Monday, October 19, 2015

'Poltergeist' Stars Share Their Weirdest Fears From Bad Food to Bees

Gwynne Watkins

Writer

May 22,2015

Poltergeist, the new remake of the 1982 horror film (in theaters Friday), plays on our primal fears of ghosts, demons, and bad real estate deals. But what scares Poltergeist stars Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt? In the video above, the actors and director Gil Kenan tell Yahoo Movies about their most personal phobias.

Related: The 7 Most Nightmare-Inducing Scenes From the Original ‘Poltergeist’

DeWitt, who plays the mother in the film, gets freaked out by food — specifically, celery in tuna fish, undercooked meat, and things that have been in the refrigerator too long. Rockwell, who plays DeWitt’s husband, is afraid of getting wet. And Kenan, who made his directorial debut with the animated fright fest Monster House, lives in fear of bees. “I tell people I’m allergic to them so they don’t look at me strangely when I scream and run away from the table, but really I’m afraid of them,” Kenan tells us. (He doesn’t mention how he copes with his other, more unusual fear: human hands.) Watch the video to learn more about DeWitt and Rockwell’s acting-related fears, and to hear them ponder the eternal question raised by Poltergeist: Why are clowns so freakin’ scary?

The 7 Most Nightmare-Inducing Scenes From the Original 'Poltergeist'

Jordan Zakarin

Writer

May 22,2015

The reboot of Poltergeist hits theaters on Friday. The reviews for Monster House director Gil Kenan’s latest haunted home movie are less than enthusiastic, with only a 49 percent positive Rotten Tomatoes rating as of Friday morning. Some of that antipathy might be explained by fond memories of the original 1982 film, which was directed by Tobe Hooper (with, rumor has it, assistance from writer/producer Steven Spielberg).

That film spent a full half-hour building up the audience’s attachment to the sweet suburban Freeling family before unleashing the furious wrath of the angry spirits living in the secret graveyard beneath their new house. Under the influence of the bitter lost souls, trees became murderous, closets turned into vortexes of death, and television sets were even more dangerous than usual. Poltergeist would prove to be one of the best horror movies of the ‘80s, thanks to both its story and the terrifying special effects from Industrial Light & Magic.

This being the early 1980s, there were no major computer generated visual effects (those would come two years later), but that’s probably to this film’s advantage. Early CGI often looks dated, but the practical effects — those crafted by hand and shot with camera tricks — in Poltergeist really do hold up for the most part.

We’ve gone ahead and singled out the seven special effects that still scare the crap out of us, even 33 years later.

Branching Out

Call it the anti-Groot: On the first of many awful nights at the Freeling residence, little Star Wars super-fan and comic book aficionado Robbie (Oliver Robins) is woken up when a possessed tree busts its arm-like branch through his window. He’s helpless as the evil tree grows fingers and snatches him right out of his bed and pulls him straight out of his own bedroom.

Plant Food

It gets worse: The tree didn’t just want to ruin Robbie’s slumber. It tries to eat the kid by shoving him into the open mouth that suddenly appears in its trunk. Robbie’s dad Steve (Craig T. Nelson) eventually saves him from the murderous plant, but we’re guessing the kid will never, ever play in a treehouse again. And despite his love of comic books, he probably never became a Guardians of the Galaxy fan.

Light Show

While Robbie is trying to avoid being turned into fertilizer, his little sister Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke) struggles against an even scarier supernatural force: her closet. Out of nowhere, the door opens and a bright light emits from what seems to be an endless void, which then begins sucking the little girl out of her bed with the force of a tornado.

The scares come courtesy of the excellent special-effects work, but they’re also psychologically jarring. If kids can’t be safe at home in their beds, where can they be safe?

Skeletons in the Closet

Later in the film, with the help of some parapsychologists and a spiritual medium, the family launches a rescue mission to bring Carol Anne back from whatever dimension she was brought to by the angry ghosts. Steve is at the top of a dimension-spanning pulley system, working the rope so that they can pull their daughter back from the beyond. What he finds, however, is a lot less cute.

The Miracle of Life

Using some old-fashioned tools and a few incantations, Diane (JoBeth Williams), the family matriarch, heads off into the forbidden zone. When she brings little Carol Anne back to our earthly realm, the pair is covered in some sort of afterbirth jelly, making it look like they were pushed out of a giant evil womb. Just look at Carol Anne’s face — the actors were not pleased to be smeared in that stuff.

