A Door in the Wall

Poltergeist (1982)
directed by let's call it a tie
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

Of the many apologies I've made to movies - the misunderstandings and thoughtless dismissals - I'm happy to return to the fold of the funhouse genre, aka the soundstage slap in the face of the fresh-aired neo-realists. Temple of Doom, The Mask of Fu Manchu, Big Trouble in Little China: once the artifice is a term of the story, and the director tips his hand, watching is as much an appreciation and awareness of craft as trying the brakes on a new bicycle. The premise of Poltergeist is rock solid: a new subdivision is built on top of a frontier graveyard! The small nightmares kids fear - drains, closets, swimming pools, trees - begin to come true, but it's the moment when adults regress into their childhood memories that makes those nightmares scary. Compounding the fear instinct, Craig T. Nelson and his lovely wife Diane have children to look out for; even if we don't, we worry for the beautifully executed (those eighties effects age so well) unknowns at the door.