The Original Ghostly Beast in POLTERGEIST Had a Very Different, Wild, and Sinister Design
Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist is one of my all-time favorite horror movies, and I thought I knew everything there was to know about it. Hell, I did a whole behind-the-scene podcast for it! Then, someone sent me this… the original alternate design for the ghostly beast in the film.
The images you see here were actually shot for the film featuring a wild and sinister-looking giant head that radiates pure evil. But, it was cut and reshot because Spielberg thought the head “looked too human.”
In the final cut of the film, The Beast manifests as a terrifying giant flaming skull and then later as a tall wispy skeletal figure with incredibly long arms. I love the look of The Beast in the film, but I also like the visual of this insane human head version!
It’s pretty wild how much the head evokes the Beast's actual human form, Reverend Henry Kane, who was played by Julian Beck in the sequel. At the time of making the first film, Spielberg most likely didn’t even factor that in when creating the effect, but it’s really cool to see!
The photos were acquired by Poltergeist fan Matt Knowles and shared on Fan Site. Let us know what you think!