The Fears of a Clown

There have been countless evil clown films since Poltergeist, but personally, I’ll never be inoculated against the terror of those grinning demons. Throughout the film, Robbie tosses blankets and jackets on the stuffed clown at bedtime (why he doesn’t just take it out of his room is a mystery). Near the end, the nasty circus reject proves his suspicions right with a sneak attack.

The idea of being choked by a clown doll beneath my own bed is just far too much to handle, even now. Obviously, this scene really connected, because the new Poltergeist film has a demented clown on one of its posters. I guess it is more universally scary than a tree.

Total Creeps

Just when the Freeling family thought they were safe, the evil spirits come raging back for an all-out rampage — one that begins with this invisible violation of a resting Diane.

Not only are the ghosts vengeful and set on making the humans who built on their graves miserable. They are also perverts. And perversion is never not creepy, just another reason why this Poltergeist stands the test of time.

Inside the Hell House of the Original 'Poltergeist'

Jordan Zakarin

Writer

May 27,2015

Released last Friday, the remake of the 1982 horror classic Poltergeist was greeted with a lukewarm response from critics. In fairness, it was always going to be hard for director Gil Kenan to match the heights reached by the original, which was written and produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Tobe Hooper.

Both movies depict the terrifying ordeal of a family whose suburban house is haunted by some very angry ghosts. While the new Poltergeist saved money by shooting in Ontario, Canada, the original stayed in Hollywood’s backyard: The neighborhood depicted at the beginning of the film was located in Agoura Hills, a small town in Los Angeles County. Meanwhile, the house that is supposed to belong to the Freelings — the haunted family at the center of the original — was actually located in nearby Simi Valley. Yahoo Movies recently talked to the original movie’s production designer, Jim Spencer, about how they chose the ultimate house from hell.

“Steven liked that house because it was the end of the road,” Spencer recalled. “It was a two story Valley-type mock Tudor and it just fit everything. The neighborhood [was what] we call ‘Spielbergia,’ where E.T. and a couple of his other films were shot. He always wanted to be in normal residential areas.”

In some ways, Poltergeist is the polar opposite of E.T., which was shot soon after the horror film wrapped. While E.T. celebrates the quiet suburban world in which Spielberg himself was raised, Poltergeist can be read as a criticism of the cookie-cutter neighborhoods that were rapidly claiming what little was left of undeveloped Southern California.

“The movie made the area look like it was over-developed. But in actuality, it’s a beautiful bedroom community surrounded by rolling hills, dozens of hiking trails, parks, and playgrounds and hundreds of historic oak trees,” Harry Medved, the co-author of Location Filming in Los Angeles, told Yahoo Movies. “With all the surrounding green space, you wouldn’t recognize it from Poltergeist’s establishing shots.”

Watch the trailer for the original ‘Poltergeist’ below:

As is revealed late in the film, the unsettled souls that torment the Freelings belong to the bodies that were buried in a cemetery that the newly-built community had just displaced. Oddly enough, in 1969, an old Native American cemetery was unearthed while excavating land for a Vons supermarket in Agoura Hills. There’s nothing to suggest that the graveyard inspired the film, or that Spielberg even knew about it while writing the screenplay, but it certainly adds a dose of realism to the supernatural story.

While the Poltergeist exteriors were shot on location at the house, most of the film was made on the sound stages at MGM Studios in Culver City. (After all, they couldn’t exactly destroy a perfectly nice home in the suburbs.)

Spencer worked with George Lucas’ effects team at Industrial Light and Magic to design the sets so that they could accommodate the massive machines built just for the film. In fact, every set was built 10 feet off the ground, so that they could shoot things like coffins through the floor.

One of the most memorable set pieces (above) involved little Robbie Freeling (Oliver Robins) being pulled from his bed by an evil tree that busts through his window. While this would now be done quite easily with computer animation (see: Groot), the scene required ILM to build an entire mechanical tree that could actually grab the kid. “We built a special part of his room just for that,” Spencer recalled. “If you look at the scale of him to the fingers of the tree, those things were about eight feet long. It was all mechanical.”

Robbie’s little sister, Carol Anne, also fell victim to thieving demons on the night of the tree attack. And while the film showed the siblings sharing a bedroom, each had an entirely separate set built for their half of the room. Carol Anne has the misfortune of being sucked into the endless void in her closet (above).

“We put the set on a huge revolving gimbal that turned 360 degrees so all the stuff just fell into the closet,” Spencer explained (a brief glimpse at the effect in action can be seen here). “We designed it so it would funnel that way. It was a 90 degree tilt and so everything just fell into the room and we sprinkled really small confetti to add to the lighting aspect of it as all the stuff went into the closet.”

