Cool POLTERGEIST Movie Poster Art from Hopko Designs
Here's another great piece of poster art by Hopko Designs! This one is for the Steven Spielberg and Toby Hooper film Poltergeist, which is one of my favorite horror movies of all time! I watch this movie every year around Halloween to help get into the spirit of the season, so it makes for a great Halloween post.
Here's a few bits of fun trivia about the film that you might not know about:
- Stephen King was briefly approached to write the screenplay. It would have been the first written by King directly for the screen, but the parties could not agree on the terms.
- The film was originally given a R rating, but the filmmakers protested successfully and got a PG rating (the PG-13 rating did not exist at the time). When originally released in the UK the film was given an 'X' certificate, prohibiting anyone under 18 from seeing the film.
- The hands which pull the flesh off the investigator's face in the bathroom mirror are Steven Spielberg's.
- Heather O'Rourke, who played the little girl Carol-Anne, and Dominique Dunne, who played the teenage daughter, are buried in the same cemetery: Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles. Dunne was strangled into brain-death by her boyfriend in 1982, the year of the film's release. Six years later, O'Rourke died of intestinal stenosis.
- The shot of the chairs that position themselves in the amazing balancing act on the table was all done in one take. As the camera panned along with JoBeth Williams, who was getting some cleaning materials, several crew members quickly set an already organized pyramid of chairs on the table, then took the single chairs away before the camera scrolled back.
- Both of the terrors that plague Robbie came from Steven Spielberg's own fears as a child, a fear of clowns and a tree outside his window.
- Drew Barrymore was considered for the role of Carol Anne, but Steven Spielberg wanted someone more angelic. It was Barrymore's audition for this role, however, that landed her a part in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
- In reality, Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams are only 14 and 11 years older than Dominique Dunne, who plays their teen-aged daughter.
Thanks Scott Hopko for the heads up on the poster!
What's your favorite scene of the movie?