Steven Spielberg co-produced and co-wrote Poltergeist, the 1982 horror classic directed by Tobe Hooper. Hooper (who directed The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Salem’s Lot) and Spielberg had an interesting creative relationship during the making of Poltergeist. A clause in Spielberg’s contract with Universal Studios prevented Spielberg from directing any other film during the preparation for E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.
The summer of 1982 was dubbed “The Summer of Spielberg” and many people in media outlets began to question Spielberg’s actual role on Poltergeist, as some comments surfaced by the writer-producer that seemed to denote his involvement was significantly more hands-on than expected. As recently as 2007 during an interview with Ain’t It Cool News, Zelda Rubinstein explained that Hooper “wasn’t all there” during shooting and that Spielberg shot most of the film.
Regardless of this, it is Tobe Hooper who received the acknowledgments and the credit as director of Poltergeist, even after a Director’s Guild investigation into the process. According to Douglas Brode's book The Films of Steven Spielberg, Spielberg was the “creative force” of the film and designed every storyboard. Hooper was the director, according to co-producer Frank Marshall, and was on set each day of filming. Hooper himself, according to Douglas’s book, claimed that he did half of the storyboards.
Whatever the truth might have been, it’s safe to say that the energies swirling around behind-the-scenes during the filming of Poltergeist and the subsequent “Poltergeist Curse” were certainly contributory to the film’s ominous ambience.
To add to the fun atmosphere, Poltergeist is often referred to as “cursed” because of the subsequent and premature deaths of Dominique Dunne and Heather O’Rourke. Dunne played the oldest sibling Dana in the film. She died in 1982 after being choked by a covetous boyfriend. O’Rourke, who was just 12 years old, played Carol Anne in all three films in the Poltergeist series. She died in 1988 after suffering septic shock.
Two other actors from other films in the series also died in the late 1980s, making the aura surrounding the films somewhat disconcerting. There were other occurrences related to the supposed “Poltergeist curse” as well, including incidents in which actress JoBeth Williams, who played the mother Diane Freeling, would return home from the set each day to find pictures on her walls awry. She adjusted the pictures, only to have them awry the subsequent day after returning home again. Williams also pointed out in interviews that the skeletons used in Poltergeist in the swimming pool scene were authentic.
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