The production team didn’t just re-create the interior of the house — they also rebuilt the backyard on the soundstage. The big climactic scene, when a pounding storm hits the quaint neighborhood, required turning a pool into a mud-filled pit from which coffins and angry skeletons rise.

While they dug a hole behind the actual house for an earlier scene (in which construction workers dig out a pool, they couldn’t exactly wreck a real backyard. Even less feasible: Sucking an entire house into a hellmouth. Instead, the production built a miniature house out of balsa wood and corn flakes, then sucked it up with a vacuum — a sequence they filmed at half-speed, then sped up to highlight their detailed work and the marvelous destruction.

The real house in Simi Valley is still standing today, and is a minor tourist attraction (see below). The current owners allegedly don’t much like the attention. But as Poltergeist shows, curious movies fans aren’t the worst kind of unwanted visitors.

Poltergeist: EW review

Movies

Poltergeist: EW review

by Clark Collis • @clarkcollis

Enlarge Photo

Kennedi Clements in Poltergeist

B-

Poltergeist

Genre: Horror, Thriller; Starring: Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Jane Adams, Jared Harris; Director: Gil Kenan; Release Date Wide: 05/22/2015; Runtime (in minutes): 93; MPAA Rating: PG-13

Posted May 22 2015 — 10:44 AM EDT

In the early ’80s, filmmakers Steven Spielberg and Texas Chain Saw Massacre auteur Tobe Hooper combined their very different talents to create the Hooper-directed Poltergeist, the tale of a suburban family bedeviled by supernatural forces. Now, more than three decades on, Sam Raimi, whose Ghost House Pictures company produced this remake, and director Gil Kenan (Monster House) have done the exact same thing. No, really, the 2015 Poltergeist is almost identical to the classic 1982 scare machine. Scary clown? Check. Scary tree? Check. Scary TV static? Checkity-check. Except, lacking the shock of the new, and the executing vision of the Spielberg-Hooper axis, these frights are not frightening at all. Poltergeist does benefit from briskness—it’s actually 20 minutes shorter than Hooper’s film—and there is a nice, Evil Dead 2-esque sequence involving a power drill. The film also has a winning cast, which includes Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt as the tormented parents attempting to rescue their supernaturally-trapped youngest kid (Kennedi Clements), and Jared Harris, whose rogue psychic investigator is one of the film’s few new-ish elements. But the only really frightening thing about the 2015 version of Poltergeist is how haunted it is by the original. B-

Poltergeist Actor Oliver Robins Says Costars' Eerie Deaths Were "Just Tragic Coincidences," No Curse

Celebrity News May. 22, 2015 AT 3:30PM By Esther Lee

Poltergeist Actor Oliver Robbins Says There Is No Curse

Poltergeist actor Oliver Robins -- who played son Robbie in the 1982 original -- said the eerie deaths of his costars were not a curse, but "just tragic coincidences." Credit: Bobby Bank/WireImage

Ahead of the reboot of the 1982 horror classic, Poltergeist, former child actor Oliver Robins spoke out about the alleged curse that supposedly resulted in the deaths of five of his costars.
Steven Spielberg's hit flick was centered on a suburban family, whose youngest, clairvoyant daughter Carol-Anne (Heather O’Rourke) communicated with a spirit located in the family's TV set. In the movie, Robins played terrified middle child Robbie Freeling alongside his on-screen sisters, which also included teenaged Dana (Dominique Dunne).
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While the film — also starring Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams as the beleaguered parents — achieved monumental box office success and cult status, the coincidental freaky deaths of Robins' costar siblings led to rumblings about an alleged curse. Shortly after the movie's release, 22-year-old Dunne was strangled in October 1982 by her abusive ex-boyfriend John Thomas Sweeney in the driveway of her West Hollywood home.
"When Dominique Dunne passed away I believe my parents told me, but they also wanted to protect me, so all that I learned during that period was that she had died and was having a funeral,” Robins, now 43, told the Daily Mail. "I did not attend the funeral but my parents went and I was just very upset by the fact that she had passed on because, as a child, most children aren't really exposed to that at such a young age, so it gave me a sense of mortality and taught me that things can happen and you should celebrate every moment of your life because it is so fleeting."
PHOTOS: Horror movie stars -- then and now
O’Rourke, who starred in all three films, died in 1988 at the young age of 12 from cardiac arrest during surgery. "I was in high school at the time, at a really intense prep school in the San Fernando Valley and so my only focus were my studies. I'd lost touch with Heather at that point and unfortunately I never knew she was actually sick until she passed away," he told the paper. "I attended her funeral and it was really heartbreaking to see that happen. I was at an age where I had so many fond memories of her and I was able to reflect upon the experience, so it was tragic for me on multiple levels."

