Poltergeist Returns to Streaming on HBO Max 44 Years After Its Release

The people who make movies don’t always get the credit they deserve. Carrie Fisher worked as an uncredited script doctor on the 1998 Adam Sandler movie The Wedding Singer. Quentin Tarantino did an uncredited rewrite of It’s Pat, the movie spun off from a Saturday Night Live sketch. Writers go uncredited more often than directors, but directors aren’t immune. Richard Donner directed the 1979 classic Superman and shot a good deal of the sequel Superman II, but he was fired partway through. Richard Lester replaced him and received full credit. Many of the details remain unknown, and some people speculate that a 1982 horror film was directed by someone other than the person named in the credits.

Poltergeist is currently available to stream on HBO Max. It follows an ordinary suburban family whose home starts behaving strangely. Furniture and toys move on their own, and a glass of milk shatters out of nowhere. Five-year-old Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) begins to communicate with beings through the television. The family dismisses the events at first. Then a tree outside the kids’ bedroom window crashes in during a thunderstorm and snatches the boy. A portal opens in the closet and sucks Carol Anne into another dimension. The family enlists some paranormal investigators and tries everything to bring her back.

Who really directed Poltergeist?

The credited director is Tobe Hooper. He is best known for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and other gruesome horror movies, along with a few sci-fi horror films such as Lifeforce. Steven Spielberg produced Poltergeist, and an ongoing debate still asks which of the two men was the real director.

The contradictions between the two sides go back to the start of production. After Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg wanted to make a sci-fi horror film called Night Skies. The story involved a handful of aliens landing on Earth and terrorizing a family. He eventually reworked the idea into the heartwarming E.T., which suited his sensibilities much better. He didn’t want to let go of Night Skies entirely, so he brought in Hooper to possibly direct it. Some say Hooper turned Night Skies into Poltergeist by swapping ghosts for aliens. Hooper himself has said he shot down Night Skies and arrived with an original idea for Poltergeist that he had been developing for years.

Either way, Poltergeist went into production with Hooper at the helm while Spielberg kept working on E.T. Spielberg was also on the Poltergeist set a lot and seemed to micromanage the production. His vocal, enthusiastic style contrasted with Hooper’s quieter approach, and the pairing gave the impression of two directors on set.

John Leonetti worked as a camera assistant on the movie. He is the brother of Poltergeist cinematographer Matthew Leonetti, and he has said Spielberg was really directing. JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson played the parents, and they have confirmed Hooper as the director. They also acknowledged that Spielberg was very hands-on as a producer. Zelda Rubinstein, who played the medium Tangina Barrons, called it a joint venture in which Spielberg had a bit more control than Hooper.

Spielberg’s own comments from the time muddy the picture further. He told The Los Angeles Times in 1982:

“Tobe isn’t what you’d call a take-charge sort of guy. He’s just not a strong presence on a movie set. If a question was asked and an answer wasn’t immediately forthcoming, I’d jump up and say what we could do. Tobe would nod agreement, and that became the process of the collaboration.”

Release timing added to the confusion. Poltergeist and E.T. came out just a year apart in 1982, and many people started calling it “Spielberg Summer.” MGM and United Artists also promoted Spielberg’s name over Hooper’s. The Director’s Guild looked into the matter and found that the studio had belittled Hooper’s title. The studio had to pay Hooper $15,000.

Style offers clues in both directions. Some say the suburban family focus and the high polish point to Spielberg, since Hooper’s earlier work was scrappier and more horrifying. But Hooper rarely had a budget like the one he had on Poltergeist. The scariest scenes feel more like his touch. In one, a paranormal investigator peels off his own face. In another, Williams’ character falls into a muddy pit of bodies.

The finished film may be the best evidence that it was a collaboration. Poltergeist has an accessible, almost heartwarming family element that makes you care about the characters, as in a great Spielberg film. It also has moments of genuine terror that recall Hooper. The movie builds tension masterfully, and both directors excelled at that. You can see it in the first half of Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and in the first half of Spielberg’s Jaws. Had the two been credited as co-directors, the controversy might not have lasted so many decades. Poltergeist remains one of the best films of the 1980s, and fans of both Hooper and Spielberg should enjoy it.

Poltergeist is available on HBO Max.

Source: Polygon