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Brenda's Review of Poltergeist 1982 *Spoilers* · Brenda's Horror Movie Reviews

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, this is Brenda, and today we're gonna talk about Poltergeist from 1982.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is another one of my comfort movies that I watch at least once a year, and I'd like to go ahead and talk about the cast first on this one.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: We have to start off talking about Heather O'Rourke, what a cutie patootie.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: She's the famous little girl with her hands on the television and all the marketing that says they're here, and sadly she passed away at the age of 12 from congenital stenosis of the intestine, which she had had since birth.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: After the first poltergeist movie, she went on to be in Poltergeist 2 and 3 and had appeared in episodes of Happy Days and Webster.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I want to believe she would have grown up to be another Scream Queen if not for her early demise, and she will always live forever in my heart as the little girl from Poltergeist.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: We also have Dominique Dunn, who plays the teenage sister, and she's another one who sadly passed away early.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: She was strangled by her boyfriend October 30th and taken off of life support November 4th.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: The movie was released in June of 1982, and this all happened the same year.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oliver Robbins plays The Son, and he's one that I'm gonna have to look a little more into because it looks like he has a pretty long acting career.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: He was in Devil's Whisper, The Rideshare Killer, and Don't Go to Sleep.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I really think I just don't know what he looked like when he grew up.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Joe Beth Williams plays Mom, and she was also in the Big Chill Barracuda in 14 Hours.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Craig T.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Nelson is dad, and I love him, love him, love him.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: He was in coach, and also he is on Young Sheldon as Mima's boyfriend.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Zelda Rubinstein plays our psychic, and sadly she had a heart attack in 2010 and passed away, but she also makes an appearance in 16 Candles, and then she was the narrator for Scariest Places on Earth.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Our three paranormal investigators are played by Beatrice Strait, Richard Lawson, and Martin Casella.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: There has been a decades-long debate on who actually directed this movie.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Steven Spielberg is tied to producing and co-writing.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Some references are calling him a co-director.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is something you might want to look up on your own if you're really picky about who directed a movie.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: This one definitely screams 1980s.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: It starts off with the TV going off the air.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: That was the thing.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: The TV went to static after the Star Spangled Banner.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone in the house is asleep and the dog is making his rounds.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Carolyn wakes up and heads down to the floor model television and seems to start answering questions, saying five, like someone asked for her age.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: She starts to refer to them as TV people.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: During the day, Dad is watching a game with some of his buddies, and I just can't believe they're all smoking in the house.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Then the kid's pet bird dies.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: That night there's a storm coming in.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Robbie can see a scary tree out of his bedroom window, and the curtains are left open the entire time.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: I just can't fathom why they left those curtains open, even after Dad comes in to calm him down and tell him how to count between lightning and thunder to see how far away it is.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know me, I'm definitely back on the 80s thing.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: They have Star Wars sheets, Rubik's Cute, Dad's even reading a book, Regan, the Man, the President.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Stuff starts going down pretty quickly.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: At breakfast, Robbie's milk glass breaks, his fork bends, his spoon bins.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: After the two older children leave and it's just mom and Carol Ann at the house, mom's trying to clean up and she pushes in the chairs, notices they're out again, asks Carol Ann if she does it.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: She says no, pushes them in again, goes to get a cleaning spray bottle, and when she turns back, they're stacked.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when Carol Ann confirms that it's TV people, but she's not able to see them.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Mom's actually excited over this, and when Dad comes home, she already has it all rigged up on the floor that you can sit in one area and be pulled to another area.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Another storm that night seems to start off the series of events where the tree takes Robbie, stuff starts being pulled into the closet, toys, posters, Carol Ann.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: The parents are trying to save Robbie from the tree, so dad's checking the pool for Carol Ann.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Robbie is the first one able to hear her in the television set, and that's how they communicate with her.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Dad then goes to talk to a paranormal group, and I can't help but notice that when he's saying the ages of the family, at first he says 31, and then he says 32 about mom.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And Dana, the oldest daughter, happens to be 16.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do the math.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I was there, no judgment.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then Robbie is eight and Carol Ann is five.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: They come to the house and the photographer thinks he's hot shit.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking about how he captured a car moving seven feet and it took seven hours to do so.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so they open up the kids' bedroom and stuff is just flying around in there.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Belongings of people who had passed away start falling out of the ceiling.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Diane says she feels Carol Ann move through her soul.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Dana ends up going to stay with a friend, and Robbie and their dog stay with grandma.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Two of the investigators say that they will help them through to the end, while one of them says he won't come back after having visions of himself tearing his face apart and maggots on meat.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: One of the cameras captures like an ectoplasm coming down the stairs, and when they slow it down and watch it back, they see people coming down the stairs.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's explained to them that they're lost souls and they're people that can't find the light.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: They think they're still alive.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Steven has missed a bunch of work over all of this, and his boss comes to check on him, and it's during that time that he learns that the cemetery had been moved before to build his neighborhood.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Tangina is the psychic who comes to the house, played by Zelda Rubenstein.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: She's able to tell Diane that her daughter is somewhere alive in that house, and that Carol Ann simply thinks it's another child, but to the adults, it's known as the beast.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: The children's bedroom closet is the heart of the house.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: They rig it up with a rope and Diane literally goes in to get Carol Ann and brings her out.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: The psychic declares that the house is clean and they're planning on moving.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Dana went to dinner with a friend.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Steven went to work to finish up a few things, and Diane is home alone with the two younger kids, and that's when it all falls apart.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: She had gone gray a little bit before, so she's dying her hair.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Robbie hears a noise, and that is when the clown doll comes up and wraps its long arm around his neck.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: The closet opens and there's like a tentacle type thing coming out of there.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Carol Ann says no more.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Diane is actually levitated up on the ceiling, going around the room.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And when she gets out of that mess, she tries to help the kids, falls down the stairs, runs outside to get the neighbors, falls in the pool, and all these skeletons and coffins are coming up in the pool.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: She's able to go back up and get the kids.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: She's having a hard time getting out of the house.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Steven pulls up, um, the lights are flickering, coffins are coming up out of the ground.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: His boss happens to be there and he's screaming at him, you only move the headstones.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't move the bodies.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: After they get out, the daughter comes home, she gets in the car.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: The house ultimately kind of implodes on itself, so it ends up being a vacant lot.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And as they drive off, we see the sign, You are leaving Questa Verde.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: The final scene is them at a holiday inn.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: They go in the room, close the curtain, shut the door.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: The door opens right back up, and Steven pushes the TV out.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Let's see what kind of love I can give this movie on the wine glass scale.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Eerie, yes, I'll give it a wine glass.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: You all know I love a haunted house.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: The environment gets a wine glass.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know I'm digging the 80s environment.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Evil, yes.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the ghosts in there I think were just people who had passed away that lost their way, but there is the demon that is determined to get Carol Ann to steal her life force.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Empathy, yes, it gets a wine glass.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Probably two, probably three, because there's two younger kids and a dog.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And entertaining, enough to bring me back every year another wine glass.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm giving this movie seven wine glasses.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of the movies that fueled my love of horror when I was little.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry this one ran over my normal five minutes, but this one has so much detail and I feel like I left so much out of it.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Go watch it, 1982's Poltergeist.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And let me know what you think of it.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: You can write me at bstudios at myyahoo.com.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: My next review will be on the changeling from 1980, so until then.