this the little boy Robbie is not only scared of this marionette clown, he's also scared of the tree right outside his bedroom window because it's really old and it looks like it just looks like a scary fucking tree. Like the light and shadows hit it and like it looks like there are faces in it and he's creeped out by it. You know what it kind of looked like to me? Huh? A scarier version of Grandmother Willow? Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Because it just it looks like there's faces in the side of it. Right. And it's creepy as fuck. So what happens is as the storm is getting worse and worse, the tree manages to come alive and breaks into the kid's bedroom and grabs Robbie out of the fucking house and they're in the pouring rain. He's screaming. Everybody's screaming. They all run out to go get Robbie and save him. Meanwhile, Carolyn is still in the bedroom getting grabbed by the closet. Yeah, the closet their bedroom closet lights up and starts sucking everything into the closet into this portal and poor little Carolyn is screaming her head off and holding on for dear life. Meanwhile, Robbie is outside holding on for dear life also because the tree is actually trying to like devour him while his dad's trying to get him out. It's just a whole hot mess of things and then they manage to save Robbie and get him back in the house. They can't find Carolyn. They're looking around and this is a great scene with Robbie because he goes he's in the house still because he's so traumatized and everyone's looking for Carolyn and he hears Carolyn's voice coming out of the TV and the way he screams for his mom is just so it's it's like blood curdling like mom mom. He's just screaming and screaming for his mom and then the mom hears Carolyn's voice coming through the TV and they're like okay that's uh that's not good that's not good at all. This starts a weird thing for me in this movie. So we had a discussion on the movie Young Guns 2. Whoa what a callback you're making right now. Yeah I know. All right Young Guns 2 how are we going to connect this to Poltergeist? So we had a discussion on Young Guns 2 about Frankie and Western's how it's sometimes really hard to tell how much time has passed like is this a week is this is a couple of days is this a month and that's kind of how I feel from this point on in the movie because I don't really know how much time has passed. Right it's imply that it's been some time because like it's never specifically said I don't think how much time because the next scene you see is I think Steve in the psychologist's office the paranormal psychologist's office which is a weird degree that I didn't know you could get but apparently it is but before we get into that scene like he has like five o'clock shadow he's very distraught you can tell sometime has passed we find out later like oh Steve's been out of work for some time now like what's going on Steve and like you can tell that it's been a minute because they're like oh yeah the kids have been sleeping in the bed with us the the parapsychologist and her assistants come in the house to investigate the house and things start happening and the mom will just rattle off like oh that'll happen two more times in the next minute don't worry and like she knows everything like everyone's very used to this crazy behavior by now so it's implied that sometime has definitely passed although yeah it's not clear how much exactly but we kept going how have you not sent your kids to stay somewhere else yeah that's the thing because they say at one point that the teenage daughter oh she's been spending a lot of time with friends and like the okay that makes sense but the little like seven year old boy eight year old boy you haven't you haven't like sent them to your mother's house or something like clearly something is it's been at least i would say like a couple weeks to a month ish since this all started in all that time you didn't think maybe we should get our other little kid out of the house yeah you know so we maybe scar somebody a little less yeah i mean they do send Robbie away eventually but it takes a minute it like it takes longer than it should and they also send the dog with the little boy which so i was like oh thank god let's not let e buzz get hurt no i i know that sounded facetious but i mean it like please protect the dog he's such a very cute little dog yes um but the parapsychologist dr martha lech comes into the story here and she's played by betre straight who previously had won a supporting actress oscar for her work in the movie network ah that notorious movie network yes back in the dark ages of shoot the flick we for some reason did a lot of movies that were made around the same time as network and like we would talk about like awards and stuff and be like well lost to network network network we'd always bring up network and we had never seen it i saw i've seen it since then it's really good but yeah she she wanted oscar for that we also get her assistance ryan and marty and they come in to investigate we see more crazy shit happening we talked to carolina again through the tv like and this was one of the emotional parts too where she's just trying to get carolina to talk to her and that like i you know it made me a little misty when i first watched this movie like just trying to just watching this mom trying to reach out to her daughter we're home baby we're home can you find me can you find a way home to it yeah and to one underling who constantly keeps going this isn't real this can't be real like dude yeah like okay i understand you being like that at first but there's too many things yeah it's ridiculous he's like well there could be um some structural damage to the house and they could have a radio or something inside the house making these noises i'm like all right at this point man like the fucking ceiling opened up at some point like a portal in the ceiling