Consider rethinking the “conventional wisdom” you’ve assumed about “Poltergeist,” that wisdom has proven to be largely manipulated and hyperbolized by a superficial and sycophantic, insular Hollywood rumor grist mill.
Eh, I’m not sure how much that “secret” is even kept anymore. We since had multiple folks who were in the crew and cast confirm that it was Spielberg setting up shots and correcting Hooper’s shots for Poltergeist. And we’ve also found out why, too: potential director’s guild strike in the offing. Spielberg wanted to make the film on a tight schedule and was worried about the director’s guild strike, so he hired a non-guild horror director (Hooper) to beard him, and then Spielberg took a producer’s credit so he could do what he liked.
When Kirk notices the cars, he calls Pam over and asks her to take a look. We are meant to understand they are somehow significant. And they aren’t just lying around, they are hidden under a cammo net, like you would cover evidence.
The thing is, if they’re sadistic, regard killing humans no different than slaughtering cattle (in which they also take a perverse joy), and fall so naturally into murder, what would have stopped them from doing this before? And it isn’t just the hitchhiker thats wierd a bout bodies, the whole house is decorated with human remains.
When the van first gets to the gas station the man there tries to dissuade them from going to the house, because he knows what happens when strangers come wandering about. It happened before, and he’s ambivalent about it happening again.
Sure, a Vietnam allegory, why not. But we are still left with people as meat, and what do you do with meat? The movie isn’t telling us they are cannibals, but it’s making us ask if they’re cannibals.
From the authorial intent perspective (which doesn’t matter), Hooper was supposedly and incredibly aiming for a PG rating, so maybe he thought eating people was a step too far.
@tomchick so happy that you finally came to you senses. This has always been one of my top horror movies of all times, and I was always puzzles by you complete dismissal of it. Keep up the good work!
Love this essay. The remark upon the compounding of “chain saw” in particular. Thanks, Tom!
Jim Siedow’s character is never referred to as their father. In fact, he also refers to John Dugan’s character as “grandpa”. The Hitchhiker certainly never refers to him or acts as if he is their father; he only calls him “the cook”. He is credited solely as “Old Man”.
So they’ve murdered five other carloads of people, and kept the cars lying around in the yard where any passing teenager can see them? Since Texas Chain Saw Massacre, we’ve seen plenty of “gasp, they’ve already killed lots of others!” scenes. Usually with a bunch of cell phones or driver licenses or clothes or something, hidden in a box in a back room. Cars just sitting in the yard, predating these kinds of scenes, aren’t convincing evidence to me.
And Kirk saying, “Hey, Pam, come take a look at this” is hardly evidence of something sinister. He wants her to come look at the skulls on the red wall inside the house. Kirk strikes me as someone easily impressed. :)
Laws. People looking for their missing families. Witnesses.
Texas Chain Saw Massacre has every opportunity to let us know if it’s happened before, and it doesn’t. These four people don’t seem very bright and they pretty easily botch this massacre by following Sally out onto the road in broad daylight, where one of them is killed, one is maimed, and they’re all but swarmed by passers-by. These are the people who’ve murdered five carloards of people and successfully covered it up, despite the fact that the murdered people’s cars are sitting in their front yard?
I realize that later movies, and the genre in general, will retcon this as a group of cunning murderers who know what they’re doing, and they either successfully hide their nefarious activities from the rest of the world, or they’re in cahoots with the local authorities. But I maintain that’s not present here, in this movie, in 1973. That’s simply an unfounded takeaway that supposedly makes it all the more sinister and scary, and trying to apply it to this movie is mostly the fallout of years of crappy rip-offs.
You’re making that assumption based on your prior assumption that they’ve murdered people before. Which isn’t necessary to explain his reaction.
Seems to me he dissuades them from going to the “Franklin” house because he knows it’s right next door to where he lives and he knows how weird his sons are. He probably knows his son has decorated the Franklin house with weird bone totems. He’s presumably worried about his son getting caught for grave robbing, which he claims he’s warned him about repeatedly.
