Poltergeist

Released only one week prior to E.T., Poltergeist (not to be confused with Troma's Poultrygeist) is a pretty unique marriage of family-friendly spooks and disturbingly grown-up frights. What kind of a family film features a man ripping his own melting face off in gruesome -- albeit horrendously low-budget -- detail? Okay, so it was just a guy's hallucination of ripping his facial flesh off, but it's still enough to scare the bejesus out of anyone under the double digit demographic, which was roughly my age when first experiencing this film. Another thing that you'll also likely never see again is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre's Tobe Hooper directing a feature co-written and produced by Steven Spielberg (there has also been speculation that he ghost-directed much of the film). And don't even get me started on the Poltergeist curse and/or the Pizza Hut line. I'll leave that to Google.

In an ordinary suburb stands a not-so-ordinary house with extraordinary paranormal activity. First discovered by the Freeling family's youngest member (the late, great Heather O'Rourke), these strange occurrences become progressively more severe as other family members start to witness the weirdness, culminating in the disappearance of their youngest daughter. Subsequently, the family hires a group of ghostbusters and a clairvoyant to save their daughter and expel the evil. Naturally, things get dangerous: the parents are attacked by a giant, semi-transparent skull and a toy clown, all whilst battling their way through a vaginal canal to rescue their daughter.

The film can be seen as two distinct parts. The first section features some very 80s Spielberg-y moments with a slight edge -- the parents (well-played by Craig T. Nelson and Jo Beth Williams) smoke doobies -- and there's plenty of quality laughs and solid character development. At roughly the mid-way point, the little one goes missing and things take on a moderately darker tone. Even 25 years later, these chills hold up quite well.

Speaking of 25 years, this DVD is identified as the great 25th anniversary edition. While the 2:35 transfer and 5.1 audio mix are more than solid, the special feature (singular?!) is beyond disappointing. All we get is a crappy 30 minute, 2 part featurette called "They Are Here: A Real Wold of Poltergeists Revealed," which basically has a bunch of magicians, paranormal authors, and other weirdoes waxing philosophic about ghosts.

Failing to provide us with a Spielberg/Hooper/Craig T. commentary track or even a short behind-the-scenes promo doc, Warner Bros. really dropped the ball on this release. There's a lot to be said about the creation and controversy surrounding this franchise and it's hugely displeasing that there's not one minute of relevant bonus material on this DVD, which is fortunately/appropriately priced at a reduced cost (you can probably pick it up for just over ten bucks).

In short, this is a lackluster release of a decent film that deserves much better, especially seeing as this is a double-dip. I suppose we'll see the inevitable high-def triple-dip soon enough. 30th anniversary 2-disc edition anyone? -- Neil Karassik