the room that's locked is things floating around it very poorly crazy as much as that's cool it looks terrible the cgi in the effects do look pretty bad but we we have to remember it's 1982 so we have to be wary of that and give it some grace but um so the skeptic guy they stay overnight to investigate more and like try to get stuff on film the skeptic guy goes to the kitchen and he's like i'm gonna get something eat okay and usually when you're on the job and you're like hey man i'm gonna get something to eat it's like a snack maybe a little sandwich that's gonna take you five minutes just make a quick sandwich this guy takes out a whole fucking steak out of this family's refrigerator and it's like it's fucking 2 a.m i'm gonna make me a steak which i was like excuse me who the fuck uh-huh maybe steak was cheaper then who knows but they even still like they didn't know you don't i'm sorry if you're a guest in someone's home i don't care for what purpose whether it's an investigation of paranormal activity or you know little joey's bar mitzvah you don't go into their fucking refrigerator and pull out a whole last steak to make for yourself and somebody else's house without being like hey man can i make the steak that's in your fridge anybody want a steak but he wants he won't stake it anybody wants some 2 a.m two a.m like i don't understand that so he goes into the fucking kitchen and pulls out the steak and it starts moving on the counter and like decaying it looks like on the counter that looks pretty cool that that yeah it starts rotting he's got a chicken wing in his mouth too just a fucking gluttonous brood and then yes goes to the bathroom and like starts ripping at his face this is probably the most gory part of the movie yeah and it's kind of weird because it almost feels out of place for the rest of the movie yeah because there's not really blood in any other part of the movie is there no not really i think this is it i think this is really the only bloody part of the movie where he's ripping apart his face and then the lights go back to normal and his face is fine and then they cut to the like the next day well because they after that they managed to get stuff on film because they realized because even the other guy ryan the ghosts or whatever they moved the camera and they managed to catch all these different spirits on on film so marty's like okay fine this is real but i fucking come back here so he dips out and never never comes back but uh dr lesh and ryan are still sticking around i really liked the dr lesh character i wish she had more to do in like the second half of the movie well she quickly gets replaced by our i don't know what to call her she's a medium oh a medium is that what she is um but with dr lesh because they established that she she's a psychologist or a psychiatrist or whatever and this is her first time really seeing paranormal shit like up close and personal so she wants to help these people but she also isn't like super experienced so she she does bring in a medium to help her but one part of the movie i really liked is she has a conversation with the mom diane and the little boy robbie about the afterlife and death and ghosts and all that stuff like when she's talking to robbie she compares it to school like some kids like you and get along with you and some kids don't like when you pass on some people get it and pass on peacefully and some people don't and they stick around and are angry and like that's a good way to explain it um and i like that she bonds with the mom but yeah when the spiritual medium comes in which we'll talk about in a little bit like dr lesh definitely gets pushed to the side unfortunately because i liked her as a character yeah she's a good character she has like again the speech is probably her best moment yeah she's very earnest yeah but then we get our medium coming in and our medium is a little interesting well she's played by zelda rubenstein who is a pretty well-known character actress she's well-known because she's uh she's very short and she's very she got a very interesting distinct voice it's like a very tinny like southern town to her voice she's cool she's got all the answers this lady but before we get into what she does to help the family out because there is one more piece of information we need to establish here so steve because he's been out of work for a certain period of time he goes and talks to his boss at the real estate company i guess because the boss thinks because he's been out of work for so long and he even knows that carillon hasn't been in school and stuff he thinks that steve is planning on jumping ship and going to another company so he's like i can offer you partner and you can be a big uh bigger part of this community we're gonna uh move on to phase five and build even more and then he takes them to where they want to expand the community and there's a huge graveyard there and steve's like well we can't there's a graveyard here and he's like oh it's just people and it's like what but steve um in talking to his boss about this finds out that some if not all of this community that they've built was built on a cemetery yeah now steve assumes that when they moved the cemetery because that's what the boss says we moved the cemetery to another location just five minutes down the road um he assumes that they moved the parties as well as the gravestones no spoiler alert they did not no because you know because you know what it's cheaper to just move the headstones i can't imagine that's legal i mean i i don't know i'm not a fucking real estate expert or even a law expert but i can't imagine that it's legal to just take it upon yourselves to move an entire cemetery full of dead people well without consent from somewhere well i think they did get consent i think the problem was when they looked at the price point to just move the headstones probably cost let's say five grand