Retrospective Film Review

Poltergeist (1982) • 40 Years Later

A family’s home is haunted by a host of demonic ghosts.

They’re still here! 40 years on, and murmurings continue about remaking the 1980s classic Poltergeist. Even after the lukewarm reception the 2015 Sam Raimi-produced rehash received, the Russo brothers (Avengers: Endgame) have been talking about their love for the movie and teasing a possible reboot. Poltergeist is one of those films that, if seen at the right age, embeds itself into the psyche and gets mixed up with one’s own half-remembered childhood dreams and nightmares. It’s like a revenant that won’t stay buried.

Poltergeist managed to see off stiff competition to become the most successful horror movie of 1982, and one of three genre films to make the box office top 10 that year — the others being Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and E.T. the Extra-terrestrial, which outperformed everything else to take well-over twice as much as its closest rival, Tootsie. Poltergeist is very much a product of the ’80s, often recalled with so much associated nostalgia it’s difficult to understand how refreshing it was at the time. After a…