(BTW, it always seemed weird to me that Franklin calls it the “Franklin” house. They’re family name is Franklin? So they’re Sally Franklin and Franklin Franklin?)
How is it making you ask any more so than any other movie about murderers? If there’s no evidence or even suggestion that they’re cannibals, why would you think the movie is asking you the question? And the metaphor of war as a “meat grinder” is about slaughter, not consumption.
I wondered about this, and it’s possible he’s one of three brothers. But when talking to the hitchhiker, he does refer to Leatherface as “your brother”. The implication is that Leatherface is not his own brother. And calling the cadaverous old man “grandpa” doesn’t necessarily mean the old man isn’t his own father. Grandparents can be given “titles” in the family, and “grandpa” isn’t an unusual one. But you’re right that there’s no explicit father/son language. I’m just making assumptions based on the age range between the “cook” and the hitchhiker.
-Tom
Ooh, someone’s angry at the Hollywood rumor grist mill! :)
Besides what @triggercut pointed out, all you need to do is watch Tobe Hooper’s movies and then watch Steven Spielberg’s movies. Now watch Poltergeist. Did you notice that it conspicuously resembles one director’s body of work?
-Tom
Like other assumptions you can make about the film, I think the specific avoidance of clarifying the family dynamic makes it interesting. Far from assuming he’s an older brother, you could also assume cousin, uncle, father - anything really. Grandpa may also be further removed - a great grandfather to the brothers in the film, which doesn’t disallow for any of the rest.
The Hitchhiker’s behavior reflects simultaneous disdain and deference, depending on the scene. But they all show reverence for grandpa.
I like the ambiguity.
It’s similar to the “have they or haven’t they” about killing and cannibalism. There’s support there if you want it, but it’s not necessarily explicit in the film.
To do another post right in a row (bad form, I know), one other signpost in the film that doesn’t really further the argument for “have they or haven’t they” is the torn tent and nailed watch that they pass by when walking to the house. The watch and nail seem like further Hitchhiker art. So is this evidence of a prior group of unfortunates that got too close? Or just an abandoned campsite and garbage (and maybe a lost watch) and the Hitchhiker nailed up the watch because he’s weird?
They don’t linger on it in the film. It just adds to the sense of dread and is another omen. Or it’s nothing.
It’s less that Kirk thinks the cars are important, and more that the movie calls our attention to them. At that point in the movie, we can’t be shown clear evidence of previous murders because the characters don’t know what they are dealing with yet. But I can’t think of another reason to show them like that. It may be subtle, but it stands out to me as much as the “One of the most bizzare” in the opening narration stands out to you.
By the way, Why did the Hitchhiker ask them to drop him off at his house, maybe stay for dinner?
Most movies about murderers don’t constantly compare humans to cattle being slaughtered for food. As to your last sentence here, Funkadelic released America Eats Its Young in 1972.
Ultimately I think I agree with @nijimeijer that the evidence is there, but not definitive.
On a completely different subject, in the podcast about In The Earth you talked about Zach missing Martin’s foot when he is trying to amputate his toes, and watching the TCSM scene with Grandpa and the hammer reminded me of that. There’s something about sadistic but inept villains that I like a lot more than hyper competent Hannibal Lecter types.
He seems like he wants to connect, and is angry when he is rejected. There’s no reason to take his invitation at anything other than face value (despite the obvious horror they would’ve felt had they shown up at a house with bone furniture). It’s not until they kick him out that he paints the symbol on the van.
And the symbol itself carries no meaning in the context of the film. Again, attention is called to it, but interpretation as to whether there’s actually a there there is left up to the viewer.
Sure, but you’re having to divorce it from the context of other things we’ve talked about in order to interpret it as a sign of prior victims. Does the possibility that they’ve killed people and kept their cars in the front yard outweigh evidence to the contrary? I don’t think so.