but to move the headstones the whole bunch of remains is a lot more right i got it no for sure i got it but like this guy would be in prison now well if you take after the events of this film well if you again if you get caught well i think at the end of this film we can assume that he's at least getting sued we can assume that the the secrets out that the bodies are underneath this town well he's at least getting sued let's call it what it is sure i think that's yeah i don't know i can don't know the laws grave desecration i'm pretty sure that's a crime crime yes yes yes um let's ask legal eagle grave desecration still a crime yes i believe it's still a crime okay but i think mass grave desecration crime yes but i don't know what classifies as it's probably would be more like technically contract fraud fraud yeah because also you got to imagine after the events of this movie which i know we haven't gotten to yet we're we're getting there um but you got to assume that everyone else in this town is moving the fuck out of there well once fires start shooting out of the ground yeah i'm done yeah and your house implodes and falls into the earth even if you're like if we had a house and let's say let's say we were bob the neighbor bob the neighbor okay let's say bob the neighbor let's say we were bob neighbor can he kill it bob the neighbor no he gets once my neighbor's house gets sucked into a portal i'm like we're gone good good get your shit we're gone like yeah i don't need it to be my house so dr leige comes back into the house later that night and brings this spiritual medium whose name is tangeena barons and she figures out that these many many spirits that are occupying the house are not at rest and they are attracted to caroland because she's young and full of life so they they want to keep her around because she's the closest thing that they have to a life force so young so full of life you all right they're emperor pappa team um but tangeena also warns the family that there is a dark presence that she refers to as the beast who is restraining caroland and sort of manipulating her in order to keep her around and keep the other ghosties around and keep them from crossing over so tangeena is like okay we're gonna go in there through the closet portal and we're gonna get your daughter out and theoretically because at one point early in the movie there's a portal in the in the ceiling of the living room so theoretically they are going to tie a little rope around mom's waist because she responds the most to mom's voice we're gonna throw her ass into the closet have her grab caroland and get her out through the living room ceiling so that's the plan but we have to avoid all of the ghosties and the beast and keep caroland from fucking it up basically so we have to manage all of these many moving parts in order to save caroland and get all these ghosties to cross over indeed and they do it it's very dramatic um there's pulling of the rope from both directions there's a giant skullhead that kind of pops out of the closet and yells at steve yeah scares the shit i see i do again like i like this because you know in another kind of movie steve would be the one taking the big risk and going into the unknown void to go get the kid but the mom boss diane is going in there and getting her baby and steve is on the sidelines just kind of screaming you know they have the romantic like kiss like uh you know just in case the last time i ever see you and then she goes off into the void and he's holding on to the rope and he's the one that gets overly emotional you know he gets scared by the skull and then when the medium is like oh right now cross over go into the lad he's like no don't go into the light he's like you know he's getting all emotionally and like charged up and almost fucks everything up usually that's the mother's job in these kind of movies to get too emotional and almost suck up the whole plan but it was steve and almost fucked everything it was steve indeed but the mom and the girl little girl pop through the ceiling and everything's fine everything's good yeah they're covered in grape jelly but everything is good everything is fixed the house is clean oh yeah well it's funny because i think in i think in ace ventura which is funny because it's the second time in two weeks we're mentioning ace ventura there's a line where ace goes this house is clear and i never knew what that was from until i saw this movie and i was like oh it's from this little lah is all the rubens time just like takes a deep breath and fluffs her hair for the camera because fucking ryan is filming everything and it's just like this house is clean but of course it's fucking not because it's all just too easy scott it's all too easy but yeah we finally start packing up the house but even you at this point we're like it's not over well because i'm sitting there going like we're spending a lot of time still like if this was over we really got the nice little playful like oh yeah like we've got a little jerry gold smith fucking score and then be done but i'm sitting there going like we're still in this house so the mom's hair has gone white like she's not all of it she's she she Nancy Thompson did exactly i was just going to say she's like Nancy or rogue she has like the streak of white hair and she just the plan is okay this is all thing is stupid this part was annoying the plan is for steve to go into the office and wrap everything up he has a line here that i thought was kind of funny and i wrote it down the boss's name is teague and he's like i have to go to mr. teague and uh tell him i'm leaving because he won't take hell no for an answer and the wife goes well what are you gonna do and he's like i'm gonna give him directions but the plan is for then to pack all their shit up go to a holiday in for the night and then i think i don't remember where they're supposed to go from there wherever