johnnydjc Aaah the quirks and backlash from much younger people bashing good entertainment without any real perception of what real horror is. I love seeing how so many people are quick to rate a movie with the line, "Go see The Ring instead"..LMAO. You've gotta be kidding me. That's how you know they're young and call that horror. You see, true horror hits close to home and that's exactly what this film does. Brilliant and plausible story (It could happen to anyone owning a home) and to this very day...people are still rattled about the untimely deaths that occurred during the making of this film. Yes. Real people died. Coincidence? Nobody knows. Were there real poltergeists that actually contributed to their deaths? Why don't we let our one sided minds be the judge of that. This film was terrifying back then and it's certainly held up over the years to be a one of a kind, pulse pounding, dark and original ghost story. Keep in mind folks, that movies like these were the inspiration for THE NEXT generation to RIP OFF! The newer generation has run out of gas, so naturally in good old Hollywood fashion...they steal material from older, classic movies such as Poltergeist. I have respect for the people that love what Spielberg has done here. For the others who think The Ring, Blair Witch Project, Annabelle, The Boy, The Grudge, and Insidious are true horror...I weep for your generation. This movie is original to the core, visually stunning, realistically acted (hard to find nowadays) and a masterpiece of horror to cherish for generations to come. Notice how I didn't put any spoilers in here like the other ones did either. Kids. As for the PG rating goes, yeah this in a R rated film nowadays. Too many parents complaining that it's too scary for kids, so they decided to come down hard on horror films. Even though we all know pre-teens and younger children have access to every R rated film and lord knows what else these days since every kid in America has a cellphone. Duh. You won't be disappointed with this film. Hands down terrifying, especially if you live in California.

Artur Machado Everything seems normal in a home of a typical American family, when they begin to experience supernatural phenomena. At first they seem to be entertained by the events, but when the younger daughter disappears and the demonstrations become violent, only then they realize that they have a problem.Directed by Tobe Hooper and written and produced by Steven Spielberg, the movie is somewhat slow suffering from an irregular pacing and only begins to warm up seriously near the end. When they get their daughter back, they decide to stay in the house rather than leave it no matter what, but somehow someone behind camera figured out that that stupid attitude was needed for the final showdown of special effects. And that's the only reason that gets me to score a maximum of 4/10, the incredible special effects for the year 1982.As another reviewer already pointed out, there is an episode of the original series "Twilight Zone" ("Lost Little Girl") with a very similar story, which raises serious doubts as to the originality of Spielberg's script. If you don't believe me use the net to check it out.

Fella_shibby Saw this in the mid 80s on a VHS. Found it to be really scary. Revisited it recently aft watching the remake. The remake was bad. This movies effects were really good for that time. It has diminished over the years but the movie still stands out as one of the best pg13 horror. Moving household items, flickering lights, sudden rain n thunder, ghost investigators coming to live at the house, people passing thru another dimension/ghost world were all the stuff which inspired future horror films. The creepy smiling clown n the big monster tree really added to the scary stuff. Kids will definitely enjoy this as it lacks the tension n violence. Don't let the names of Hooper n Spielberg fool u. Its not brutal or violent neither it is tame or mild. It does hav some creepy n scary stuff.

jillmillenniumgirllevin Poltergeist: Tobe Hooper; Steven Spielberg. In the clichéd phrase: This is a movie that those who like this kind of thing will like. A movie I wanted to like, but found dated and disappointing. The performances are adequate, although the family are disconnected and loveless; why, for instance, include an elder daughter who gets less than five minutes of screen time? (And given my arithmetic , would have been born when her mother was sixteen.) As so often in Spielberg, a child is endangered; as so often in Spielberg, the child is rescued, in this case, safe in her mother's arms, and covered in red-orange jello. Unsurprisingly, the visual effects now seems a bit quaint,, which is not the movie's fault. What is its fault is its failure to make us care about its characters. For example, when the medium asks which is the authoritative parent, the couple are at a loss. Also objectionable — one hopes then as now — is JoBeth Williams's costume for the final showdown, a not quite crotch length tee shirt and visible white panties — enough, presumably, to satisfy male voyeurs — and in the bathroom is subjected to a kind of supernatural rape. But hey — a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do, and she couldn't be expected to know that "this house is not clean" before she luxuriates in the tub, thinking all is well. Unless, that is, she'd ever seen a horror movie, which would have alerted her that as a woman with a daughter, she'd constitute the Final Girl. Given the running time, she should also have known that the house is most definitely not clean, and that she'd have to face a final showdown with fierce and enraged ghosts and spirits. I admit to being puzzled by television's being the conduit to their world. Is the message that TV is dangerous? or that children shouldn't be allowed to watch it? or that they should be taken to the movies instead? Presumably not this film, which in my admittedly conservative view is too gruesome for preteens (although they probably love it). If there's a Lubitsch touch, let's propose a Spielberg touch, and assume that had Spielberg had time to direct it, it would have been a different and better film. But if he had, we might not have ET (with its feisty single mother and convincing children), and that we would miss more acutely than this film with its unconvincing family.