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Cross over, Behind the Scenes Pic of the Day. All are welcome! All welcome! Go into the light!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with today’s Behind the Scenes Pic!
Poltergeist is another one of my all-time favorite movies and another one I’ve discussed at length before, so I’ll save any broad “this is awesome-amazing!” statements and focus on the awesome picture.
This moment always got me as a kid, the decomposing skull that pops up at the doorway that causes Craig T. Nelson to let go of the rope… It’s crazy-looking and horrific. And it wasn’t even the first design for the effect, but I’ll get to that in a second.
Here’s a brilliant bit of miniature work that I couldn’t really figure out how they executed until I saw this image. To me that skull looked 10 feet tall. I never would have pegged it as a miniature.
Amazing, right? That kind of work floors me. I can’t imagine having the talent to create something like that.
Craig Reardon designed a different face for that moment, but it was nixed. Reardon actually retooled the design a few years later for a gag at the beginning of the Twilight Zone movie, but I figured you guys might want to see what was original proposed before I wrap this BtPotD up. Thanks once again to the Practical Effects Group for providing these images. Here is the original grinning face concept:
If you have a behind the scenes shot you’d like to submit to this column, you can email me at quint@aintitcool.com.
Tomorrow’s Behind the Scenes pic comes from a less traumatic ‘80s movie… involving aliens...
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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Click here to visit the complete compilation of previous Behind the Scenes images, Page One
Click here to visit the complete compilation of previous Behind the Scenes images, Page Two
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Jan 25, 2012 4:00:28 PM CST
Poltergiest: A "mainstream movie" that is also awesome. :)
by longtime lurker
It IS possible. :)
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Jan 25, 2012 4:03:04 PM CST
Too bad we can't get a Bluray that has some features on it
by samuel fulmer
Come on Tobe and Steve, it's been 30 years, just admit it was a co-directing job, move on, and give us a Bluray with behind the scenes stuff on it.
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I was 12, and saw it in a half empty theater while visiting my father when he lived in Sacramento, CA. Scared me, but in a fun way. That is the brilliance of that movie. It was a double feature of Poltergeist and Raiders of the Lost Ark. How is THAT for an afternoon at the movies?
I am so glad I was a kid in the 70s and 80s. -
That alone would have made it one of the top 10 scariest scenes in a movie ever, like for fuck's sake.
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that is all...
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Jan 25, 2012 4:12:48 PM CST
That second picture would put you off your vinegar stroke. FACT!!!
by porrohman
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and it turns into spielbergpalooza. The guy was as subtle as a baseball bat with those FX shots back then.
Jobeth Williams was amazing, and this was before Craig T. Nelson turned into a moron. -
Show him the clown scene with the lights off.
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Jan 25, 2012 4:39:50 PM CST
OK, this may be a controversial opinion... hear me out on this before you judge...
by chickenstu
Now don't get me wrong. I do like Poltergeist. I got the DVD the day it came out and showed it to my family. The actors are amazing, Jerry Goldsmith delivers one of the best scores of his career.
It's a good film.
BUT...
I don't think it's a great film.
It's sublime for the first two thirds. Absolutely sublime, BUT I think it falls apart a little in the final act. I find the emotional climax comes too early, and everything after just doesn't work.
It's great up until after they've rescued Carrie Ann, and the bit where the Mum and Dad kiss in the otherworldly light before she goes in to rescue her is an an extraordinarily powerful moment. Then she's rescued, the family's happy and everyone's good. That always feels like the ending of the movie to me.
All the stuff afterwards with the tree attack, the skeletons in the pool whatever feels like a different story tacked on after. It just doesn't flow for me.
I think if the structure was changed slightly and the rescue was saved until the final act, going on at the same time as all the other weird stuff we'd have a masterpiece. With the little girl rescued, we've had the emotional climax. That's what we've been waiting the whole movie for. It comes to soon and the stuff after seems to come out of nowhere... without the added tension that Carrie Ann needs rescued.
Just my opinion... -
Jan 25, 2012 4:41:37 PM CST
Shit for a second I thought Glenn Close was in Avatar 2...
by drstrangerlove
Poltergeist.....My friends liked ET, I was hardcore though and preffered Poltergeist!!!