Dominique Dunne, JoBeth Williams, Craig T. Nelson, and Oliver Robins in 1982's Poltergeist.
Credit: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Getty Images

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Then, two Poltergeist II stars Julian Beck (who played Kane the evil preacher) and Will Sampson (who played Taylor the Medicine Man) passed away from health issues at ages 60 and 53, in 1985 and 1987, respectively. The most gruesome death of all, however, was the 2009 freak death of Lou Perryman, who portrayed construction worker Pugsley in the first flick. The actor was murdered with an axe inside his Texas home by an ex-convict.

Will Sampson and Heather O'Rourke in 1986's The Poltergeist II: The Other Side.

PHOTOS: Stars gone too soon
Despite the odd instances, Robins maintained that his costars' deaths had nothing to do with the movie. "To be completely honest, I don't think anyone that was involved in the movie ever really took the curse seriously. There is no curse - it is just tragic coincidences," he said. "With this curse mythology, I never spoke to Steven [Spielberg] about it, but I guess he thinks the events that took place were horribly tragic and awful but had no relation to the events that took place on set. People may try and connect the dots and make something out of it, but they are possibly going to make connections that probably aren't there."
The Poltergeist remake, starring Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, and Jared Harris, hits theaters on Friday, May 22.
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The Poltergeist Curse: Here's the Real Story Behind the Movie Myth

by Maggie Pehanick 10/10/15

It's the spookiest month of the year, and you know what that means! It's time to figure out whether you believe in curses or simply unfortunate coincidences. A reboot of the classic 1982 horror film Poltergeist came out this year, but let's be honest: nothing could compare to the original. While no horrific accidents occurred on the set of this year's film (that we know of, anyway), the release reminded us of the rumors of a curse on the original film trilogy's cast. The movie revolves around a suburban family who move into a new home and begin to notice strange things surrounding their young daughter. Take a look below to find out about the mysterious events that have made people speculate that Poltergeist may be the most cursed franchise in Hollywood.
Source: Getty / MGM

The Whole Ordeal Began With Human Skeletons

One of the most famous scenes features JoBeth Williams's character, Diane, falling into the family's pool, and it's filled with skeletons. You might not know that those skeletons are actually real — the actors sure didn't. "In my innocence and naiveté, I assumed that these were not real skeletons," Williams said in an interview for TV Land (below). "I assumed that they were prop skeletons made out of plastic or rubber . . . I found out, as did the crew, that they were using real skeletons, because it's far too expensive to make fake skeletons out of rubber."

Months After the Release of the First Film, a Star Was Murdered

Poltergeist was released in June 1982, and in November of that year, 22-year-old Dominique Dunne, who played Dana (the family's older daughter), was murdered. Dunne was brutally strangled in her own driveway by her abusive ex-boyfriend and was removed from life support five days later.

An Exorcism Was Performed on the Set of the Sequel

Concerned about the use of real skeletons on the set of the first film, Native American actor and Poltergeist II: The Other Side star Will Sampson performed an exorcism on the set of the second film in 1984. According to Williams, he went to the set late at night by himself to do it. The next day, the cast supposedly felt relieved.
Source: Getty / MGM

Two More Cast Members Died Within a Couple Years of the Sequel

Julian Beck, who starred as Kane in Poltergeist II: The Other Side, died of stomach cancer at age 60. He was diagnosed before he accepted the role, and he passed away in September 1985, months before the film even came out in theaters. In June 1987, Will Sampson, the actor who performed the exorcism, died of malnutrition and postoperative kidney failure at age 53. While their deaths may not seem so unusual, some fans still believe they're connected to the curse.

Poltergeist's Young Star Died at 12

The untimely passing of Poltergeist's iconic young star is perhaps the most convincing case for a curse. Heather O'Rourke (aka Carol Anne, who said the famous line, "They're heeere") was incredibly young when she died of cardiac arrest and septic shock caused by a misdiagnosed intestinal issue. She died in February 1988 at 12, several months before the release of Poltergeist III, the final chapter in the original series.
Source: Getty / MGM

One Cast Member Barely Escaped Death

Richard Lawson was aboard USAir Flight 405 when it crashed into Flushing Bay in March 1992. A total of 27 people (out of the 51 on board) were killed. Lawson survived, but the event is yet another reason people claim the movie is cursed.

