POLTERGEIST - Horror Films that Changed My Life #4
It being the Halloween season, we thought it would be fun to share with you some of the horror films we've seen throughout the years that have in a way changed our lives… basically films that pretty much screwed with out heads and jacked us up.
Most of the movies I will be talking about in my articles are films that I watched when I was growing up as a kid. These are films with twisted aspects that have been embedded in my memory, given me nightmares, and lost a lot of sleep over throughout my childhood years… thus helping shape the person I am today.
Toby Hooper and Steven Spielberg's classic horror film Poltergeist was simply a terrifying movie when I watched it as a kid. Like many of the other films that I've mentioned in this Horror Films that Changed My Life series, there are parts of Poltergeist that have stayed embedded in my brain, things I can't shake loose, images and feelings that pop in my head from out of nowhere when trying to fall asleep at night in the dark. Hell, even when I watch the film today it still stands the test of time, and is a freakin' frightening film.
First of all, the film is rated PG, it originally was given an R rating which makes sense because of how crazy scary the movie is. The filmmakers protested the rating and successfully won so it got slapped with a PG rating. PG-13 didn't exist in 1982 when this movie was released. The recent Guillermo del Toro produced film Don't Be Afraid of the Dark was rated R apparently because of how scary it was, but Poltergeist was a much more effectively terrifying film in every way, and it was rated freaking' PG. The film actually got an X rating in the UK when it was first released.
Seeing this movie at such a young age really screwed me up. The fact that it was rated PG is the reason I saw it so young. As a kid watching that one paranormal investigator tearing his face off in the bathroom in big meaty bloody chunks to the skull was absolutely terrifying! I had never seen anything like that! It was the goriest thing I had ever seen at such a young age. Interesting side note about this scene... the hands which pull the flesh off the investigator's face in the bathroom mirror are Spielberg's. How can a kid walk away from seeing something like that and be OK? They can't, I'm proof of that, at the same time I'm fine with it because I love the movie!
Poltergeist is packed full of fun stuff that would scare the hell out of anyone. There's the scene when the little boy Robbie is being horrifically swallowed by a tree in their back yard. A little girl talking to a static TV and then being kidnapped by a poltergeist and pulled into another dimension. A swimming pool being built in the back yard that is full of the skeletal remains of dead people. The scariest part of the film for me though is that damn clown in the rocking chair in the kids bedroom that eventually came to life and attacked Robbie. Good lord, I will never own a clown doll because of that scene. Just imagining a clown doll like that as a kid sitting in the corner of my bedroom was scary enough.
This is on my list of films that I watch every year around Halloween in celebration of how much the movie screwed me up. In my mind Poltergeist is one of the scariest movies ever made. What are your thoughts on the film Poltergeist? What is your favorite horrific moment?
Clown Scene:
Face tearing scene:
The other three films on my Horror Films That Changed My Life list are... House, Pet Semetary, and The Gate.