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Jan 25, 2012 4:46:52 PM CST
my god, i just spent the last hour reading Tobe VS Spielberg Poltergeist debates
by awepittance
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I know it isn't technically the same but i always thought it stood above a lot of other haunted house movies from the 70s. I actually heard of the film from that one scene in the Burbs where Cory Feldman thinks the Klopecks have a gateway to hell in their house
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then he must have been one major hands-on producer because his fingerprints are all over this movie.
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It's actually kinda sad. And the music is beautiful.
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Screw the over-use of CGI.
The new Titans movie looks like a cartoon -
But for me, what is the movie trying to be? Spiritual or schlocky? Each one can be good on it's own terms, I just can't get over them trying to fuse it together. At the end of the day it works as an IDEA.
The juxtaposition doesn't ruin it, but it does interupt the flow and that to me is somewhat jarring. I think the makers were so in love with the IDEA they expected it alone to carry the movie... in some respects it did, and in some it didn't. -
by myself during my early teens. Creeped me the fuck out.
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My favourite movie ever! Seriously, I can never shut up about that film!
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but the skull makes more thematic sense. They're dealing with the dead and spirits. Not a creepy witch-zombie-thing. It would have scared the fuck out of everyone in those theaters, but it wouldn't make sense in hindsight. I'm glad they made the change.
I actually haven't seen this film in its entirety since the 80's on TV. I'm afraid of it. I won't lie.
It also has one of my favorite matte paintings of all time in any film: the massive graveyard on the hill overlooking the town. Jesus, but that gave me the heebie-jeebies! It's an obvious effect now, but my god, what a beautiful shot. -
I don't know how this has become the established as part of Poltergeist lore. I think, perhaps, people are mixing it up with "Pet Semetary". When Craig T. Nelson's boss (partner) explains to him about moving the cemetary, he specifically states this fact:
**********
Steve: Not much room for pool is there?
Teague: We own all the land. We have already made arrangements to relocating the cemetery.
Steve: Oh, you're kidding. Oh, come on. I mean that's sacrilege, isn't it?
Teague: Oh, don't worry about it. After all, it's not ancient tribal burial ground. It's just... people. Besides we have done it before.
**************
Plus, you can see in the stair-case scene (in the video play-back) that the ghosts are wearing 1920s-1950s period American clothes. -
Clown doll, spooky storms, skeletons in your backyard.
I still remember my Dad telling me how amazed he was by the stretching hallway sequence. -
was the best puppet in the film.
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Yup. Would have been ultra-fucking-terrifying!
http://www.poltergeist.poltergeistiii.com/earlyfx.html -
As someone who prides myself on easily calling how effects shots are achieved, I never would have pegged that as a miniature. This post offered double the nostalgia though when you included that nixed design idea that ended up getting retooled for the “really scary” Dan Akroid reveal in TZ.
Great post Mr. Quint.
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The self-illuminated skull with the decaying/peeling skin is the stuff of nightmares. Love how the spectral lights emanate from the eye-sockets.
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It reminds me of the creepy old man in Poltergeist 2.
Poltergeist is a very good film. Sliding chairs, flying record players... A nasty old tree and a creepy toy clown... A midget psychic... Not a single scene played for laughs yet it IS funny how people still find the time to complain when most modern day horror movies struggle to compare. -
Because she's constantly eating in this film.
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but they changed it to please the beard...that's the power he wields.
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They just really don't make them like they used to.
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Jan 25, 2012 7:36:51 PM CST
Going wayyyyy back: that alternate POLTERGEIST head photo is from the 1983 compendium FANGORIA BLOODY BEST #2.
by justmyluck
Page 73. It was a continuation of a double-issue Craig Reardon interview from FANGORIA 20.
(geek Coke bottle spectacles OFF) -
*smooch*
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I couldn't help laughing, it was so over the top. But it was not funny to my wife or anyone else in the theater....I guess they thought it was scary. Don't care what anyone else thinks--it was deliciously funny to me.
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. . . and were worried that E.T. would be too scary for me after seeing this. They say they saw more than a few people running out of the theater screaming while they waited in line. I wouldn't see it til HBO, and it's been one of my faves since. On top of the horror and such, the family vibe still seems much more realistic to me than the average movie then and since. The pot smoking scene seems REALLY real. I wouldn't understand what was going on til high school. All of a sudden there's that viewing where I thought, "Ohhhhh. Yeeeeaaahhh . . . "
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Jan 25, 2012 9:02:29 PM CST
Didn't ANYONE else have a major crush on Jobeth Williams because of this movie?
by largojr
Or was it just me? GAWD she made me feel 7 flavors of need when I was a kid.