Whereas the crawl’s claim that what we’re about to see is singular is wholly consistent with the rest of the movie: how the antagonists behave, how the murders unfold, what the movie reveals, how the movie ends, and the historical context of horror movies in 1974.
Yes, yes, bravo, @ArtVandelay! I’m so glad you mentioned that, because it’s exactly what occurred to me when I watched Texas Chain Saw Massacre! It almost feels like Wheatley is throwing a little homage in there, doesn’t it?
And your comment about sadistic but inept villains over hyper-competent Hannibal Lecters is exactly why I’m fascinated with the idea that they aren’t even serial killers. That concept – practiced cannibalistic serial killers – has been so deeply ingrained in me by later filmmaking that I was astonished to discover it’s not supported in the movie. Or, even if you feel it is supported, it’s not explicit.
I find the “comedy of horrors” all the more tragic than yet another story about serial killers preying on yet another group of victims.
Which is why I really like that actor’s performance. There’s a child-like quality to it, a kind of weird innocence. He has no concept that he’s being inappropriate. He seems to think he’s found a van full of friends, and he craves their approval. You can see it on his face:
One of the reasons I really hate the 1986 sequel is that Bill Moseley turns the character into a shrieking, whooping antecedent to the characters he’ll play in Rob Zombie’s movies. All sadism, with nothing the least bit child-like about it.
One thing I’ve taken away from my discovery of Texas Chain Saw Massacre: I’m even more disgusted with so many of the movies that were supposedly inspired by it.
-Tom
And who exactly are these cast and crew? Vague allusions are always made to “cast and crew,” but the most repeated supposed evidence for Spielberg comes from 1982 from largely anonymous sources. In fact, there are quantitatively more cast and crew who were on the set, on the record, who assert that Hooper was the director. As for the director’s guild speculation, this comes from the AC John Leonetti’s account, the only recent and named account for Spielberg, and it is perhaps the most vague and wishy-washy one you can find. That’s not to mention how quickly he dismisses Hooper’s continuous presence on the set (more continuous than Spielberg, by his assertion) for reasons of “the film was heavily storyboarded” (how often it diverted from those storyboards is largely ignored, and they were often completely disregarded in the shooting of a scene) and “It was Spielberg’s to make” (it wasn’t, the idea behind the film was pitched by Hooper to Spielberg, with the agreement Hooper would direct, so it was never Spielberg’s to make). How he knows about any backroom dealings about a covert way to “beard” for Spielberg is beyond me, and then there’s the fact the director’s strike never happened.
[quote=“tomchick, post:49, topic:152585, full:true”] Ooh, someone’s angry at the Hollywood rumor grist mill! :)
Besides what @triggercut pointed out, all you need to do is watch Tobe Hooper’s movies and then watch Steven Spielberg’s movies. Now watch Poltergeist. Did you notice that it conspicuously resembles one director’s body of work?
-Tom
[/quote]
@tomchick Well, IMO, and I’m not alone, it conspicuously resembles Hooper’s work. This is hardly evidence of anything. And it barely resembles Spielberg’s work beyond his contributions as scenario writer and in the same way his giving Joe Dante and Richard Donner a script and a budget results in Spielbergian works. Spielberg has never shown this much attention to atmosphere and architecture, and it certainly lacks a certain vigor and kinetics that Spielberg no doubt would’ve given the film. In any case, not evidence, whatever I or you say. What is evidence is three actors point blank saying Hooper was their one and only director.
Which movies does it resemble and how? I’d be curious to hear your opinion on the parallels with Poltergeist and Tobe Hooper’s movies. Especially if they’re conspicuous, as you say.