else yeah somewhere fucking else okay i think in the second movie they moved to arizona just go somewhere else okay but husband has to go to the office teenage daughter decides she's gonna go on a date also which is stupid really okay uh and then the mom you know she basically leaves the two kids alone in the bedroom that was once the epicenter of this insane spectral incident i wouldn't let them out of my fucking sight until we left that fucking house i would have just told my husband hey we'll meet you at the fucking holiday in exactly but she decides oh no i'm gonna have a relaxing bath and i'm going to die my hair and get the gray out of my hair tonight at this very moment i just can't go another moment with this gray in my hair so the clown comes alive as as you do when you're a clown i guess and grabs the boy grabs robbie drags him under the bed robbie fights out with the clown because the beats is still around and he wants caroline he wants caroline uh the mom she takes a trip on a rotating room yes like tina right exactly but what's also pretty terrifying and before this happened the mom is like oh it doesn't seem like caroline really remembers anything and they cut to her and she's giving like this cutest like little girl smile and it's like well and even scott was like ah the joys of being five you know remember like all the traumatizing shit that happens to you but then in this moment where the portal is coming back to life and like is potentially trying to get to caroline she goes in like the saddest scariest little boy she's like no more it's like so sad like oh no so therapy all around therapy for everyone everyone is traumatized no one will sleep again so mom tries to get to the kids but can't so she ends up going outside in the pouring rain just screaming for help uh and she ends up falling into the pool which it's it has been mentioned many times throughout the movie but it's it's empty it just has like standing water and mud from all these storms and stuff so she falls into the pool and very soon after she falls into the pool she is greeted by many happy little skeletons yes fun corpses all around fun fact about uh the scene scott some of those skeletons were real skeletons ah nice so they apparently because they figured it was cheaper than getting like or making fake skeletons so they got a bunch of these like classroom skeletons like the real ones that are real skeletons trust them up with makeup i'm assuming and toss them into the pool and they didn't tell Jo Beth Williams about this until after the scene was over ah sounds about right for the 80s but yeah we love real human skeletons in our movie about dead people haunting a house and people yeah it's really great uh so diane eventually gets her way out of the pool runs back up the stairs don't you take my babies and she runs up the stairs and she grabs the kids manages to save them meanwhile the dad steve comes home from work with his boss in the car so his boss is seeing everything happening there's like scott said fire coming up from the ground the lights are going crazy you know steve gives a very uh hardy dad screams science Steve chooses this moment oh my god you grab his boss by his lapels yeah as you do when you're angry in the 80s i go you move the grave star let's bot you dead in mouth the body's dead Jo i'm like steve steve i don't understand you have the right to be mad not the time it's pretty wild uh we we our parents have to pick better times we we got better things we got other things we got to focus on right now like getting your kids out of this house so they all pile into the car kiss met makes its way into this movie and the teenage daughter pulls up too straight off of her date which like why would you make it's like we didn't want this girl in the movie that much for some reason like she was just like extra well we have we had a scene where the fucking construction markers were like oh we're like augling at her or like disgusting and the mom's laughing i'm like if that were me i'm like you were my 16 yeah my daughter 16 i'm either calling your boss or getting you fucking fired or walking out there with a goddamn kitchen knife you who are you who are you honking at over there who are you whistling at over there my daughter oh that's cute you think that oh that's cute and you think you can come in and drink my coffee and eat my breakfast he opens the kitchen window and drinks her coffee and like eats her fucking chili which why are you making chili at fucking nine a.m but that's besides the point get the fuck out of my kitchen but they grasp we get we pile to the car we grab everybody we drive away the house gets sucked into a portal fire shooting from the ground more they're shooting from the ground everything shooting from the ground it is fucking chaos and then we get to the holiday in and then we get our like sitcom ending to this movie where we all get in we close the curtains the door opens Steve pushes the television out of the room and they slams the door slams the door and then it like slowly dollies out with the yes the on the tv in the in the hallway it's very Fred Flintstone you know like when Fred Flintstone would like kick Dino out of the house because he wanted to get it on Wilma and that is poltergeist and this family will never watch she the ever again yeah I think they mentioned because I read the wiki for the sequel because I don't really care to watch it but it did say that there's no TVs in their house yeah understandably so I wonder when like they bring over friends like hey are you guys Amish or something like why you guys not have a television in the house but I really I like this movie a lot I you can definitely see Spielberg's fingerprints all over it oh yeah I can't say that Hooper's fingerprints aren't on it because the only movie I know of his is fucking Texas Texas which I mean this is very different from Texas Chainsaw but I'm sure he's