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Jan 25, 2012 9:32:58 PM CST
@clio, does it KEEP GETTIN' FUNNIER IT KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU SEE IT?
by bah
Like the Exorcist?
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. . . but then I saw 'Teachers.'
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Jan 26, 2012 12:29:14 AM CST
The thing I remember most about seeing it in the theater
by disfigurehead
was the black woman behind me yelling "ohh that momma bad" when Zelda Rubenstien came on screen.
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Jan 26, 2012 12:39:55 AM CST
Zelda Rubinstein *made* POLTERGEIST. A perfect performance. R.I.P.
by justmyluck
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Jan 26, 2012 1:13:08 AM CST
@themeofme: POLTERGEIST was released in June '82. Dunne was assaulted in October and died in November.
by justmyluck
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Dunne
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Agreed, there seems to be a post-ending ending which takes up a significant fraction of the running time. I have this reaction to most of Spielberg's movies: I'm expecting a three-act play, and there always manages to be a fourth act I wasn't expecting.
Usually my reaction to this is kind of neutral, neither good nor bad. Sometimes (E.T., Minority Report) the fourth act is migraine-inducing. In one singular case (A.I.), it's brilliant. (Yes, I know not everyone would agree with that). -
I hope tomorrow's pic is from Buckaroo Banzai.
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wouldn't get a fucking look in these days. No national anthems, no white dot, just more old shitty rolling news/weather/shopping stuff. How the hell are they supposed to get into our rooms now?!
Anyway, great pic, great film and I still pray to god that when I have my morning shave, the skin stays on my face instead of falling off in chunks and plopping down the plug 'ole. -
Jan 26, 2012 8:36:05 AM CST
Dominique Dunne was playing Robin Maxwell in V when she was murdered. She was replaced by Blair Tefkin.
by chickenstu
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the last three BtSPotD have all been on cable TV the night before they're posted here.
Is this intentional? I can't remember the last time Poltergeist was on a pay channel with no commercials but last night it was(forget which one, I think Showtime Beyond) and now...pic. -
Jan 26, 2012 8:43:29 AM CST
And watching it last night and actively noticing the directing/blocking etc
by phifty2
there's no way Tobe Hooper directed this thing. Maybe some parts but Spielberg's touch is all over the movie.
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Agree with ya. Much as I love some of Hooper's ouvre there's very little of his artistic stamp on this movie.
That Goldsmith score still scares the shit out of me, too. Genius.
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Jan 26, 2012 10:26:20 AM CST
Hey and given the clue for tomorrow; maybe a film actually directed by Hooper:
by phifty2
Lifeforce
Love that movie. -
as E.T. and that Babysitter episode of Amazing Stories, is the neighborhood. Rows upon rows of identical houses. New ones constantly going up all around.
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wtf!
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No need for fancy computers...just put the skull monster five feet from the camera lens and put Craig T. Nelson 15 feet from the camera lens. The two dimensional lens makes them look like they're about to kiss.
Not related, but hell, it came out during the same Year of Awesomeness (1982), the movie BEASTMASTER used some great foreground miniatures for several scenes. -
on the IMDB forums there is a thread about a poster in the boys room for the 1988 Superbowl.
Everyone on there claims they can see it. Weird. -
Why were there so many fuckin' clown dolls in the 80s? When was the last time you saw a fucking clown doll sitting on a chair or dresser in anybody's house!?
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Jan 26, 2012 2:45:50 PM CST
Such a terrific film. The test shot of the "human" face is quite scary, but glad they used the skull.
by kevred
The original face is really well done, and judging by that test shot mentioned above, it would have looked fantastic (and very scary) on film.
But this skull seems to fit better with the overall presentation of the spirits/spirit world in the film. The skull is more alien, and less approachable & understandable. The whole spirit invasion was so alien and confusing to the family that a clearly recognizable monster with as much personality as the "human" face shows would almost rob some of the mystery.
Such a wonderful film, all around.
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