As for comparisons to Spielberg’s work, I would point out Poltergeist’s sense of glee and adventure over malice and despair, the bright and colorful cinematography, the family chaos that Spielberg does so well in Jaws and Close Encounters, and especially the overall takeaway that human bonding and compassion prevail above all else. I would also point out the lack of crass sexuality, which is a trademark of Hooper’s movies after Texas Chain Saw: the prostitutes and attempted rape in Eaten Alive, the sexually frustrated mutant in Funhouse, and the blatantly nekkid lady alien throughout Lifeforce. Hooper’s direction in everything I’ve seen after Texas Chain Saw is sleezy and lurid. Yet there’s none of that in Poltergeist, where the most sexually explicit thing is Jo Beth Williams legs when she’s wearing a T-shirt to bed.
But mostly, I would point out the extreme competence on display in Poltergeist. That all feels very Spielberg and it’s in marked contrast to Hooper’s other movies.
-Tom
Are you Tobe Hooper’s child?
When the skeletons come popping out of their coffins to essentially “attack” Dominique Dunne’s character, that’s Spielberg saying “Hey, it was fun doing this to Karen Allen in the Well of Souls in Raiders last year.” Heck, it’s like a direct shot lift.
I don’t think he’d mind me pointing out that he runs a Twitter account with the express purpose of defending Poltergeist as Hooper’s creation. Which is why I’m curious to hear him talk about Poltergeist’s similarities to Tobe Hooper’s movies. I’ve never seen the similarities, but I’m certainly open to the possibility that I’ve missed them.
-Tom
That is one weird thing to focus on as an online presence.
And as mentioned, this is all your opinion and conclusively points to nothing. One can just as well point to Spielberg’s intense identification with his male leads, his interest in constant animation and swooping cameras (much more reserved use of this here in Poltergeist), and the often unfailing storytelling logic in his films and point out how these things are not present in this film, a thoroughly anti-logical film with a certain sense of restraint in how it shoots a house from very precise angles. Spielberg wrote the film, and that explains half the attributes you point out above. And hey, I know many people who would call Poltergeist pretty incompetent, at least on a narrative level. And I’d point out the people - certainly not I, but the legions of fans they do have - who say Texas Chain Saw and Salem’s Lot are enough examples that he can tell a story very competently with the right material.
No affiliation with the Hooper estate. But I think this topic is well worth talking about when you realize Hooper was crapped on for a job he did do, according to multiple people on the set, just because a journalist went on the set and said, “Wow, both these guys look like they’re in charge!” - and don’t you want to know more about this production, one which very few have actually gave proper investigation (for instance, three scenes were completely rewritten, from Spielberg’s self-professed self-penned script, in the midst of production, including the ending)? I assure you that above paraphrasing was the extent of the rumors at the very beginning, and with that in mind, doesn’t it all seem unfair?
I won’t try to argue with you, because, as said, subjective, but Hooper was there in London at the same time Spielberg was at Elstree Studios shooting Raiders, as they were actively hashing out Poltergeist’s treatment as he was shooting. The pool scene was concocted in that same period. The skeletons popping out at Karen Allen isn’t in the script of Raiders… But you know, that proves nothing. I’m sure Spielberg and Hooper by that point had talked about Texas Chain Saw Massacre multiple times as they were well into their friendship, too, and Texas Chain Saw is full of scenes of people turning around and suddenly seeing skeletons. Real ones were used on the Texas Chain Saw set, similar to their use in Poltergeist. Bob Burns, Hooper’s art designer on Chain Saw, worked on three of the bodies you see in Poltergeist, getting them locally in Austin, applying the latex enhancements, then shipping them off to Los Angeles. But yeah, again, we’re not getting anywhere. As for the script of Poltergeist, it really does feel like the Raiders scene. The script specifies coffins shooting out at JoBeth Williams, showering her with dust, bones covering her clothes. Interesting that doesn’t happen. She also isn’t supposed to, in the Spielberg-written script, slide down into the pool multiple times, tonally much like the character in Chain Saw jumping out a window twice.
I’ve a subaccount that might illuminate some things, if you’re open to it: http://www.twitter.com/poltrgthts_imag