got other fucking movies well yeah so I mean you know I can't say that Toby Hooper has nothing to do with this certainly but you can definitely see Spielberg's influence even in like certain directing choices like when they do the big dolly zoom in the hallway when the mom's going to get the kids and the bedroom is like so far away she just keeps running and you know like we said before like the little quaint like neighborhood stuff it's uh it's definitely Spielbergian for sure indeed I actually I think I ended up keeping my rating the same which was a four out of five stars I think this is well I don't know I'm kind of stuck now between a three and a half and a four makes sense well how do you feel about it I have this a three and a half I think there are some goofy moments to it there are some creepy moments to it I think it's I think it's a good movie I you know I think it's a solid movie and you know I understand because I did the bait back on four or two I debate about like 3.75 but it's a good movie I think if you have it anywhere from that 3.5 to that four range is kind of perfect yeah like I think for me even though they're very different movies like it's hard for me not to compare this to nightmare because we just saw a nightmare and watched it I think I like them both pretty equally obviously they're very different in story and stuff but I think because they're both really strong stories and have really great strengths to them but then there's also like the typical horror movie pitfalls that every horror movie tends to have yeah which some of which we've talked about so yeah I think I'll probably leave it at three and a half because I rated nightmare at three and a half I feel like that's fair but I think I could also easily bump nightmare up to four as well as this yeah and you might do that over time you know it's one of those things like it's just how it is yeah I just think there's also some choices in this it's like why what did the teenager the teenage girl provide for the story absolutely nothing I can't remember her fucking name like her character Dana that's the team the fact that I didn't remember that yeah what did she give to the story like really nothing absolutely silk sada zilch sada yeah zilch sada yes say that again zilch nada nothing zero yeah but then at the same time what did Rod provide nightmare other than irritation he provided being what did the dad provide a nightmare oh whoa whoa other than being a shitty dad and sold John Saxon not John Saxon I'm talking about the character of the dad what did he give to the story that's John Saxon that doesn't okay that doesn't mean that it's automatically and he was good John Saxon was good I'm not saying he wasn't good what did the character provide for the story he provided he arrested Rod great he had his total of follow he arrested the wrong guy well I'm not saying at the time he lost the trust of his daughter and he didn't believe her when he's so logic he's hard it's hard to be logical when there's a nightmare killer yes that's fair so yeah I think for now I'm gonna keep it a three and a half maybe if we watch it again sometime maybe next Halloween I'll change it again same with nightmare so yeah that I feel comfortable that at this time that is perfectly fine and I agree so that was paltter guys and more importantly that was we are dumb of horror for now yes so oh god so next week we're gonna take a much deserved break to recover from spooky month and then after that we will return with a couple more movies before we go into Thanksgiving break and uh yeah I'm I'm excited we got some good ones lined up oh yeah the end of our year is gonna be fun the end of the year is gonna be pretty stacked I'm pretty excited actually Scott what was your favorite movie we watched this poopy month oh that's tough personally I always love watching nightmare but if I have to go something I hadn't seen I probably say palttergeist yeah I think uh I think nightmare was my favorite as well not only because the movie was fun and it was definitely a classic that was checked off my list finally but also doing the episode with Brucker was really fun was so that that was cool if you haven't already please check out autopsy of a horror movie which is our friend Brucker's podcast he's a horror king over there yes kill on the game but yeah I'm excited for spooky month to be over because that means it's basically Christmas so that's cool thanks giving no longer exists everybody it does it's pre-Christmas it's pretty I mean for Christmas my wife if you see the meme of Linda Belcher pulling up the Christmas tree oh that's yeah it's literally me on November for when literally when it's November 1st yeah it's your mom your mom does that okay oh you want to you want to you want to knock my mom oh we're going right now actually we're going to my mom's house to watch the Mets play the Dodgers and see them maybe hopefully make their way to the subway series so if this is going to come up after that obviously yes so you know what happens we don't you know what happens when we don't uh I'm sure I'll put in a really funny sound effect to show what happened either way and nothing can go wrong oh no it all went wrong wasn't that funny um like I said we're gonna take a break next week and then we'll be back but until then this has been shoot the flick I'm Frankie Sparks I'm Scott Eisenberg make sure you check us out on Instagram and Twitter at shoot the flick and check out all of our episodes on iTunes Spotify and I hurt radio and pretty much anywhere else you can find a podcast and make sure you come back in two weeks for some old-fashioned kickass movie adventure you move the headstones but you didn't move the bodies sorry about that chief [Music]
This week to finish Spooky season we cover another 80s classic with Poltergeist! What will we think of this supernatural horror movie? Tune in to find out as we SHOOT THE FLICK!!!