Synopsis

The Freeling family lives in a quiet California subdivision until their young daughter Carol Anne begins communicating with unseen forces through the television. What first seems playful soon turns terrifying as the house becomes a gateway to a hostile supernatural presence. After Carol Anne is pulled into another realm, her parents seek help from paranormal investigators and a determined exorcist to bring her home.

Factoids & Trivia

• Steven Spielberg developed the story and co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Grais and Mark Victor. Tobe Hooper directed the film, while Spielberg also produced it with Frank Marshall.

• The film was released on June 4, 1982, just one week before Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Both movies became major successes during the same summer, leading to the period's frequent description as the "summer of Spielberg."

• Poltergeist received three Academy Award nominations: Best Visual Effects, Best Original Score for Jerry Goldsmith, and Best Sound Effects Editing.

• The production used real human skeletons for the swimming-pool sequence because they were less expensive and more realistic than commercially available artificial skeletons.

• The film helped popularize the suburban haunted-house movie by placing supernatural terror inside a modern tract-home development rather than an old, isolated mansion.

• Rumors that Spielberg had effectively directed the film became part of its legacy. The controversy was fueled by his extensive creative involvement, but Hooper remained the credited director, and both filmmakers publicly defended their collaboration.

• The movie's reputation for a "Poltergeist curse" was shaped by the violent death of Dominique Dunne after production and the later death of child star Heather O'Rourke in 1988. The alleged curse has no established supernatural basis.

• Heather O'Rourke reportedly kept the goldfish used by Carol Anne in the film.