In 2009, a Cast Member Was Brutally Murdered

Lou Perryman played the small role of Pugsley in the original film. He was 67 years old when a recently released ex-convict killed him in his own home with an ax.
What do you think — is it a curse, or simply a series of terrible events? If you want more creepy true stories behind movies and TV, check out the following:

‘Poltergeist’ Poster Wants You to Go Into the Light Kennedi Clements is called into the afterlife by malevolent spirits in the latest look at the ‘Poltergeist’ remake.

BYB. Alan Orange | April 27th, 2015 ‘Poltergeist’ Poster Wants You to Go Into the Light

While the Poltergeist remake won't focus on the Freeling family, The Bowens, a new family terrorized by malevolent spirits, will face some of the same horrifying events as seen in the original 1982 classic. One of the most terrifying encounters happens between the young girl of the house and an army of angry ghosts, with Kennedi Clements' Madison Bowen stepping in for Heather O'Rourke's iconic Carol Anne. Like the little girl before her, Madison will be sucked into the afterlife via the television screen. And that moment gets immortalized here in a scary new poster.
Legendary filmmaker Sam Raimi and director Gil Kenan bring a contemporized twist to this classic supernatural tale. Like the original, the Poltergeist remake follows a family whose suburban home is haunted by evil forces. When the terrifying apparitions escalate their attacks and hold the youngest daughter captive, the family must come together to rescue her before she disappears forever.
Written by David Lindsay-Abaire, Poltergeist boasts a cast that includes Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Jared Harris, Saxon Sharbino and Jane Adams. This latest sneak peek hints that quite a few scares from the original will be repurposed for this new thriller. Will they be even scarier the second time around? Or should they have just left the classic to stand on its own? Take a look and judge for yourself:
Poltergeist Poster

Dr. Claire Adams (Jane Adams) explains the differences between relatively-harmless ghosts and malevolent entities known as poltergeists in a new clip from MGM's Poltergeist remake. This scene shows Claire consulting with the Bowen family, Eric (Sam Rockwell), Amy (Rosemarie DeWitt), Kendra (Saxon Sharbino) and Griffin (Kyle Catlett), explaining that ghosts are normally "harmless apparitions" but poltergeists are violent. The end of this clip shows Amy asking if its possible that this poltergeist could have taken their youngest daughter, Madi (Kennedi Clements). The remake was produced by legendary filmmaker Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, The Evil Dead, The Grudge) and directed by Gil Kenan (Monster House). This new version is a contemporary take the classic tale about a family whose suburban home is haunted by evil forces. When the terrifying apparitions escalate their attacks and hold the youngest daughter captive, the family must come together to rescue her before she disappears forever. While we don't see them in this clip, the supporting cast includes Jared Harris, Nicholas Braun, Susan Heyward and Soma Bhatia. In addition to this clip, we also have a handy infographic that offers an in-depth breakdown of the differences between ghosts and poltergeists. Check out the clip and infographic below, before Poltergeist hits theaters on May 22. Read more at: https://tr.im/h1tkm

BYBrian Gallagher | May 6th, 2015 20 Shares ShareTweetShareComments (0)Email ‘Poltergeist’ Clip & Infographic: What Is a Poltergeist? Dr. Claire Adams (Jane Adams) explains the differences between relatively-harmless ghosts and malevolent entities known as poltergeists in a new clip from MGM's Poltergeist remake. This scene shows Claire consulting with the Bowen family, Eric (Sam Rockwell), Amy (Rosemarie DeWitt), Kendra (Saxon Sharbino) and Griffin (Kyle Catlett), explaining that ghosts are normally "harmless apparitions" but poltergeists are violent. The end of this clip shows Amy asking if its possible that this poltergeist could have taken their youngest daughter, Madi (Kennedi Clements). The remake was produced by legendary filmmaker Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, The Evil Dead, The Grudge) and directed by Gil Kenan (Monster House). This new version is a contemporary take the classic tale about a family whose suburban home is haunted by evil forces. When the terrifying apparitions escalate their attacks and hold the youngest daughter captive, the family must come together to rescue her before she disappears forever. While we don't see them in this clip, the supporting cast includes Jared Harris, Nicholas Braun, Susan Heyward and Soma Bhatia. In addition to this clip, we also have a handy infographic that offers an in-depth breakdown of the differences between ghosts and poltergeists. Check out the clip and infographic below, before Poltergeist hits theaters on May 22. Poltergeist Infographic Poltergeist was released May 22nd, 2015. Read more at: https://tr.im/h1tkm