10/11-Poltergeist (1982)

Poltergeist (German for noisy ghost!) is like Cabin in the Woods from 30 years prior.  Practically every single horror trope is represented in this movie.  Haunted house manifesting in stuff movie on its own?  Duh.  Creepy little girl?  Check.  Evil clown?  Living doll?  You're in luck!  There's an evil clown doll that comes to life!  Eerie whispering, a malevolent plant, some gross-out gore, an eccentric expert of the paranormal, the list could go on, but Poltergeist has got it all.

After reading that, you may think the movie is a jumbled mess of ideas, like free-form jazz for the horror genre, but the story does a very good job of keeping the story in focus and moving along at a good pace.  While this movie was certainly not the scariest ever, there were several genuinely eerie and unsettling moments throughout.  Even from one of the first scenes, the peculiarities start, but subtle enough that the haunting has room to grow.

An interesting tidbit about this movie is that it originally received an R rating, despite the lack of excessive violence or language that one would expect from today's R movies.  This is because until 1984, PG-13 didn't exist.  That's why some 80s movies are rated PG, but have sassy language, or rated R, but keeping thinking "this is a really tame R move."  Steven Spielberg (the producer) and Tobe Hooper (the director) protested the R rating, and were successful in their appeal to rate the movie PG.  Fun connection: the reason PG-13 came to exist is because Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins were too violent to be PG, but clearly didn't deserve to be R.

A movie like this one can be tricky ton make because quite a few of the main actors were children, who can really detract from the movie if they are bad.  Luckily, the child actors were quite good in their work.  The youngest girl, age 5, was surprisingly good, but I think some of that came from the filmmakers putting peanut butter in her mouth and dubbing her dialogue in later, Mr. Ed-style.

In addition, there is some fear to watching an older movie like this because it may feel outdated, but with the exception of one scene, all the special and practical effects really hold up.  Apparently, the skeletons used in the film were actual human remains because at the time, getting the real thing was cheaper than making plastic skeletons.

Spoiler: if you are curious about the cheesy scene in question, it's posted below.  Also, that scene opens with a character (who is a guest in the house), pulling a giant steak out of the fridge to cook for himself because he's a selfish, inconsiderate prick.

Overall, very entertaining with some good scares involved.  One of the better films I've seen on this adventure in terms of what makes a good movie, even if it isn't one of the scariest.

Rating on the Spook-o-meter: 4 out of 10 boos